Talk:University of Warwick

Trivia

The 'trivia' section needs some proper, third-party sources (i.e. not just student publications recycling urban myths). The myth about the student residences being modelled on Scandinavian prisons, and the myth about student radio signals triggering a military alert are just that: myths. They are common to most British universities and it's only gullible undergraduates who believe them and perpetuate them as 'true'. Has anyone actually seen how far Warwick is from the sea and wondered how the radio station's 1 Watt transmitter can be heard by a submarine anywhere? I'd propose deletion of this section. 87.86.239.10 15:30, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd oppose the deletion of this section. Sure, it would benefit from the addition of sources, but it is nontheless interesting. The fact that the radio uses a 1 watt transmitter has no relevnce at all. 1 watt is more than enough to reach the north sea. Rob cowie 20:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the point that these are myths and legends circulated about campus. Noone is claiming that these things are facts. I think that these myths are interesting in their own right. University folklore, if you will. And if they are common to campuses all around the country, well that is something to ponder. How did they spread? and so on... Teutanic 17:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The source of most of there myths: "Warwick the magazine" is an official University of Warwick publication, by the University's PR people, it's not written by students. Tomgreeny 19:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed these myths cannot be corroborated, but they're myths! One of the great things about Wikipedia is that is provides information that you may not find elsewhere; this is especially useful if you put yourself in the position of a student wanting more information about prospective universities. The myths may not be 'useful' information, but help provide a more rounded picture of the university.--Stripybadger 11:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I was at Warwick in 1980 (lived in CH1) and the 'Scandinavian prison' story was told about Cryfield Hall even back then R. sparts 21:42, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The same story was told about Goodricke College C-block at the University of York when I was an undergraduate there in the early 1990s. It seems to be one of those stories that turns up all over the place. Other examples of common legends include: "The architect who designed the university library forgot to take the weight of the books into account" and "graduates at the university of X don't wear mortarboards because when women were admitted as students the existing male students threw theirs in the river/in the lake/off the bridge/etc in protest". They're fun and entertaining, but notoriously difficult to verify, so we probably shouldn't have them in the encyclopaedia. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 00:43, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Myths section removed: May 2007

I have removed the "University legends and myths" section. It was a cruft-magnet, and largely unsourced since February. The one source which was supplied, a magazine article, isn't a rigorous or reliable treatment. None of the "legends" were especially illuminating, and most are not unique to Warwick. Any number of universities have a rumour that there are underground tunnels on campus or student accommodation based on a prison of some kind (Snopes has a page on this sort of thing). Please think carefully before adding this stuff back in, and find a reliable source that's independent from the university, to establish the notability of any given "legend". — mholland (talk) 16:18, 23 May 2007 (UTC) I have also removed the section on myths surrounding the 'Koan', for the same reasons as above. As a current student, I have never heard these alleged rumours, and don't belive they are current. Until verification is provided, the section should remain removed. .... How boring :(

The 'underground tunnels' certainly do exist - i have seen them first hand - however in reality they are 'steam ducts' carrying services between buildings (but they are quite large, and could certainly be classified as tunnels)

Alumni (2)

This is a continuation from a lower topic (apologies if this is not standard practice) which has been bought to light because of some recent vandalism: Maybe I should be added to it - current Warwick Maths student (3rd year) and was on Channel 4's Beauty and the Geek (Jamie). Please note that I am kidding here. But there does seem to be some vandalism to this article of late regarding the famous Alumni, re (just copy pasted straight from the article, so no formatting): General, Other, Playas

   * Ben Stewart (Mathematics) – Old St Tobbacco Magnate
   * Chris Watson Mathematics Currently IT/Maths Geek, about to become a greek
   * Ali Butler Economics Collector of Asians
   * Rob Walsh Economics Famous 70´s footballer
   * Nas Islam Economics Famous Cockney
   * James Bois Maths Discreet Playa

Well, that needs to be sorted - Chris Watson forwards to someone who died in 1941 and was the 3rd Australian Prime Minister! In all seriousness though, this needs a look. JebJoya 23:21, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Names removed. — mholland (talk) 03:00, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Student Population Numbers - Discrepancies

Just noticed some discrepancies in Miketweed's recent edit ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=University_of_Warwick&curid=61115&diff=126116431&oldid=126014666 ). He mentions, and indeed that section also mentions figures of 15/16,000. His figure coming from the Warwick Welcome Service. Yet the infobox mentions figures of 30,000 (20,000 undergrads), citing online stats from a Higher Education site. It's not tuition fees or similar, because the figures cover the same general periods, so which one is right, and have student numbers really changed by potentially doubling/halving, or "best case" 5,000 students? I'll leave it up to other people to decide, I've just flagged it up, partly as I'm curious and a little confused. --Peternewman 02:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a difference between figures listed in Warwick's website and HESA's information on Warwick. In addition to being from different years (05/06 vs. 06/07) the numbers seem to follow different rules. The HESA information says 10,050 postgrads of whom 3,465 are full time, whereas the Warwick page says there are 7,047 "full-time equivalent" students. Likewise, HESA says 20,330 total and 10,600 full time undergraduates, and Warwick goes in for 11,315.

It's hard to say which number we should use; part time students kind of skew the results because if your course takes twice as many years, you're adding to population numbers for twice as long - plus I gather there's flexibility when you're doing a part-time PhD; you can take years to complete it if you want to, meaning the numbers might include 'dormant' students who aren't actually working on completing their degrees.

However, in other wikipedia pages, using the HESA numbers for all students seems to be the standard way of doing things. Mike1024 (t/c) 08:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Warwick's pretty mean with the extra time it allows part-time students. Part-time PhD students get two extra years these days - when I did mine (1997-2002) we only got one extra year - extensions beyond that point had to be formally applied for and were not automatically granted. Most other places basically double the full-time registration period. -- Nicholas Jackson 19:46, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The university of Warwick has 15,969 students according to its prospectus and profile published in 2006. Whoever is changing it too 30,000 again and again check your facts before editing material. The link where it states the exact numbers is : http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/about/profile/people/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.177.34 (talk) 07:58, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

HESA stats are a better source for comparison between UK instutitions as they are using a common standard definition. University websites and prospectuses are not using a common standard and this makes them a less reliable standard for an enyclopedia. Timrollpickering 09:04, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe these are full time students if you want to include part-time you should write them seperately... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.178.60 (talk) 21:05, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

The explanation for the discrepancy is: The university's page [1] lists Full Time Equivalent (FTE) students. 10 students on a part time course which is 0.5FTE (i.e. a course that uses half the resources of a full time course) would count as 5 full time equivalent students. The HESA statistics [2], on the other hand, list full time and part time students separately and sum the two. Also, the two records are taken at different times of the year. Also, The HESA webpage referred to also includes students on the University's Open Studies programmes and other Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activity. Also, HESA use a rounding methodology which rounds all data to the nearest 5. If you want to see Warwick's internal data in detail you can, at [3]. If you look at 2006 Table 1.0 you find: Total number of students at the University: 20,040 Total number of student full-time equivalents (FTEs) 15,969. Hope this clears things up! (the statistics are quite interesting - did you know that 'refused to answer' is the second biggest ethnicity on the Warwick campus?) Mike1024 (t/c) 18:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Top 10

I dont know if this is the right place to ask this but after saying warwick has never left the top 10 it says citation needed. I think the proof of that are the links to all the UK league tables, Daily telegraph,Sunday Times, Times , Guardian,etc. How else can it be verified? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.177.124 (talk) 06:19, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Well, to my mind it's a bit imprecise: What do we mean by 'never'? Since the university was founded, or since the first league table was produced - and if the latter, when was that? What league tables are we talking about? Has Warwick really never slipped down to eleventh place in any (mainstream) league table? If so, then that's obviously quite impressive, and deserves mentioning in the article. Links to the relevant league tables should suffice, I would have thought, as long as they do indeed show that Warwick has never been out of the top ten, and not just that it's in the top ten at the moment. -- Nicholas Jackson 07:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You can add to the article that the only unis that have never been outside of the top ten in the UK league tables are Oxbridge, LSE, Warwick, and UCL I believe. I did try to add this but someone deleted it.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.179.80 (talk) 21:03, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

OK, so that's interesting, and worth including, but you need to provide some sort of corroborative and citeable evidence to confirm it - otherwise someone will probably delete it again (or at least tag it with {{Fact}}). First of all, we need a definitive list of the league tables in question (because there are quite a few of them) and then we need some sort of list of past years' league tables which goes back suitably far (ie to the later of: the year of foundation of the university, and the year that league table was started). I hope this helps. -- Nicholas Jackson 22:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Tables werent made back then. They started in early 21st century . However, I think tables are avaiable from 2003 onwards online with a Daily Telegraph table considering rankings of all tables and giving the picture in 2003. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.179.80 (talk) 06:49, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure university league tables started earlier than that: League tables of British universities says early 1990s, which sounds about right to me. I'm certainly not disputing your assertion that Warwick has always been in the top 10 since records began - it does sound entirely plausible. The only sticking point is that we need some kind of independent verification of this. -- Nicholas Jackson 09:40, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

'The Times Good University Guide' was around in 1994 (The first 'Times' table published Oct 1992), remember seeing a copy on the library counter, Warwick was 8th back then, and The Sunday Times Good University Guide predates it by at least a decade. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.104.51.74 (talk) 19:23, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

It should be added that the university came 5th in the latest Independent poll as it was the highest placed university outside London and Oxbridge —Preceding unsigned comment added by JamesMadisonJr (talk • contribs) 00:49, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

UK University Rankings

	2011	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997	1996	1995	1994	1993
Times Good University Guide	8th	6th	6th	7th	8th	8th	5th	8th	6th	6th	8th =	8th =	7th	6th	5th	8th =	5th =	8th =	8th =
Guardian University Guide	3rd	4th	4th	8th	8th	8th	9th	9th	9th	5th
Sunday Times University Guide	8th	6th	7th	7th	7th	6th	6th	7th	8th	5th	7th	8th	7th	7th
The Daily Telegraph					8th				9th	10th
FT Good University Guide									6th	7th	10th	9th	9th
Independent Complete University Guide supported by PriceWaterHouseCoopers	7th	6th	5th	8th
QS World University Rankings		53rd	58th	69th	57th	73rd	77th	80 th
Times Higher Education World University Rankings		–

References

109.144.218.251 (talk) 23:23, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Links with other universities

Why are Links with other universities being deleted? They can be sourced to the Warwick website. Why would the university make false claims?http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/international/collaboration/agreement/exchange/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.177.135 (talk) 13:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I have removed this twice. "Student Exchange" is nothing special: almost every British university offers a year abroad as part of an exchange programme. Warwick is not unique in offering international exchanges with "prestigious" universities, nor is prestige a good criterion to use when selecting institutions to list here. — mholland (talk) 18:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Coventry

It might be worthwhile starting a project to improve the pages on Coventry. Anyone can express an interest at: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Coventry. Snowman (talk) 12:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Univ warwick crest.gif

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BetacommandBot (talk) 02:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

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Why does warwick pretend to be prestigious?

I mean come on it's a 1960's plate glass uni, it's hardly "ivy league" like ucl, icl, kcl, lse, bristol, edinburgh, manchester etc. The league tables continue to overinflate Warwicks position imo. It should not be considered prestigious, it is a university for average students.

I don't really understand your comment about average students - in the latest Guardian League Table (2008) the entry tariff for Warwick is 450, placing the university by this criterion in 5th position. If students were really average, then the tariff would be a lot lower than Bristol (431), Manchester (412), KCL (406). With regards to Warwick's overinflated position generally: what exactly is your opinion based on??? 82.2.60.90 (talk) 00:12, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Considering it was only founded just over 40 years ago in 1965 and now can compete with much more established instiutitions, it has come a long way in a short time. It's part of the Russell Group, and if that isn't a British "Ivy League", I don't know what is. Misterx2000 (talk) 07:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Why is the fact that it is new make it a lesser institution? Surely this is an appeal to tradition? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.205.68.252 (talk) 02:37, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Endowment size?

What is the size of Warwick's endowment? Most University pages have the endowment size but this one doesn't for some reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.139.16 (talk) 12:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The Digital Lab

Warwick has a recent additional building in the digital (research) lab full details here http://digital.warwick.ac.uk/About-the-lab/ is this something that should be covered in the article? I would write a piece myself but have a dissertation to write first! Xubee (talk) 15:08, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Warwick Business School

Earlier versions of the article of the University of Warwick mentioned the Warwick Business School, the current version does not. I do not know why this is the case, but it is one of the most famous and largest departments of the university. I think it should at least be mentioned and linked to the Warwick Business School article. Otherwise, it would reflect a certain degree of bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.219.69.66 (talk) 23:44, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I have had a look back through to 2007 and found no references to the Business School apart from on the image. Can you give some details of the versions that you think the information was in? Keith D (talk) 00:28, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about it, but I can't remember which version it was in. I just remember the last time I looked at this article it mentioned the business school, which is the largest department of the university and very well known. I just don't want the article to be biased as the business school is not well liked among some students of other departments as it is the most famous department and receives preferential treatment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.219.69.66 (talk) 00:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Amy Winehouse

Played at the Students Union? When?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.205.253.147 (talk) 16:29, 11 February 2010 (UTC) Not sure she did... she played twice at Warwick Arts Centre - once supporting Jamie Cullum, once as headliner in the theatre. If she played at the Students Union too I'd like to see a reference to this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.146.205 (talk) 21:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

First sentence

I have concerns with the sentence "The University of Warwick is one of the top 5 universities in the UK". League tables vary hugely, and measure different things, so basing the first sentence on a single league table as a ref is cherry-picking the facts. Statements like this should be based on a very broad assessment of the tables, and subjective judgements should not be given excessive weight. The only league table that agrees with this statement, based on the info in the Rankings section, is the Guardian, so to make this statement is clearly ignoring the other two, at least, that say it isn't. If you realy must have a league table position, then say "is consistently ranked within the top 10 ...", and don't put it as the first sentence. Fourth ventricle (talk) 19:14, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Any photos requests?

Quite a few of the photos of the campus, particularly the student union building, are quite outdated. Since I'm on campus at the moment, I intend to take a few photos for this article later in week, primarily of the union but also of the Rootes social building and the White Koan. If you have any other requests for photos of the campus (e.g. accommodation? library? academic buildings?) please let me know; I'll check back here regularly until then so I can take photos while I'm out-and-about. I could also take pictures of the inside of buildings, but I think I might get some funny looks from security if I photograph lecture theatres or something. -- S G Gower (talk) 12:22, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, well done on taking the time to do this, photos of the library and the Warwick Manufacturing Group building would be great.Rangoon11 (talk) 15:03, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Lead/infobox reference to United Kingdom

The long standing reference to the United Kingdom in the lead and infobox has been removed by two editors, despite having been reverted. I am unclear as to why the state in which the university is located should not be included, as it is in 99.9% of all university articles in Wikipedia.Rangoon11 (talk) 14:05, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Research information

The ranking and assessment of its research in the opening section is vague and the citation is now dead. Ill try and change this asap. The targeted by top employers comment is also out of date and no longer true. IcyEd (talk) 04:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

File:University of Warwick logo.png Nominated for Deletion

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