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The most sought-after university in the UK is University College London – at least among visitors to Times Online.

The UCL page has had more than 90,000 page views since The Times Good University Guide went live last August, almost 17,000 more than Bristol University in second place. Warwick University and the London School of Economics are next in the online pecking order.

With a third of its students coming from overseas, it is perhaps not surprising that applicants to UCL do much of their research online. But the scale of web traffic attracted by ‘London’s global university’ (as it styles itself) is still impressive. The number of UCL pages read is 40 times the total for several universities at the foot of the table.

All the universities near the top of the list are also regulars in the upper reaches of The Times table, although Oxford and Cambridge are not in their accustomed lofty positions. For once, neither of them makes the top five, which is completed by Imperial College London.

For all their efforts to increase the pool of applicants, the ancient universities do not attract as many inquiries as most of the top institutions because the standard of competition puts sixth-formers off. Even the London School of Economics, with high entry standards and less than half the number of undergraduate places, attracts more applications than either Oxford or Cambridge.

But the number of page views obviously is not directly related to the chances of winning a place. Bristol has more applicants to the place than any UK university and UCL is not far behind. Both have seen only a marginal decline in applications this year, when the switch from six to five choices per applicant has had a considerable impact on some universities.

Nor are the universities with the largest numbers of applications right at the top in terms of Times traffic. Manchester and Leeds had by far the most applications by the official deadline for courses starting this autumn, but they are 15th and 17th respectively in terms of page views on this site.

Barry Taylor, Bristol’s Director of Communications, said: “The web is such a fundamental communications tool, especially for young people, that we are paying more and more attention to it. We have six million web pages of our own getting and the weekly statistics for usage have been going up consistently.”

As in the main Good University Guide rankings, the first of the post-1992 universities to feature is Oxford Brookes, which has had more than 20,000 page views since last August. Kingston, Nottingham Trent and East London also appear in the top 50, ahead of several longer-established universities.

But all the top 30 are old universities, many of them in similar positions to the ones they occupy in the guide. Nottingham is an exception, featuring in readers’ top ten and reflecting the traditionally buoyant applications to the university. Leeds is another university that has attracted more page views than its league table position might suggest.

In general, however, the survey underlines the important role of the internet in students’ preparation for higher education. Almost 40 universities attracted at least 20,000 page views on The Times site. The growing number of students who choose to attend local universities might get all the information they need from visits, but those considering universities further from home are doing more and more of their research online.

Parminder Bahra, executive editor of Times Online, said: "We had more of the guide online than ever before last year, so it has been interesting to see what readers are drawn to. We will be providing an even more comprehensive service when the next edition appears in June."

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