"E Pluribum Oilum"😅

Something like that. Perhaps why it's proving difficult to arrive at the end of the book. I'm still deliriously dancing...

Thanks Tim. In my - delayed but now nearly completed - book on Big Oil in the energy transition I DO mention the late 19th C. Pennsylvania oil fields where oil workers danced the “American Petroleum Polka” and the “Oil Fever Gallop”, and sang songs like “Famous Oil Firms” and “Oil on the Brain”!

Yes maybe not, but if I am correct the Guardian rankings seem to weigh those kinds of things most heavily, and they always seem to be the "outlier" rankings to me. (Of course, they only rank domestically as well.)

As a parent, probably reputation of institution, research standing, and employment outcomes. Counterintuitively perhaps (much) less weighting on NSS and similar input as I imagine it’s very hard to compare across institutions.

Hard to think of anything remotely representative:
David Bowie
Michael Jackson
The Ramones
Bob Dylan
The Cure
Black Sabbath
R.E.M.
The Rolling Stones
The Wailers
Dio

In the US, much wider social and demographic criteria including sporting and other extracurricular achievements - and, uniquely, "legacy admissions" - matter much more. This is especially so across the top tiers of universities when comparing the US and UK. 10/10

And given that the push for socially engineering the demographics of university student bodies is much stronger in the US, students in the UK are admitted on a much more narrow set of metrics (i.e., academic achievement) than in the US. 9/

Their initial offers are based on predicted grades submitted by their schools, usually along strict criteria, as well as additional admissions tests and/or interviews for the more competitive universities. 8/

These are not results based on grades given in their respective schools - which may vary and be highly inflated, which is very much the case in the US - but on nationwide standardised tests in each subject, meaning that you compare like for like in terms of achievement across the country. 7/

Moreover, every acceptance onto a UK university course is conditional, meaning that students need to achieve their required results (their "offer) in their final (A Level) examinations in June of their final year of school, just a few months before they're beginning their university studies. 6/

This means that the need to realistically match your applications to degrees and universities where you have a real chance of getting admitted to is much more important in the UK system than it is in the US where you can take a much more "freewheeling" approach to applying. 5/

This is because in the US you can apply to as many universities as you want to. In the UK, the nationwide UCAS system (through which all students apply for university courses) allows you to apply to no more than five university degree courses - so a maximum of five universities. 4/

Their general pitch is based largely on acceptance rates at top US universities being, at first glance, substantially lower than at their top UK counterparts. But the comparison is misguided, in fact it is rather meaningless. 3/

Their pitch to US high school students in particular generally being along the lines, "hey, it's really hard getting into top US universities so have a look at the UK", etc. 2/