<p>I will never, ever be able to write a sentence with both the words 'rankings' and 'excellent' :p.</p>
<p>you just did, tetrisfan. =P</p>
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these rankings are excellent. in terms of global reputation and fame, they're very accurate. many people on this thread need to discard their undergraduate-centered, USN&W-biased perceptions when evaluating universities.
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<p>the funny thing is that these ARE newsweek rankings....lol</p>
<p>to Sheed30: USN&W = US news & world report, not newsweek. </p>
<p>i don't really understand what's funny. i know these are newsweek rankings. i hope you know that newsweek and US news & world report aren't the same thing....lol</p>
<p>Aah, you know what I mean :p.</p>
<p>where is uiuc man..</p>
<p>there are two ways to deal with these 'global universities' rankings by newsweek:</p>
<p>one:</p>
<p>1) these rankings, based on global perspectives, with methodology/creteria by non-us thes world rankings and sjtu, are therefore irrelevant to me.
2) the global community of higher education (grad schools) outside the us to me doesn't exist or at least it don't matter to me. i'm happy and satisfied with the uswr rankings as they're strictly and exclusively us schools and to me us schools represent the best higher education. even though most of the top 10 rankings by newsweek are us unis, some results here and there contradict my preconceived beliefs; therefore, i have every right to question the accuracy/professionalism in the survey. i accept most parts of the survey but still i want to attack, maybe unjustifiably, bits n pieces, here n there because schools i love are ranked below the schools i think are unmatched for. i don't see any reason why i have to check the purpose and methodology of the research, it's not my job. that's the course description of research 101 and again it don't matter either.
3) i know i know not everybody, not all educators particularly those from lower tier lacs, agree with the whole methodology of nswr rankings either, that some say it's creteria/factors used are biased or more favorable towards the elites n top private schools. that don't bother me.</p>
<p>or the other way:</p>
<p>1) the world has been changing rapidly over the past couple of decades and there's a strong need to view the higher education in a much more global perspective cause education now is more global than ever. we need global diversity, int'l faculty, int'l students to have more global perspectives in a more global learning environment. and the rankings survey like newsweek, or thes or sjtu for that matter, might give me something more to learn. okay i accept the fact that there are some flaws but the merits far outweight the drawbacks and i can learn more from this. after all it's not a bad idea to see how the global perspective can come about from this survey.
2) i'm happy, satisfied and proud that the us unis still come out on top overall, particularly the top 10-20, despite the fact that the survey is actually based on the rankings criteria/methodoly originally initiated by the non-us thes and sjtu. so i guess the survey results should be more neutral, impartial and unbiased. and that's a good thing.
3) actually it gives me a lot of insight. now i can see things i didn't quite see before. now i have to admit that ucb is more internationally renowned and respected than i first thought. and what's that again, ucsf? okay okay ucsf must be pretty good to be up there, though a bit surprise to me. and dartmouth and brown, yes i have to say it's hard to swallow but i'm beginning to see your point. and so on and so on.</p>
<p>these rankings are gimmicks. just look at them carefully. no offense, but seriously, dartmouth doesn't even make it to top 100. U-dub is better than hopkins, WUSTL, vanderbilt, carnegie mellon, UV, and emory? give me a break.</p>
<p>lol UPenn dropped so much</p>
<p>this list shows how global/international the university is in relation to one another. it doesn't show academic standards at all.</p>
<p>All rankings are gimmicks Nogueria. I'd argue that USNews is the least reliable of all rankings. Many posts on this thread have already stated that world rankings can't really be compared to USNews since they are typically research based. For research UW has some good programs. I don't find it all that hard to believe that it beat out UVA, Emory, etc...would I choose UW over Hopkins for undergrad? Probably not, but depending on my field I may for graduate school...and Dartmouth is a great school, but it is undergrad focused and hence (once again) I feel it justified being outside of the top 100.</p>
<p>But the USNews is designed to be an undergraduate ranking, so you can't really knock it for that. I think this might be more of an overall research ranking. After all, UCSF in the top 10 and Dartmouth out of the top 100? Please.</p>
<p>USNews is a very credible undergraduate ranking and utilizes sound methodology. There's no way it's the "least reliable" of all rankings. What about that Shanghai University ranking? USNews is definitely the best ranking.</p>
<p>USNews tweaks it rankings to sell magazines and favors the large privates. People think it is the best because it plays into their preconceived notions of prestige. While Shanghai's methodology isn't exactly flawless, it does an okay job of ranking based on research output.</p>
<p>I started laughing when I saw berkeley so high, then I read how they rank, and it makes sense that Berkeley has more articles published because they have many MANY more undergraduates than say Caltech or MIT</p>
<p>Perhaps 99% undergraduates don't publish on top journals. You laughed with a wrong reason.</p>
<p>Berkeley's faculty are super strong. Only 3 schools can match that: Harvard, Stanford, and MIT.</p>
<p>Berkeley has a PA score of 4.8 in USNWR. How many other schools are rated that high?</p>
<p>I agree! Graduate programs and research are what truly distinguish a great university and make it prestigious worldwide. Just being associated with them, even at the undergraduate level, gives credibility to a degree one might obtain there.</p>
<p>No. It's a balance. Grad programs are not and never will be the sole determinant for quality/prestige.</p>
<p>And per your logic, a UG degree from Princeton has less "credibility" than a UG degree from H/S because the latter two have much more impressive graduate programs...</p>
<p>Sure Bourne. Tell that to students at UCSF where there are no UG programs at all. Look at the numbers from Newsweek. Princeton is not among the top 20 worldwide. Schools with very strong graduate programs in several areas are. These types of universities are the ones that produce the top research and scholars that will end up teaching the best students at mainly UG focused schools like Princeton. I never said schools like Princeton have less credibility or prestige than schools like H/S. I just stated that strong, highly ranked worldwide graduate programs help an UG with a degree from that same institution.</p>
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I agree! Graduate programs and research are what truly distinguish a great university and make it prestigious worldwide. Just being associated with them, even at the undergraduate level, gives credibility to a degree one might obtain there.
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<p>So I'm assuming that a degree from Dartmouth lacks a certain kind of credibility that hmm... Wisconsin can provide? </p>
<p>Graduate prestige doesn't affect UG prestige as much as you'd like to think. Much of what Berkeley has is Graduate prestige. There aren't that many people on this site that would pick Berk over the USNWR top ten because they think the UG experience isn't as beneficial when compared. Whether they're right... Who knows. </p>
<p>And btw, the only schools for which your statement applies are publics. Privates stand alone. When people think of UCB or UMich -- they often separate UG and Grad programs. When we think of Harvard/Stanford/MIT/Chicago/Yale/CalTech etc... we don't separate the two. And I would disagree -- I don't think the prestige of UCB's grad schools filters. If it did, then it would get more OOS applicants and it certainly would be able to compete with the top institutions in the world.</p>