Academic Ranking of World Universities

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
1

<p>Okay.
I've been hearing about the "great Trojan family" and whatnot, and as a senior currently deciding whether to attend USC, this is one factor.</p>

<p>However, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2007 -- link: ARWU2007-Top</a> 500 World Universities -- ranks USC as #39 nationally and #50 globally, ranked BENEATH UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara.</p>

<p>More surprisingly, its "Score on Alumni" for USC is a big, fat 0.</p>

<p>Should ARWU not be believed (like USN&WR rankings), or is the "Trojan family" overrated?</p>

<p>Sorry if this is a repeat!</p>

2

<p>I dont know if I really trust this ranking... I mean chicago's ranked above oxford. o.O. And almost all the top schools are USA although some other schools are pretty good too... Like Tokyo U's ranked below University of Washington. Hell USC and UPenn are ranked below UW... wtheck?</p>

3

<p>Don't worry about that ranking, or even any rankings for that matter.</p>

4

<p>That might be the most worthless list I have ever seen...</p>

5

<p>Choose the school that you are most happy with. Ignore all these rankings and go with you gut feeling(and it may not be USC). If you enroll at USC and will be unhappy later on it will affect your school performance.</p>

6

<p>Btw, when you look at these rankings. Check out the methodolgy... the 0 for USC just means no alumni from USC have won the nobel prize. It's all about statistics of the professors.</p>

7

<p>This looks to be done based on research prowess, probably as measured by publication record and impact index rankings of published work by the faculty. If that guess is correct, then the ranking makes a bit of sense. USC is really not known for big-time research, and UCSB actually has an EXTREMELY well respected engineering progam.</p>

8

<p>I beg to differ about the engineering part. I took a course from USC umpteen years ago, a course that not many top notch engineering schools have it, including Stanford. From my experience USC is top notch in Computer Engineering. I don't think UCSB comes close.</p>

9

<p>how the hell did Cal rank above Cambridge?</p>

10

<p>According to this ranking: Berkeley beats most of the Ivies. UC Davis is above Brown. And Irvine is apparently better than Georgetown University.</p>

11

<p>Guys, before you all blow a fuse, LOOK AT THE METHODOLOGY.</p>

<p>The ranking is entirely based on research. I repeat: it is entirely based on research.</p>

<p>This means that schools like Dartmouth, Brown, Vanderbilt, USC, etc., who have a smaller presence in research relative to heavyweights like Berkeley, will suffer in the ranking. It is not based on prestige, fame, or "perception" of the school's ranking. It is based entirely on RESEARCH.</p>

<p>Before you all throw snit fits about X is ranked below X, remember that on this ranking the best LACs wouldn't even make it past mid-ranked state schools. This is not a prestige-based ranking. Seriously, read the methodology.</p>

12

<p>Research in what field? Too general of a ranking to make any sense or to be helpful.</p>

13

<p>Columbia_Student,</p>

<p>I am by no means an aggrandizer of this ranking, as I believe that it captures very little of what a school means to the student. Here's the page with the methodology: [url=<a href="http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007Methodology.htm%5DADRW2007-Methodology%5B/url"&gt;http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007Methodology.htm]ADRW2007-Methodology[/url&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p>

<p>I would copy and paste it all, but it's long and I don't want posters on this thread to suffer it all.</p>

14

<p>lol yea, def. not USNWR ranking methology...if you look at it that way, it's like ***?</p>

15

<p>I glanced quickly and something about Natural Sciences and Social Sciences nobel prize winners in the methodology. So where does that leave people who are interested in Engineering?</p>

16

<p>I don't think this ranking is designed to really capture engineering program quality. I think it's really just designed to capture research output measured by awards and citations in major publications. That says nothing of the quality of the law school.</p>

<p>It's just as useless as the USNWR, in my mind. It's just useless in a different way.</p>

17

<p>And engineers don't do research? Engineers don't publish papers? ::rolleyes::</p>

18

<p>Columbia_Student,</p>

<p>I'm sure film programs do research as well, but I don't think too many rankings capture that, either. What's your point, exactly? That this ranking is murky and soupy and doesn't really tell us much about specifics at each school? I agree. But so is USNWR. So is Newsweek. So are all of them. They're all murky and soupy and impossible to use in any meaningful way. The big difference between this ranking and the USNWR, however, is that this ranking attempts to focus entirely on metrics based on research. USNWR does not.</p>

19

<p>I agree with murky, soupy. I just want to point out to others that to ignore Engineering research is a serious flaw because engineering is a field where there tons of research going on.</p>

20

<p>There is also tons of research going on in architecture, film, public policy, and dentistry, all of which are probably not being captured very well by this ranking.</p>

<p>That's why most of these rankings are garbage. They try to capture too much with too little.</p>