The Times Higher Education’s Student Experience Poll surveyed over 11,000 full-time undergraduates in 2009 to allow students to rank their overall university experience. Attributes such as the quality of teaching, social life, and university facilities were all ranked by students. As a result, the 2009 Times Higher Education Award for 'Most Improved Student Experience' was presented to Queen Mary, University of London whilst Loughborough University remains top of the poll for the 4th year running.
Queen Mary was awarded the 'Most Improved Student Experience' award as it has shown the largest improvement in the league table ranking. The university has spent £6 million on revamping a union building on one of their campuses as well making overall improvements to increase community spirit and university facilities. The vice principal of teaching and learning at Queen Mary stated that their “challenge is to provide a strong sense of community and coherence for students in a complex urban environment” and they appear to have succeeded to do this as students at Queen Mary rated the university higher in 2009 than 2008 on almost all 21 attributes of the survey.
Despite Queen Mary being awarded the ‘Most Improved Student Experience Award’, Loughborough University remain top of the rankings for the 4th year in a row, with students highly ranking their sports facilities, students' union and extracurricular activites. Cambridge and Oxford closely follow, and have also remained in the top 3 over the passed 4 years. Please see below the top 10 universities ranked in 2009’s ‘Student Experience Survey’.
Top 10 Universities Ranked in The Times Higher Eduction 2009's 'Student Experience Survey'
| Rank | University | Overall Score | Respondents |
| 1 | Loughborough Unversity | 84.9 | 128 |
| 2 | University of Cambridge | 82.6 | 259 |
| 3 | University of Oxford | 82.6 | 197 |
| 4 | University of Sheffield | 82.3 | 196 |
| 5 | University of East Anglia | 82.1 | 122 |
| 6 | Aberystwyth University | 82.1 | 97 |
| 7 | University of Leeds | 81.9 | 185 |
| 8 | University of Dundee | 80.8 | 75 |
| 9 | University of Southampton | 80.6 | 164 |
| 10 | University of Glasgow | 80.6 | 136 |