Trinity has been ranked in first place for the 18th successive year in the annual Sunday Times league table of Irish third level institutions.
The Sunday Times described Trinity’s position on top as a “situation unlikely to change anytime soon” due to its dominance in certain areas.
Trinity came out on top in three of the metrics used to decide the rankings, namely in research income, spending on new services and facilities and points needed for entry.
Trinity saw a research income of €97.5 million this year, spent €12,190 on improving services and facilities, and the average number CAO points needed to gain entry was 520.
It also scored highly in its employability, with a points tally amounting to 97 out of 100. However, this was in line with the vast majority of institutions, all of which scored above 90 points, except Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT). These rankings were decided based on the percentage of graduates in employment nine months after leaving the institution.
College’s worst performance was in its student to staff ratio, where it placed 16th out of 19 with a ratio of 17.8:1. Trinity also fell to the bottom half of the league table for student satisfaction, scoring only 47.8% and placing 15th.
Statistics on student satisfaction were taken from the Irish Survey of Student Engagement.
University College Dublin (UCD) and University College Cork (UCC) were placed in joint second position while UCD was named the Sunday Times University of the Year.
The Institute of Technology Sligo saw the biggest improvement in the rankings, rising from 15th place last year to 11th this year.
The league table scored institutions out of a possible score of 1,000, assigning varying weight to each category, with student satisfaction given the most weight. Trinity scored 762 out of 1,000 with UCD and UCC both scoring 731. University College Cork was the only other institution to score over 700, with a score of 702.
The Sunday Times also ranked some UK universities with Cambridge achieving a perfect score of 1,000 and all 10 of the ranked UK universities scoring higher than Trinity.
Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union President, Laura Beston, spoke to the Sunday Times about Trinity, noting that College’s bureaucracy “can be frustrating” but that “when you are struggling, there are people who will help you get back on track”.
