<p>I would make the argument that even though Caltech is specialized in engineering and science, and yet it still rises to the top of some generalized ranking criteria ----- something really special is happening over there. Way to go, Caltech. :-)</p>
<p>P.S. Caltech did rank first for once in USNWR, but apparently they changed the ranking formula again afterwards.</p>
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<p>If the only difference between this and the US news ranking was that this ranking valued math and science, you would expect to see MIT higher than #7. Obviously, that is not what is going on.</p>
<p>I haven’t taken a close look at these new rankings, but don’t the humanities have research dollars associated with them as well, at least in terms of government grants? If they measure research quality by funding, then this would be reflective of science as well as the humanities.</p>
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<p>I thought the whole point of rankings was to design a rubric that makes your alma mater, or your kids’ schools, or your state’s beloved flagship, or any other school you happen to favor for some reason, come out on or near the top.</p>
<p>It’s clear from what little info they do provide about this particular ranking’s methodology is that it will heavily favor big time Research. They assign 30% weight directly to research and another 30% to citation. Since citation measures how often published papers from a given school get cited in other papers, it’s heavily related to the amount of research the school is doing. So there is 60% weight devoted to research right off the top.</p>
<p>With that kind of methodology, it would be surprising if some research boutique like Caltech WASN’T ranked number one.</p>
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<p>Don’t humanities profs get cited and get funding dollars? Isn’t this counted in the ranking methodology?</p>
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<p>Yes.</p>
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<p>The social sciences, maybe. In any case, funding dollars given to most departments in the humanities are probably like a gnat compared to an elephant compared to the big $$ available through the military industrial complex and others.</p>
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<p>If it were, and if the amount of $$ flowing in that direction was even faintly in the same range, the results of this ranking would probably differ. But I confess I haven’t read this latest ranking thing. Rankings in general make me tired.</p>
<p>BTW, since when was Cal Tech this poor, struggling, little unknown place? I’ve been aware of it as a premiere school since I became conscious of colleges. Back in the 60s.</p>
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<p>I don’t think the general public has heard of CalTech.</p>
<p>JHS, not to split hairs too much, but Princeton is not ranked up with Harvard and Stanford on this Times list. It’s at #5.</p>
<p>I agree that the methodology of these rankings seems somewhat less subjective than the USNWR, but then again no method will escape objection.</p>
<p>Most schools don’t even do classified or private research so the idea that the mili-ind complex has much input/control is way off. Most money goes to medical and then hard sciences research. And most of that come from the Feds.</p>
<p>At least according to the article, this year’s rankings give <em>more</em> weight to the arts and humanities and social sciences, and that’s supposedly why Oxford is ranked higher than Cambridge this year (not that I have any knowledge of whether that makes any sense, since I really don’t have any idea of the ways in which Oxford and Cambridge are different).</p>
<p>One important difference between this and USNWR that I didn’t notice anyone mention is that I’m pretty sure that these rankings are for the entire university including graduate schools, rather than just for undergraduate education.</p>
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<p>You’d be amazed how many people think Caltech is either a Cal Poly or Cal State. I think this is one reason they’ve officially made it Caltech instead of Cal Tech. I can walk less than a mile off campus and have people not even know the school exists.</p>
<p>Also, for those worried Caltech doesn’t offer a non-STEM major, you can always get a BS in [English[/url</a>], [url=<a href=“http://www.hss.caltech.edu/humanities/undergrad/options]History[/url”>http://www.hss.caltech.edu/humanities/undergrad/options]History[/url</a>], or [url=<a href=“http://www.hss.caltech.edu/humanities/undergrad/options/hps]History”>http://www.hss.caltech.edu/humanities/undergrad/options/hps]History</a> & the Philosophy of Science](<a href=“http://www.hss.caltech.edu/humanities/undergrad/options/english]English[/url”>http://www.hss.caltech.edu/humanities/undergrad/options/english).</p>
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<p>Yeah, actually a Cal Poly undergrad explained his poster to me at a research conference, and he referred to his school as “Caltech.” So it looks like Cal Poly students are not aware that Caltech exists or that there is a difference.</p>
<p>A couple of times, after asking me where I went to school (MIT), people asked me if it is Michigan. In general, though, the general public knows what it is.</p>
<p>I actually was slightly acquainted with someone who didn’t major in science at Caltech. As I recall her intention was to go into science writing.</p>
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<p>Sure, humanities research is part of the big-time reasearch that universities do. But the number of publications and the amount of funding that flows to humanities research is a faucet drip compared the Amazon river that flows in and out of science and technology research</p>
<p>zenkoan: I was comparing the implicit ranking of US universities embedded in the Times list to the USNWR rankings. In that implicit ranking, Princeton is, yes, another big 1% below Stanford and Harvard, which are tied. USNWR doesn’t look exactly like that this year, but it has looked a lot like that in the recent past. My point was that this ranking is different, but not completely different.</p>
<p>Also, I think these rankings are MORE subjective than USNWR, in that USNWR tries very hard to base most of its ranking categories on measurable quality indicators rather than survey assessments, and I think there is more use of surveys in these rankings. The problem with USNWR’s measurable quality indicators is that to some extent they measure wealth better than quality. (That’s a problem lots of measurable quality indicators have, unfortunately.)</p>
<p>DonnaL: Teaching is also a big component of the rankings, and they clearly aren’t looking at professional schools at all, or else Caltech and Princeton couldn’t be anywhere near the top, or Oxford and Cambridge either. And I don’t think Caltech could get where it is without some kind of per-person analysis, since its faculty size is meaningfully smaller than most of the other top institutions. So while it’s not clearly limited to undergraduate education, it seems to be focused on arts-and-sciences education in general.</p>
<p>I suppose we shouldn’t forget that this is the Times of London and Thomson-Reuters, and therefore any rankings rubric that didn’t put Oxbridge and ICL in the top 10, at least, and UCL not far behind, was not going to fly. We should probably think of these rankings as “How does everyone compare to Oxbridge?” Which is fine with me.</p>
<p>With the proliferation of so many college rankings, I wonder if the ranking in some cases, actually precedes the methodology. After all, who wants to read another ranking with Harvard at #1? Now that’s a yawn.</p>
<p>Didn’t they rank Harvard number 1 last year according to the story? Is the only problem now that Caltech can’t be superior to Harvard in any rankings?</p>
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<p>Problem in whose mind? Certainly no one I’ve seen posting in this thread.</p>
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<p>I had a similar thought. I wonder why, for instance, US News uses the % of students graduating in the top 10 percent of their class instead of 5, or 2 or 3. Places like Caltech, whose student body were almost all in the top 1% of their class, would benefit from a higher bar. Using the top 10% may make sense in separating most colleges, but for the top 20, it is pretty low and basically no school gets any advantage in the rankings by admitting better students.</p>
<p>Also, why do they use a median SAT score instead of an average SAT score? The choice of median benefits places which take a big chunk of people for non-academic reasons (e.g., athletes, children of donors/important people, etc.) </p>
<p>I don’t know how this new ranking assesses quality of the student body, or even if they do at all. However, the old ranking is certainly stacked against Caltech in terms of the academic quality ranking.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why it’s so important that CalTech be rated so highly - they’re already like in the top 10 in the US News ranking. Maybe the general public isn’t so aware of CalTech but I don’t see how this is relevant. For those who matter, CalTech is very well known.</p>
<p>“I don’t think the general public has heard of CalTech.” - I was surprised how many people have not heard of Cal Tech. </p>
<p>But ha… lots more have heard of CalTech than Harvey Mudd (also in CA, also intense engineering… but undergrad only). I only learned of it when DS was a hs junior. Our visit to CalTech was a side trip when looking at Mudd. I actually did not realize CalTech was a “university”.</p>