I think they both had similar work experience. The one with a 2.2 had a masters and phD and then when working after phD had taken the PGCE on top of his teaching and research duties.
The problem is you don't get to know what your lecturers got do you normally? So you could have been taught by someone with less than a 2.1 and you wouldn't know.I didn't find out about that professor until I got my results and then I was told as encouragement to carry on.He was useless at exams but excellent at research. It also depends on your universities assessment method.At my old uni, modules were 100% assessed by exam,no marks for your practical skills or coursework. So you can have two students, one with excellent lab skills and one who's a danger to themselves and others and the second one can get the first because they're better at exam technique.The exams (including finals) were worth 70% of the final degree mark.
Anyway all over now, onwards and upwards!

both of you guys are forgetting, the instituition where the degree was taken matters a lot.

sorry but no matter what employers and people setting course entry requirements think, but a 3rd at some institutions is better than a 1st at others.

who the better, a guy who gets 3rd from cambridge and needed to get 3 A grades to get in, or someone who went to an ex poly who only needed to 2 E's to get in?

the guy with 2 E's and a 1st is not better than the guy with a 3rd from a top university and 3 A-grades at A-level no matter what people think. the guy with 2 E's only achieved a 1st because he was competing against students of a similiar standard as his, i.e. a very low standard.

Oh..I thought you meant ALL they had was a 2.2. Agree with Leigh also.

You do have a good point leigh1 and golfpro.
It also depends on the dept's policies about rounding up. My friend was ill during a set of exams and got a third for one and I think she failed one because she was absent(in hospital). My dept didn't allow resits (though other dept's in the same uni did). Her final mark was 69.something% and she got a 2.1. She was devastated. Yet at other uni's they would have rounded her up. Similarly I know two people who got the same final mark as me in the same subject but at different universities but they were awarded 2.1's.
Hence the reason most postrad admissions take into account: the age of your degree, the dept., the university, the subject,work experience and skills. Despite what people say about a 2.1 being a 2.1 regardless, you two are right,it isn't, as you can't compare easily enough to be confident the different classifications do represent two different classes of applicants.

Agree with everyone's points, on the whole - it really isn't fair the way different institutes at different times calculate results.

But as someone with a 2.2 (which I'm not proud of) I think you are not taking into account that people can better themselves later in life. I was an admittedly lazy (ish) undergrad with poor organization, but I would like to think that I've learned my lesson through several years in industry and three years of freelance publishing, including winning two science writing awards. Not trying to show off here, but just asking you to not sneer at someone who got a poor result once in their life - people sometimes deserve a second chance.

(getting off my soapbox now )

I think a lot of 'it' comes back to the erosion in the value of a degree. With practically everyone being awarded a 2.1 or better [Ok I'm exagerating but you get my jist] it rather devalues what we all did in bygone days [1987 in my case].

I know...that must be annoying. Just as my cousins who are at school now come out with 14 A*s (or thereabouts) - in my day (yawn) you could only take a max of 8 GCSEs, but now they've all been split into subcategories.

I was just making the point that once someone has obtained a PhD and/or other achievements that demonstrate high ability, it is perhaps a little harsh to continue to forever judge that someone on their undergraduate grade.

Hear, hear Juno!
Also not just 'laziness' but other issues can affect degree performance. I'm not talking about the 'my dog died' excuses but about real issues like your parent(s) dying suddenly, suffering from a serious illness, serious financial problems through no fault of the student etc.
Plus it can be 15 years or more between someone taking their degree and being at the faculty application stage (well, in my subject anyway). Most of what was in that degree could be irrelevant 15 years later.
Anyway at the end of the day, we've all got to the stage we're at regardless of how we got here or what grade we received.