Jesus College is top of the Oxford college league table this year.

Its 94 students taking final examinations recorded 29 first-class degrees, 55 upper seconds and ten lower seconds.

That was enough to push them up four places to the top of the annual Norrington Table, pushing last year's winners, Merton College, into second place.

Third were Wadham (fifth last year), fourth were St John's (second) and fifth Balliol (17th). The biggest leaps in the table were by Worcester, up 17 places to tenth, and Mansfield, up 14 places to 15th. The biggest losers were Corpus Christi, down 18 places to 24th, and Trinity, down 17 places to 25th.

The table, named after Sir Arthur Norrington, former president of Trinity College, is compiled from the results achieved by students at 30 colleges in their finals.

Ten points are given for a first-class degree, eight for an upper second, six for a lower second, four for a third and two for a pass.

The total is then expressed as a percentage of each college's maximum possible score.

The Norrington Table is widely used as a guide to individual college performances but has never been recognised by the University. In 1991, dons voted to delete college names from lists, arguing that the table was misleading.

This should have made it impossible to produce the table but national newspapers employed graduates who spent weeks gathering the infor- mation.

Now the University has given up trying to stop publication and examination results lists are being produced in full again.

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