The Sutton Trust

The Sutton Trust is an educational charity in the United Kingdom which aims to improve social mobility and address educational disadvantage. The charity was set up by educational philanthropist Sir Peter Lampl in 1997 and since then has undertaken over 150 research studies and funded a wide range of practical programmes to support young people in early years, primary and secondary school, and in accessing higher education and the professions.

In 2000, the Sutton Trust created a list of 13 UK universities which are research-intensive and ranked highest based on the average rankings of surveys by The Daily Telegraph, The Times, the Financial Times and The Sunday Times. The universities are regarded as the UK's "most prestigious","elite" and "most selective" universities offering around 30,000 places annually. The 13 universities are used as a benchmark for monitoring social mobility by academics, educational organisations and the government. Graduates from the 13 universities are expected to "earn on average £4,300 per year (17%) more than graduates from post-1992 universities, and are 12 percentage points more likely to be in professional employment" 5 years after graduation. The universities are listed below in alphabetical order:

University of Birmingham, University of Bristol, University of Cambridge, Durham University, University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London, London School of Economics, University of Nottingham, University of Oxford, University of St Andrews, University College London, University of Warwick, University of York.

...
Wikipedia