<p>pls pardon my ranking-centric post. </p>
<p>World's</a> Best Universities: Top 400 - US News and World Report</p>
<p>anyone has any idea why umich is internationally ranked so much higher than its widely recognized peers like northwestern and berkeley?</p>
<p>it's just out of curiosity when a friend mentioned it. :)</p>
<p>methodology</p>
<p>In any ranking that has over 1,000 universities, the difference between #19 and #32 or between #19 and #39 is truly negigible. That goes for all rankings, including the USNW Rrankings. Those rankings are flawed and must truly blow little differences WAY out of proportion in order to validate their efforts. That is why most rankings varry wildly from one year to the next. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to those rankings. Michigan, Northwestern and Cal are all elite universities. If those rankings did not blow the tiny differences out of proportion, you would have rankings where:</p>
<p>1) There would be virtually no changes in rankings from year to year
2) The difference in actual rating between universities within 20-25 spots of each other would be truly insignificant. </p>
<p>In other words, the rankings would be boring and nobody would buy them!</p>
<p>The one thing I will say is interesting, if not necessarily accurate from the rankings listed is the “pairings” of Cdn/US universities. Eg. Hailing from Canada, I’ve always considered McGill and UMich roughly equal. I’ve also considered UBC and Berkley similar, and U of Toronto and UCLA rather similar. Low and behold, the rankings place each near each other, so the peer assessments must fall in line apx. with my intuitive senses.</p>
<p>So, in addition to Alexandres points, UMich and Berkley for example normally rank very closely – they still do, but similar schools from different parts of the world, including Canada, are now in the mix. So it actually makes sense to me.</p>