Norrington Table

TheNorrington Tableis an annual ranking of thecollegesof theUniversity of Oxfordbased on a score computed from the proportions of undergraduate students earning each of the variousdegree classificationsbased on that year'sfinal examinations.

Overview

The rankings of each college in the Norrington Table are calculated by awarding 5 points for a student who receives a FirstClass degree,3 points for a 2:1, 2 for a 2:2 and 1 for a Third; the total is then divided by the maximum possible score (i.e. the number of finalists in that college multiplied by 5), and the result for each college is expressed as a percentage, rounded to 2 decimal places. Although the differences between the highest places on the table are usually slight, the top colleges remain very competitive about their rankings in the Table. Their competitiveness has been heightened in recent years by increased media attention towards the rankings.

Previously the university had refused to endorse an official table, leading to inaccuracies (seeCriticismsbelow), so the university finally published its own rankings using examination results from all final year undergraduates in 2005.

History

Contrary to popular belief, the Norrington Table was not created in 1962 bySir Arthur Norrington,who was then president ofTrinity College.Norrington did not invent the idea of producing a table of the results ofOxford colleges.Rather, he suggested a refinement to the weightings given to results in a existing table. Norrington's scoring system was suggested in 1963 and abandoned after 1985, owing to changes in the Oxford examination system.

On 5 September 1963, Norrington had a letter published inThe Times,in which he objected to the table that their correspondent had published two days earlier (3 September 1963, p. 12).The Timeshad previously published a table of Oxford colleges' results in 1962 (29 August 1962, p. 5).

Norrington wrote: "Your Correspondent has analysed the final examination results this year and gives an order of merit, among the first colleges, based on the percentage of Firsts and Seconds. This, in effect, is the same as basing it on the percentage of Thirds, and gives it no extra credit for Firsts. College A, for example, that gets 20 Firsts, 60 Seconds, and 20 Thirds scores less by this method than College B that gets no Firsts, 81 Seconds and 19 Thirds, but surely A has, in reality, done much better than B. A better result, I submit, is obtained by a points system in which a First scores more than a second and a Second more than a Third. If you make the points 3, 2, and 1 respectively and calculate what percentage of its" possible "each college has secured, you will find that College A, with 200 points out of 300, has scored 66.67 per cent, and B, with 181, only 60 per cent. This method of calculation will be found to promote Magdalen and Merton, which come surprisingly low in your Correspondent's order." (5 September 1963, p. 13)

In 1986, when Oxford for the first time split Second Class honours into Upper Seconds and Lower Seconds,The Timesunilaterally adopted theTompkins Table,which gives more weight to a First class degree: five points for a First, three for a 2.1, two for a 2.2, and one for a Third. This system was devised in 1981 by Peter Tompkins, ofBirkenhead,to classify the results ofCambridgecolleges, and a table compiled by Tompkins on this basis was published on 28 August byThe Times(28 Aug 1981, p. 10) alongside a table using the Norrington scoring system, which had been compiled by theCambridge Evening News.The Tompkins Table became the preferred rating forCambridge collegesand has prevailed for Oxford colleges as well since 1986.

Recent rankings

Below is the Norrington Table for theacademic years2021/22 and 2019/20 along with mean values for the period 2006 to 2019.

College/ Hall	2022 Score %	2020 Score %	Mean Score (2006–2019) %
Merton	80.9	81.0	75.60
Lincoln	80.7	79.5	71.06
Harris Manchester	77.7	77.4	65.90
Queen's	77.7	81.7	69.90
St Peter's	77.6	81.5	67.94
St Catherine's	77.2	82.5	70.48
Wadham	76.8	80.9	71.91
St John's	76.5	80.2	74.49
Somerville	76.4	72.8	68.27
Pembroke	75.8	78.0	69.03
Keble	75.8	76.6	69.65
Magdalen	75.7	77.4	75.42
Mansfield	75.6	75.5	68.44
New College	75.5	83.5	74.65
Brasenose	74.9	80.4	70.81
Worcester	74.4	78.8	71.52
Oriel	74.3	79.8	69.54
University	74.1	78.9	70.85
St Hilda's	73.9	78.3	67.99
Balliol	73.7	78.6	72.62
Corpus Christi	73.6	77.0	71.00
St Anne's	72.8	77.0	69.51
Christ Church	72.5	75.6	72.02
St Edmund Hall	71.8	76.5	68.08
St Benet's Hall	71.7	69.5	62.76
St Hugh's	71.2	78.8	68.55
Hertford	70.6	79.2	70.39
Trinity	70.3	79.1	71.30
Lady Margaret Hall	69.7	75.7	68.11
Jesus	68.5	78.0	71.26
Exeter	68.0	75.8	69.09
Wycliffe Hall	60.0	63.6	67.43
Regent's Park	68.9	74.3	64.13
St Stephen's House	50.0	80.0	59.46

Past rankings

Norrington Table rankings from 2006 to 2019 by college, ordered by mean rank, and omitting allPPHssince they take very few undergraduates, with the exception ofRegent's Park:

Criticisms

The table is biased towards colleges with above average proportions of students in science subjects such as chemistry and mathematics,in which a higher proportion attain a first-class degree compared to humanities (in which more students attain a 2:1). The correspondingTompkins Tableat Cambridge makes an adjustment for this feature.

John Lucas,Fellow ofMerton,presented a critique of the Norrington Table in a 1980 article titled "Norrington Blues".

Other tables and debate over use of Norrington name

The Norrington Table has inspired other tables ranking the performance ofOxford colleges,such as the "Vegetarian Norrington Table", which was first published in 2016.A play on the original, the Vegetarian Norrington Table ranks the best and worst colleges in Oxford not for their undergraduate examination results, but for the quality of theirvegetarianandveganfood, using data collected from staff and students of theUniversity.The table caused some controversy, however, as a number of collegebursarsargued that it bore no relation to the original and further questioned its metrics.The current top-ranked college in the Vegetarian Norrington Table isMansfield College,followed byWorcester College,withKellogg Collegein third.

There have been attempts to rework the original Norrington Table, specifically in light of debates surrounding access and the equality ofOxford University § Admissionprocess. In 2018, one article used geographical data to rank colleges based on the percentage of undergraduate students from poorer backgrounds. In this same report, the Vice President of theOxford University Student Unionannounced work was underway on an "alternative Norrington Table" which would seek to measuresocial mobilityas well as academic success in colleges.

See also

• Tompkins Table