World university rankings are lists of higher education institutions ordered using a combination of indicators. Some rankings rely mainly on research indicators, while others place a great deal of emphasis on opinion based surveys. Up to now, there has been no ranking measuring the quality of the learning environment as well as research without relying on surveys and university data submissions. Here it is shown that a ranking measuring the quality of education and training of students as well as the prestige of the faculty and the quality of their research could be constructed based solely on verifiable data. It is found that, in addition to research performance, the quality of an institution's alumni significantly affects its ranking. The indicators used to quantify these aspects are chosen to be robust against manipulation. The results of this study will be of interest to students, academics, university administrators, and government officials from around the world.
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Top 10:
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Oxford
4. MIT
5. Cambridge
6. Columbia
7. Berkeley
8. Princeton
9. University of Chicago
10. Yale</p>
<p>Really peculiar methodology. They judge “faculty quality” solely on the basis of the number of prestigious awards and prizes won by faculty members, weighted relative to the institution’s size. So you cold have a faculty that produces stellar scholarship–lots of publications in the most prestigious journals, lots of citations, etc.–but is still rated poorly because they didn’t win a sufficient number of international prizes. See, e.g., the University of Michigan, #3 in the world in publications, #18 in the world in publications in the most prestigious journals, #8 in the world in citations, #6 in the world in patents produced, yet with a poorly rated faculty (>100) because they didn’t win enough prizes. Or going the other way, you could have a faculty that is rated as stellar based on a few prizes while being somewhat pedestrian in more familiar measures of faculty strength. See, e.g., NYU, #16 in faculty quality despite being #41 in publications, #25 in publications in the most prestigious journals, #33 in citations, and #51 in patents.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, universities without engineering schools (e.g., University of Chicago) tend to fare poorly in the “patents” ranking, and get punished for it in the overall ranking.</p>
<p>“Alumni employment” is measured solely by the # of alums who are CEOs of the world’s 2,000 largest publicly traded companies, weighted relative to the school’s size. I guess in their view other jobs just aren’t worth having?</p>
<p>“Quality of education” is measured solely by the number of alums who have won prestigious international awards and prizes.</p>
<p>International rankings focus on research and sciences. Liberal arts and LAC fans come to these threads crying about how half the Ivies plus smaller elite privates are ranked below public flagships.</p>
<p>I too am having a hard time understanding this confusing ranking.</p>
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<p>Interesting point but how do Princeton and the University of Chicago manage to have such stellar Faculty, Employment, and Alumni scores but relatively meager Publications, Influence, and Citations scores? Other research universities such as Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, and the University of Michigan (as you mentioned) perform better in the latter three measures but do horrible in winning awards and prizes (faculty and graduates).</p>
<p>Michigan: #3 in Publications, #18 in Prestigious Publications, #8 in Citations, #6 in Patents Duke: #22 in Publications, #17 in Prestigious Publications, #17 in Citations, #24 in Patents UNC Chapel Hill: #30 in Publications, #27 in Prestigious Publications, #26 in Citations, #42 in Patents UChicago: #37 in Publications, #21 in Prestigious Publications, #30 in Citations, >100 in Patents Princeton: #58 in Publications, #35 in Prestigious Publications, #27 in Citations, >100 in Patents</p>
<p>However, Duke is only #46, Michigan is >100, and UNC is #60 in winning the big faculty awards and prizes.</p>
<p>So, this begs the question, how are the Chicago and Princeton faculties able to garner so much more recognition even though their track record of scholarship is merely on par with or worse than UNC, Duke, and Michigan?</p>
<p>UCLA’s ranked 16th in the world and 12th in the US. I’m pleased with the ranking (you know, because at the end of the day, it’s not about the ranking’s methodology, but how well it showcases our favorite universities.)</p>
<p>The major international rankings are generally in agreement. LACs are not a thing outside the USA so they are not really considered. They value creation of knowledge and faculty over students.</p>
<p>Northwestern is in similar position to Duke. I have a feeling they narrowly define “awards” - probably only Nobel counts. The ranking unfairly rewards those living the past.</p>
<p>Oh look, another ranking system guaranteed to rank ivies and the like at that top.</p>
<p>Again, no metric that measures the general employment stats of ALL their graduates. :-/</p>
<p>Great strategy for bumping a ranking. Hire a Nobel Laureate so his name is on their staff… of course he doesn’t even need to show up in a classroom or give a damn about actually teaching or the students… but hey, it increases the ranking.</p>
<p>And why bother looking at the entire graduate population. Let’s just cherry pick the stars and rank the university accordingly.</p>
<p>Notice, for instance, how employment “measures the weighted number of an institution’s alumni who currently hold CEO positions at the world’s top 2000 public companies relative to the institution’s size.” There are a lot of successful positions out there that have nothing to do with being the CEO of a top public company.</p>
<p>Fun side note: I thought the acronym was CWRU (Case Western Reserve University) for a moment.</p>