“… A new list of the world’s most prestigious universities ranks Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge number one and two globally, respectively.” …
They also put UC Davis 45 places ahead of Brown as far as “world prestige,” so yeah . . .
@8bagels A lot of it has to do with research output and prestige or research and academics and Brown isn’t really a research powerhouse and neither is Dartmouth. I think the top 10 ranking is fairly accurate ( Columbia should be after Caltech prob) and the top 20 sort of accurate (Penn should be with or after Uchicago imo at #12 and Cornell prob right after Penn). Also it is true that the most prestigious, well recognized schools in the world are Harvard and MIT with Stanford just behind and quickly rising. As a person who has lived in many countries abroad I can attest that thereis a clear divide between Harvard, MIT, Stanford vs Yale, Princeton in terms of international recognition and prestige perception.
Like anything else, this ranking’s a bit biased. Berkeley, for example, should most definitely have ranked higher than Cambridge and Oxford.
@TiggerDad - why?
@ClarinetDad16 - This whole ranking is based on extremely subjective methodology, for one. To list Cambridge and Oxford 4th and 5th in world ranking by the London based newspaper is suspicious when Berkeley has arguably higher quality of faculty, research publications, patents and grant generations than either of these universities. Compare this highly subjective ranking with this ranking that is based on objective quality of faculty and research: http://www.shanghairanking.com/. It shows:
- Berkeley
- Cambridge
- Oxford
That’s just about right to me, especially Oxford.
those are reputation rankings.
actual world rankings put out by the same organization you mentioned has it
- Caltech
- Oxford
- Stanford
- Cambridge
- MIT
- Harvard
- Princeton
World rankings?
I have taught at four different state universities (3 of them are flagships), I do not think I met any faculty members in the U.S. who care about the so-called world rankings. I do have a few friends who teach outside the U.S. and talk about those rankings because their public budget funding in their countries are partially or indirectly tied to those rankings (really stupid though).
Another thing is that pretty much all those institutions doing the ranking are located outside the U.S. Does not that tell you anything? If this is something that is really important in the U.S., someone would do it; ranking is not rocket science.
30 years ago, Berkeley was great; head to head competing with Stanford. But the California state budget ruined Berkeley. Talk to any Berkeley faculty members, they will XXX about it for hours.
FYI… the prestige rankings referenced by Dave are global prestige rankings as are the actual world rankings… Both lists are from the same organization.
budget cuts or not Berkeley has won more nobel prizes this century than Harvard (behind Stanford and Columbia ) and has inducted more National Academy of Science members this century than any ivy league school… a lot of universities would love to be so “ruined”
Nobel prizes and prestigious membership are lagging indicators. Very few researchers can earn a nobel prize in their first 15 years’ research life. For example, Sharpe at Stanford published his CAPM paper in 1964 and got his Nobel prize in 1990.
Those wonderful outcomes published on Berkeley’s website today are the results from 20, 30, 40 years ago when Berkeley was great and when it paid their future superstars at competitive rates.
As a student, you are surely aware that Berkeley has a large class size. If you like a class size that requires the instructor use a microphone, good for you. Berkeley is a bargain for in-state students. But I do know that some of my professor friends at Berkeley would prefer a more intimate teaching environment (i.e., not so happy).
Berkeley today is not as strong as it used to be for a simple reason (potentially more reasons), it does not pay competitive salary to quality faculty members any more. The pay at Stanford is about 10-30% more than that at Berkeley. You can charge a loyalty penalty on those established researchers (winning whatever things) because they are in their later stage of their professional life and hate to move around. However, the university will be heavily penalized in the distance future if you do so for incoming young professors who may win whatever prizes in 20 or 30 years.
Make no mistake, Berkeley is a very fine school. It gives you fine education and opportunity. I simply think the state of California has not done a good job nurturing such a wonderful institution.
These are the current rankings for nobel prizes this century. Berkeley is third. Harvard,Yale, Oxford, Cambridge do not even crack the top ten. Berkeley is a world caliber research institution… and I don’t see any hard data to show that Berkeley has lost a step.
1.Stanford University
2.Columbia University
3.University of California, Berkeley
4.Princeton University
5.University of Chicago
6.Howard Hughes Medical Institute
7.University of California, Santa Barbara
8.Massachusetts Institute of Technology
9.Technion Israel Institute of Technology
10.Max Planck Society
^ By “this century,” do you mean that the Nobel prizes for the faculty were awarded in the year 2000 or after?
yes and the same holds true for members inducted in the National Academy of Sciences… Berkeley is showing increased numbers in these categories in recent years relative to peers. not decreased despite budgetary difficulties which btw have been an issue every decade for Berkeley.
^ Thanks for the clarification… When we toured UCB, the guide showed us that Nobel laureates had dedicated parking spaces, a nice perk 
The article that @sbballer references for the ranking by Nobel Prizes is severely flawed.
First, it only credits a university for Nobel Prizes awarded to faculty members at the time of the award, even if the research was done earlier at another institution or university. That institution gets no credit, which is ridiculous. Second, it does not credit universities for Nobel Prizes awarded to its alumni. Third, it discounts Nobel Prizes awarded to 3 people versus those awarded to only 2 people (which there really is no justification for doing… it’s not like the quality of work is less).
the methodology is below… It was conducted by the same organization that came up with these prestige rankings btw.
Basically measures nobel prizes at the time the award was granted (with weighting parameters as described below)… Nothing flawed about that.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/stanford-top-university-for-producing-nobel-laureates
- by institution at which time the Nobel Prize was granted,
- score was then weighted based on the number of prizewinners for the category and the number of institutions affiliated with each award winner.
- Literature and peace prizewinners were excluded from the analysis.
@sbballer, If a researcher did research at institution A as a PhD student, and said research continued at institution B as a postdoc that resulted in a Nobel Prize winning breakthrough, and yet received the award years later when the researcher was at institution C, you think that it is “fair” that only institution C gets credit for that award, but not institution A and B??
Nobel Prizes are not awarded for “lifetime achievement”… they are awarded for specific breakthroughs and scientific discoveries. There is no reason to not credit the institutions that trained the scientist or the institution that supported the award-winning work.
I looked at recent Nobel Prize winners in Physics and noted a number of scientists who did the work at Harvard during graduate school or shortly thereafter, but a 3rd institution where the work wasn’t done would have received “credit” for the award.
This is why most institutions include alumni in their Nobel Prize counts (including Stanford).
In Physics, only 3 Stanford graduates have ever won the Nobel Prize ever… and 2 of them won it together.
Harvard graduates have won 14 Nobel prizes in Physics, including 5 since 2004… that’s right, Harvard graduates have more Nobel Prizes in Physics in the past 12 years than Stanford’s entire history.
19 Harvard graduates have won Chemistry Nobel Prizes vs. Stanford’s 4.
6 of Harvard alumni Nobel Prizes were awarded since 2001… so more Harvard alumni have won Nobel Prizes in Chemistry just in the past 15 years than all of Stanford’s entire history.
In medicine, 19 Harvard alumni have won Nobel Prizes vs. only 1 Stanford alumnus.
4 were awarded in the past 15 units… so Harvard alumni have won 4 times more Medicine Nobel Prizes in the past 15 years than Stanford alumni ever.
In economics, 13 Harvard alumni have won Nobel Prizes vs. only 3 Stanford alumni.
8 of them in the past 15 years, nearly 3 times more than Stanford alumni ever.
It sure seems to me that Harvard alumni win far more Nobel Prizes in the past 15 years than Stanford alumni over its entire history.
The logic seems to conclude that harvard has better students and stanford has better professors.
@ewho, not necessarily. The data is there on Wikipedia if you care to parse it. I wouldn’t rely on that one ranking posted by @sbballer because it has very clear methodological problems… including discounted Nobel Prizes awarded to 3 scientists vs. 2 scientists… the rationale for which is specious.
Harvard clearly has a relatively very high number of faculty who are Nobel Prize winners.
all these results - university, nobel prize - including the “prestige” rankings that was referenced by Dave Berry - are put out by Times higher ed.
The nobel results are for the past 16 years (this century). Stanford faculty leads in nobel prizes. Berkeley is third. it measures nobel prizes by university at the time the nobel prize was awarded…with weighting depending on how many people shared the prize. that’s the methodology.
university rankings
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2016/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank_label/sort_order/asc/cols/rank_only
prestige rankings
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/worlds-most-prestigious-universities-world-reputation-rankings-2016-results
nobel rankings this century
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/stanford-top-university-for-producing-nobel-laureates