Is Rice University actually worse than McGill University?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Okay, let me first clear it out that I do not care about rankings, and would not apply to places just looking at the rankings, and do not care about the criteria for the rankings (usually), and do not care about prestige (that comes from name, not strength of program/opportunities with the programs/respected rigor). </p>

<p>I'm gonna be applying for Class of 2017, and I was looking at Rice and McGill, along with others. Now, I checked the rankings just for some reference, and it appears that Rice is ranked lower than McGill in QS, ARWU, HEEACT World University Rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings, i.e pretty much every global ranking.</p>

<p>Although I KNOW that rankings don't mean much, and that I should make decisions based on other things apart from rankings (really I can't emphasize this point hard enough), but as I'm an international and do not plan to live/work in the US in the long term, I wanted some sort of reference as to how good are the colleges I have on my list compared to each other. So, I was wondering if Rice ranks lower than McGill in almost ALL global rankings, does it mean that it is "worse"?</p>

<p>I'm just curious.</p>

2

<p>No one goes to Rice because of their world university ranking.</p>

3

<p>IMO, Rice is stronger than McGill</p>

4

<p>rice is amazing</p>

5

<p>Rice and McGill are very different schools in almost every aspect. It has nothing to do with particular rankings. It doesn’t mean that one is better than the other. McGill is much larger than Rice and thus produces a higher volume of research, which is the primary component of the worldwide rankings.</p>

<p>You definitely need to visit each school if possible.</p>

6

<p>While the USNWR rankers are slightly okay, the world rankings are just funny. Actually a lot of them don’t make any sense. I think it’s mostly just name recognition, and since McGill is the #1 school in Canada, it is more well known than Rice, which has much more competition.</p>

7

<p>Almost all of the world rankings are horrible</p>

8

<p>If you want to answer that question, you need to define the term “worse” and then examine the methodologies behind these rankings to determine whether they are of any use to you.</p>

<p>This does not involve comparing the results to your preconceived opinions about schools, which is what most people on CC do.</p>