St Andrews Named Daily Mail University of the Year for Student Experience

The University of St Andrews has been announced as the ‘University of the Year for Student Experience’ in the new Daily Mail University Guide. 

The announcement follows the University placing at the top of the National Student Survey (NSS) this year, for the sixteenth time in the last eighteen years. 

The Mail Guide was first launched in 2023 and includes a series of judged awards, as well as the first new ranking of UK universities in fifteen years. The guide takes into account twelve performance indicators in areas including teaching, graduate opportunities, and research quality, as well as the views of 346,000 final-year students. St Andrews also scored highly for ‘teaching excellence’, resulting in the University’s overall ranking of seventh place out of 129 institutions. 

St Andrews Students’ Association President Cam Brown praised this success: “Our consistent top rankings in student experience aren’t just numbers — they reflect the heart and soul of St Andrews, built by the tireless dedication of the University, the Students’ Association, and our students themselves.” 

Alastair McCall, Editor of the Daily Mail Guide, added: “St Andrews is one of the serial winners in British – and global – higher education over the past 20 years. That might seem strange to say for an institution that has survived for more than 600 years: it has clearly been doing something right for much longer than that.”

“Sustained success in the annual National Student Survey has proved difficult for most of the UK’s top universities. Only St Andrews among universities at the top table has been able to combine both the highest academic standards with ratings from their students that consistently confirm that excellence.”

McCall concluded by highlighting the University’s track record in student satisfaction, “St Andrews is the Daily Mail University of the Year for Student Experience 2025 off the back of this year’s outstanding results in the National Student Survey. St Andrews students rated the university more highly than anywhere else for everything from course organisation and learning resources to student feedback being valued and acted upon. Evidence of a 600-year-old university showing its students that it has still got something to learn from them. How good is that?”

Photo by University of St Andrews