Tompkins Table

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, an undergraduate mathematics student, and is compiled exclusively for the newspaper The Independent.^[1]

The 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 2-1), 2 points for a Lower Second (a 2-2), 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. It should be noted that the differences between the highest places on the table are usually very slight. Over the twenty-eight years that this table has been running, Christ's College has averaged to be the top College for academic excellence, however, in recent years Emmanuel College lays claim to consistently having the best results (with Trinity College second): it has topped the table in 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007, as well as being second in 2001, 2002, 2008 and 2009. 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, 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.

Below is the table for 2009^[2][3]:

Past Rankings

Consecutive yearly rankings since 2000:

Norrington Table

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

References

External links

• Tompkins Table 2000-2007