Tompkins Table

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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. It was created in 1981 by Peter Tompkins, then a third-year undergraduate mathematics student at Trinity College, who compiles it every year exclusively for the newspaper The Independent,[1] and is not an official University of Cambridge table. Assuming it is based on published Class Lists, it will not take account of 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.[1]

Rankings

Current rankings

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 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. 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. In the last five years Trinity College lays claim to consistently having the best results: Trinity topped the table in 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2009, as well as being second in 2010. 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 more 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 these colleges.

Most of the colleges fall within a 10% range of one another therefore the table should be taken lightly with regards to determining the academic standing of the colleges.

Below is the table for 2015:[2]

Position College Firsts (%)
1 Trinity College 41.0
2 Magdalene College 33.1
3 Churchill College 31.7
4 Emmanuel College 30.3
5 Pembroke College 31.6
6 Peterhouse 30.3
7 Queens' College 28.8
8 Trinity Hall 28.8
9 Downing College 27.5
10 St. John's College 28.1
11 Jesus College 27.4
12 Selwyn College 25.5
13 St Catharine's College 25.1
14 Christ's College 23.8
15 Clare College 26.0
16 Robinson College 24.8
17 Sidney Sussex College 21.6
18 King’s College 26.3
19 Gonville and Caius College 22.8
20 Fitzwilliam College 22.8
21 Newnham College 19.3
22 Corpus Christi College 21.1
23 Murray Edwards College 16.6
24 Girton College 16.6
25 Hughes Hall 15.9
26 Wolfson College 18.1
27 Homerton College 13.0
28 St Edmund's College 18.5
29 Lucy Cavendish College 9.1

Past rankings

College 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Mean
Christ's College 3 2 1 1 1 4 2 2 4 6 2 8 13 12 6 9 8 9 14 5.6
Churchill College 15 13 20 15 9 10 9 19 18 13 15 6 7 3 10 5 5 6 3 10.6
Clare College 11 6 15 9 6 3 6 4 9 12 17 13 18 8 4 11 11 8 15 9.8
Corpus Christi College 23 18 8 10 20 18 7 10 16 8 8 9 10 13 12 3 16 18 22 13.1
Downing College 12 11 16 8 10 8 12 17 15 11 3 12 15 15 17 20 12 11 9 12.3
Emmanuel College 7 5 5 3 2 2 1 1 5 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 4 5 4 2.9
Fitzwilliam College 13 12 19 21 13 20 20 15 13 19 14 21 21 22 21 19 20 19 20 18.0
Girton College 22 21 21 18 17 16 17 25 24 22 21 22 20 21 23 22 21 23 24 21.1
Gonville & Caius College 8 4 6 12 8 7 4 5 2 2 10 4 4 11 13 16 17 15 19 8.8
Homerton College 25 24 26 25 26 25 25 26 26 27 26 24 27 25.5
Hughes Hall 27 27 29 29 29 26 26 27 27 26 27 27 25 27.1
Jesus College 20 16 11 13 11 9 10 9 7 10 9 7 11 16 8 7 6 4 11 10.3
King's College 14 10 13 20 21 14 16 20 10 17 18 19 17 14 20 13 14 14 18 15.9
Lucy Cavendish College 26 26 27 26 24 28 29 29 29 29 28 29 29 27.6
Magdalene College 17 22 23 22 22 15 18 22 20 20 13 5 8 5 9 15 15 10 2 14.9
Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall) 24 24 22 16 23 24 24 23 25 24 23 23 23 23 22 24 24 26 23 23.2
Newnham College 18 20 24 24 24 22 21 13 21 23 22 24 24 25 24 23 23 22 21 22.0
Pembroke College 5 9 14 6 7 1 3 6 6 4 7 10 6 10 5 4 2 2 5 5.9
Peterhouse 19 23 17 14 19 23 22 21 22 21 25 18 16 7 18 18 10 12 6 17.4
Queens' College 3 2 3 5 5 5 5 8 8 14 11 16 12 17 14 12 7 7 7 8.5
Robinson College 21 19 9 19 14 21 23 16 11 18 20 17 19 19 19 21 22 20 16 18.1
Selwyn College 16 15 7 7 12 13 14 11 19 7 4 1 3 6 7 6 18 13 12 10.1
Sidney Sussex College 4 17 4 23 16 19 15 18 14 9 12 14 22 18 16 17 19 17 17 15.3
St. Catharine's College 9 14 10 11 18 12 11 7 1 3 5 11 5 9 11 10 9 21 13 10.0
St. Edmund's College 29 29 28 28 28 29 28 28 28 28 29 28 28 28.3
St. John's College 10 8 12 4 4 11 13 14 12 15 19 20 14 20 15 14 13 16 10 12.8
Trinity College 1 1 2 2 3 1 2 3 3 5 6 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.7
Trinity Hall 6 7 18 17 15 17 19 12 17 16 16 15 9 4 3 8 3 3 8 11.2
Wolfson College 28 28 23 27 27 27 27 24 25 25 25 25 26 25.9

Consecutive yearly rankings 1997-2015:

File:Tompkins Table 1997 - 2015.jpg
Chart of Tompkins rankings for the years 1997 to 2015

Similar league tables

Baxter Tables

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 web site. Baxter tables rank colleges' undergraduate students by their year and subject separately and are delivered in July or August.[2] 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.[3] They are meant for internal use of Colleges but not the University, being distributed to the Senior Tutors of the Colleges [4], 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,[5] [6] 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.[7] However, with such small sample sizes, the amount of meaningful information which can be extracted from these tables is questionable.[8]

Norrington Table

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

References

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External links

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