UCD has been crowned University of the Year 2020 as part of the Sunday Times Good University Guide.
Bagging the title for the third time, UCD won the prestigious accolade in both 2006 and 2012 as well.
The National University of Ireland Galway ranked in second place, due to its strong research performance and student entrepreneurship support while Athlone was named as Institute of Technology of the year.
It gives us great pleasure to announce that we have been awarded @SunTimesIreland 'Institute of Technology of the Year' 2020 – the second time in just three years. Our outstanding student experience is a key reason for the award. Learn more: https://t.co/lauAPpxPLK #ChooseAIT pic.twitter.com/deAKXuGqTt
— TUS Athlone Campus (@TUS_Athlone_) November 1, 2019
AIT’s win follows on from the announcement that it will join forces with Limerick IT to become Ireland’s next Technological University.
According to Alastair McCall, editor of The Sunday Times Good University Guide, “University College Dublin makes compelling cases to third level applicants with its relentless focus on the student experience.”
💙💛 UCD named @thesundaytimes University of the Year 2020
“It is a confirmation of what we’ve seen through our strategic planning process, in terms of the progress that the university has made over the last five years"
Prof Andrew Deeks, UCD President pic.twitter.com/sed2uLciQI— University College Dublin (@ucddublin) November 1, 2019
He went on to add: “UCD now has a significant lead over Trinity College Dublin in the key areas of student satisfaction, degree outcomes and staffing levels, and goes toe-to-toe with its great rival on graduate job prospects and progression rates to record its strongest performance in our third level ranking for many years.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2WzcS4IEWg/
The Guide, which was published today, confirmed that UCD ranked above all other universities in Ireland when it came to each of the nine sections of the 2018 Irish Survey of Student Engagement (ISSE).
Putting the win down to a number of factors, it is the University’s “student-centric approach” along with its low graduate unemployment rate (just 3 per cent), the second-best student-staff ratio in the sector and the fact that 75 per cent of graduates leave with a 2:1 or a first-class degree that really set it apart.
