Graduating students have rated the University of Worcester very highly in the latest National Student Survey (NSS), placing it in the top 10 of English universities.
A remarkable 88.2% of Worcester final year students say they are satisfied overall.
Worcester is ranked 8th out of all English non-specialist universities and is 16th out of all 152 university institutions in the UK for overall satisfaction. The University is comfortably above the national average satisfaction rating of 83.49%.
This latest success follows hard on the heels of Worcester being ranked number one in the UK and 26th worldwide for Quality Education in the Times Higher Education’s inaugural University Impact Rankings, released earlier this year.
Nine courses at Worcester received 100% satisfaction in the NSS. Courses in Science; the Arts, Business and Computing all received this remarkable accolade from graduating students. The nine courses were: Primary Initial Teacher Education: Early Years, Primary and Outdoor Education, Biochemistry, Creative Digital Media, Game Art, Graphic Design & Multimedia, Marketing, Advertising & Public Relations, Computing HND, and Early Years FDA.
Worcester’s Law degree, which launched in 2016, received a 96% satisfaction rating from its very first cohort of graduating students, putting it as one of the top ranked universities nationally for Law.
More than 330,000 students across the UK responded to the independent, official survey, which has run every year since 2005, and which asks them to rate a number of aspects of their course.
The University of Worcester scored well above the national average in most areas of the survey, which looks at satisfaction with teaching, learning opportunities, academic support, assessment and feedback, learning resources, student voice. More than 93% of final year students said staff are good at explaining things, and over 90% said the library resources had supported their learning well.
Worcester is one of the highest scoring of all Midlands universities, scoring better than the University of Birmingham, which scored 85.4%, the University of Warwick at 86.7%, Coventry at 83.8%, Staffordshire at 84.2% and Wolverhampton at 83.4%.
This was a particularly positive result as it was based on a higher proportion of final-year undergraduate Worcester students (78%) responding to the survey than responded nationally (72%).
Professor David Green CBE, the University's Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive, said: “We are delighted that our students have rated the University so highly in the National Student Survey. We are particularly pleased that our imaginative investment in learning resources is being appreciated by our students. The Hive, the University of Worcester Arena, our clinical simulation facilities, and much more, help make studying at the University a positive pleasure. Our inclusive, high quality facilities and overall approach also provide students with very many earn as you learn and volunteering opportunities.
“Everything we do at the University is enriched by our widely praised system of student representation and engagement. This combination of student involvement, imagination and sheer hard work is a winning combination.
“This success in student satisfaction runs alongside our consistent success in terms of graduate employment where we consistently out-perform the great majority of universities as our graduates are snapped up by employers, despite the highly competitive labour market.”
Worcester Students’ Union also scored above the national average with 61.4% of Worcester students agreeing that the Students' Union was effective in academic representation compared to 55.7% nationally.
President Harry Lonsdale said: “We’re really pleased that students feel they are well represented at Worcester. As a Union we are committed to listening to our students and providing a first class service which helps them to make the most of their time at university. Seeing a 2.8% increase on last year’s score shows a continuous development of what we offer to students at Worcester.”
The University of Worcester has places available for well-qualified applicants looking to begin their studies in September this year.
The Clearing hotline - 01905 855111 - is now open for those collecting BTEC results and Access qualifications and will remain open as A-level results are released on Thursday, August 15th.