Double first for Emmanuel in Cambridge league table
Monday, 16 July 2007
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Emmanuel College, alma mater of the new James Bond writer Sebastian Faulks,has been ranked as best college at Cambridge for second successive year in the Tompkins Table, which ranks the university's 29 colleges on academic performance .
Richard Barnes, senior tutor, praised this year's graduates. "In their first year, they topped the mumps league table for the university and did really badly," he said."They seem to have fought back amazingly. In addition, for a college which was once men only, it now recruits more women than men. Our women do slightly better than the men."
The college's strengths have been in engineering, English, medicine and philosophy. This year, of its eight history graduates, six obtained a first.
Dr Barnes said the college, which recruits about 60 per cent of its students from the state sector, had also been successful in attracting women graduates into engineering - traditionally a male bastion. One of its female graduates won the Sword of Honour at Sandhurst (beating Prince Harry); another is working for the McLaren Formula One team.
Founded in 1584, Emmanuel has been top of the table four times in the past five years (slipping to fifth in 2005).
Two colleges that have improved their performance significantly this year are Christ's, from sixth to second, and Downing, eleventh to third.
Christ's was ranked top for its performance over the first 20 years that the table has been produced. Founded in 1437, it also boasts of success on the football and rugby fields. Its famous pupils include the Inspector Morse creator, Colin Dexter, and John Healey, the Government's Floods minister. Downing, which was founded in 1800, is renowned for its strong legal and medical tradition.
The college that suffered the biggest fall in this year's table is Gonville and Caius which slipped from second place last year to tenth.0th.
The table is compiled exclusively for The Independent by Peter Tompkins, a consulting actuary and former student of Trinity College. It was first compiled in 1981 and exerts significant influence on student applications. Mr Tompkins said: "It is of note that the same bunch of colleges cluster at the top and the same other bunch cluster at the bottom."
College, %ranking, %first
1.(1)* Emmanuel, 66.62, 29.5
2.(6) Christ’s, 66.33, 28.7
3.(11) Downing, 66.18, 25.1
4.(7) Selwyn, 66.12, 23.1
5.(3) St Catherine’s, 66.10, 25.1
6.(5) Trinity, 65.87, 27.6
7.(4) Pembroke, 65.60, 26.6
8.(8) Corpus Christi, 65.57, 25.9
9.(10) Jesus, 65.47, 24.9
10.(2) Gonville and Caius65.03, 24.5
11.(14) Queens’, 64.25, 24.4
12.(9), Sidney Sussex, 64.11, 21.8
13.(20) Magdalene, 63.98, 20.1
14.(19) Fitzwilliam, 63.96, 23.6
15.(13) Churchill, 63.76, 24.9
16.(16) Trinity Hall, 63.36, 20.4
17.(12) Clare, 62.63, 19.4
18.(17) King’s, 62.37, 20.9
19.(15) St John’s, 61.82, 18.3
20.(18) Robinson, 61.25, 18.5
21.(22) Girton, 61.06, 15.9
22.(23) Newnham, 59.99, 14.7
23.(24) New Hall, 59.37, 14.4
24.(26) Lucy Cavendish, 58.92, 14.8
25.(21) Peterhouse, 58.85, 12.7
26.(25) Homerton, 58.33, 10.5
27.(27) Wolfson, 55.92, 11.1
28.(28) St Edmund’s, 51.57, 7.4
29.(29) Hughes Hall, 49.38, 8.
The percentage ranking is arrived at by awarding 100 per cent for a first, 60 per cent for a 2:1, 40 per cent for a 2:2 and 20 per cent for a third. They are then shown as a percentage of the maximum that would have been achieved if every student had got a first. Figures in brackets = 2006 ranking.
