Tompkins Table

Summary

The Tompkins Table is an annual ranking that lists the Colleges of the University of Cambridge in order of their undergraduate students' performances in that year's examinations. Two colleges—Darwin and Clare Hall—do not have undergraduate students and do not feature in the list. It was created in 1981 by Peter Tompkins, then a third-year undergraduate mathematics student at Trinity College, who compiled it for many years.[1] It was formerly published by The Independent. Since 2016, it has been published by Varsity, a student newspaper of the University of Cambridge.[2] It is not an official University of Cambridge table. It does not take account of students who are not candidates for Honours degrees, or those who have failed to gain a degree. It was not published in 2020 or 2021 as a result of the restrictions to the examination process brought about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A chart of the Tompkins Table from 1997 to 2019

Rankings edit

Current rankings edit

Initially, it only included final year exams but since 1997 has covered all exams for which grades are allocated. The table allocates 5 points for a First Class degree, 3 points for an Upper Second (known also as a 2.i), 2.5 points for a Second Undivided (A second class degree that isn't divided into Upper or Lower), 2 points for a Lower Second (a 2.ii), 1 point for a Third and no points for someone only granted an allowance towards an Ordinary Degree.[3] The scores in each subject are then weighted to a common average, to avoid the bias towards colleges with higher proportions of students entered for subjects which receive higher average grades. The result is expressed as a percentage of the total number of points available. The differences between the highest places on the table are usually very slight. Christ's College was the top college in 2019, after coming top in 2018 following seven years in which Trinity College came top. The rankings are not officially endorsed by the University. Since Darwin College and Clare Hall admit only graduate students, they do not feature in this undergraduate ranking. Some of the mature colleges, including St. Edmund's College, Hughes Hall, Lucy Cavendish College, and Wolfson College, tend to perform relatively poorly in the Tompkins Table, but have significantly more graduate students than undergraduate students, so the results here are not representative of the majority of the student population of each of these colleges.

Below is the table for 2022:[4]

Position College Score Firsts (%) Change in Rank
1 Christ's 76.4 46.1 0
2 Trinity 72.3 38.5 0
3 St Catharine's 72.3 38.9 6
4 Jesus 71.2 36.4 10
5 Pembroke 71.0 36.0 -2
6 St John's 70.7 35.4 9
7 Gonville and Caius 70.4 32.5 9
8 Churchill 70.1 33.2 -3
9 Corpus Christi 69.6 33.21 2
10 Queens' 69.4 31.5 -4
11 Emmanuel 69.3 32.8 -4
12 Clare 68.7 29.6 12
13 Downing 68.3 28.9 10
14 Selwyn 68.3 28.2 -6
15 Peterhouse 67.8 30.8 -11
16 Sidney Sussex 67.7 27.6 -3
17 Robinson 67.7 28.0 4
18 Magdalene 67.5 28.5 0
19 Trinity Hall 67.0 26.9 -9
20 Fitzwilliam 66.5 26.1 -3
21 Wolfson 66.4 27.6 6
22 King's 65.8 25.4 -10
23 Hughes Hall 65.7 23.7 2
24 Newnham 65.6 25.8 -2
25 Girton 64.3 22.2 -5
26 Homerton 63.9 21.9 0
27 Murray Edwards 63.9 20.8 -8
28 St Edmund's 62.8 22.1 0
29 Lucy Cavendish 61.4 16.9 0

Past rankings edit

College 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Mean
Christ's College 9 14 3 2 1 1 4.79
Churchill College 6 3 11 5 7 5 9.88
Clare College 8 15 18 13 16 24 11.21
Corpus Christi College 18 22 10 12 15 11 12.75
Downing College 11 9 12 20 20 23 13.42
Emmanuel College 5 4 4 6 9 7 3.38
Fitzwilliam College 19 20 23 21 19 17 18.42
Girton College 23 24 27 24 23 20 21.63
Gonville & Caius College 15 19 19 11 14 16 9.75
Homerton College 24 27 24 28 27 26 25.72
Hughes Hall 27 25 29 26 25 25 26.67
Jesus College 4 11 7 14 6 14 10.00
King's College 14 18 14 8 5 12 15.13
Lucy Cavendish College 29 29 26 18 28 29 27.17
Magdalene College 10 2 9 16 18 18 15.08
Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall) 26 23 25 29 26 19 23.58
Newnham College 22 21 21 23 22 22 22.08
Pembroke College 2 5 2 4 2 3 5.33
Peterhouse 12 6 8 10 4 4 7.33
Queens' College 7 7 6 7 13 6 8.46
Robinson College 20 16 22 25 24 21 18.88
Selwyn College 13 12 15 9 11 8 10.33
Sidney Sussex College 17 17 16 17 17 13 15.42
St. Catharine's College 21 13 17 19 10 9 10.33
St. Edmund's College 28 28 28 22 21 28 27.50
St. John's College 16 10 5 3 8 15 11.71
Trinity College 1 1 1 1 3 2 2.50
Trinity Hall 3 8 13 15 12 10 11.75
Wolfson College 25 26 20 27 29 27 25.61

Similar league tables edit

Baxter tables edit

Certain Colleges of the University of Cambridge commission similar tables called Baxter Tables from Martin Baxter who is a financial analyst specialising in mathematical modelling and who developed the Electoral Calculus website. Baxter tables rank colleges' undergraduate students by their year and subject separately and are delivered in July or August.[1] They are compiled using published Class Lists, which do not include students who are not candidates for Honours degrees, or those who have failed to gain a degree, or those whose names the Council have determined should be withheld from public display.[2] They are meant for internal use of Colleges but not the University, being distributed to the Senior Tutors of the Colleges [3], with the full tables not being published publicly or outside of the Colleges, and some students being unaware of their existence. However, the rankings of Colleges in the Baxter Tables are sometimes referred to by Colleges in publicly available literature,[4] [5] and the methodology used to compile the Baxter Tables is also available. There is also a 'value-added' table, which shows how students' results improve over the course of their years at Cambridge, and is intended to give a measure or indication of the quality of teaching at the different Colleges.[6] However, with such small sample sizes, the amount of meaningful information which can be extracted from these tables is questionable.[7]

Norrington table edit

The corresponding ranking for Oxford colleges is the Norrington Table. Since 1986, when the University of Oxford adopted split second-class degrees, the Norrington Table has adopted the same method of scoring as the Tompkins Table, but without the weighting attached to individual subject scores.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Garner, Richard (18 July 2011). "First-class arts and humanities students help Trinity to top place in Cambridge league table". The Independent. Retrieved 19 July 2011.
  2. ^ "The Tompkins Table 2016: Christ's has risen". Retrieved 24 July 2016.
  3. ^ "Good University Guide 2023, The Times". The Times. 18 September 2022.
  4. ^ "Exclusive: Tompkins Table 2022: the resurrection of Christ's". Varsity Online. Retrieved 30 September 2022.

External links edit

  • Tompkins Table 2015
  • Tompkins Table 2014
  • Tompkins Table 2013
  • Tompkins Tables 2000–2007
  • Tompkins Table 1999
  • Tompkins Tables 1997, 1998