<p>I'm not one to focus on rankings but today the QS World Uni Rankings for 2008 came out. I was surprised to see that Princeton, far from occupying its usual position in the top 5, was at #12, below Penn and Columbia. Can anyone account for this sharp drop?</p>
<p>THE QS Rankings are volatile...don't worry about it. Look at Berkeley: From 8 to 36 in two years. They have a lot of fine tuning to do before these rankings are legit.</p>
<p>Sure, they can be sometimes inaccurate, but still, there must be a reason for the drop?</p>
<p>The drop appears to be caused by the low staff/student score, which is also abysmal for Stanford and Brown. Does anyone know what staff/student score measures?</p>
<p>Times</a> Higher Education Spreadsheet of Individual Scores</p>
<p>Cathedra, youre correct. The staff to student score is normally called the student/faculty ratio and I believe this is simply a case of inconsistent reporting by the institutions or inconsistent data gathering by the ranking organization. </p>
<p>Here is how the U.S. institutions in the top twenty ranked this year:</p>
<p>Top U.S. Overall Score</p>
<p>Harvard-----100
Yale ---------99.8
CalTech------98.6
Chicago------98
MIT----------96.7
Columbia----96.3
Penn---------96.1
Princeton----95.7<br>
Duke, JHU---94.4 (tie)<br>
Cornell-------94.3
Stanford-----91.2
Michigan-----91</p>
<p>The above ranking was composed of the following elements weighted in varying degrees. The most important and largest single part of the score was the peer review score, similar to the U.S. News peer assessment. Here Princeton tied numerous other institutions all of which were given a score of 100.</p>
<p>Top U.S. Peer Review Score (40% of total score)</p>
<p>100 (tie)-------CalTech, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Yale
99 (tie) --------JHU, Michigan
97 (tie) --------Duke, Penn</p>
<p>The next two most significant elements in the total ranking were the percentage of faculty from countries outside the U.S. and the Student/Faculty ratio, each of which accounted for 20%. In the percentage of faculty who are international, CalTech led the way while Princeton came in second and about the same as its peers:</p>
<p>Top U.S. International Staff Score (20% of total score)</p>
<p>100--------CalTech
91----------Princeton
89----------Yale
87----------Harvard
83----------Penn
78----------Chicago
59----------Michigan
33----------MIT
30 (tie) ----Duke, JHU
29 (tie) ----Columbia, Cornell, Stanford</p>
<p>However, in the Student/Faculty Ratio ranking, Princeton was near the bottom, along with Stanford. Notice the large gap here.</p>
<p>Top U.S. Student/Faculty Ratio (20% of total score)</p>
<p>100 (tie)--------Duke, Harvard, JHU, Yale
98 (tie) ---------CalTech, Chicago, Columbia
90 (tie) ---------Cornell, MIT
88---------------Penn
85---------------Michigan</p>
<p>75---------------Princeton
67---------------Stanford</p>
<p>I think what has happened is that different schools have reported numbers differently. Some have included just the full time equivalent instructional faculty while others have apparently included non-instructional staff, often associated with the administration of medical facilities. In the ordinary sense of the word, these additional staff members are not actually faculty members (i.e. professors) but might be administrators, researchers, etc. Thats just a guess but the following helps to show the difference. </p>
<p>When these same schools report their full-time equivalent faculty numbers on the Common Data Set (which is widely used in this country for institutional research and for calculating student/faculty ratios) the numbers reported by many of Princetons peers are much lower. Here are the comparisons for some of these. </p>
<p>Institution / Faculty # Reported to THES / Faculty # Reported in Common Data Set</p>
<p>Harvard / 3,788 / 1,564</p>
<p>Yale / 2,902 / 1,100</p>
<p>Stanford / 1,758 / 1,028</p>
<p>Princeton / 825 / 825</p>
<p>You can see that Princeton appears to be reporting just its full time equivalent instructional faculty, the same number it reports in the Common Data Set. Each of the other three schools shown above is reporting a multiple of its Common Data Set number. Harvard reports a faculty number 2.5 times its Common Data Set number. Yale reports approximately 3 times its Common Data Set number and Stanford reports a little over 1.5 times its number. </p>
<p>I dont believe that these other institutions are intentionally inflating the numbers, theyre simply interpreting the data request differently and reporting non-instructional faculty and research staff. The result, however, is to dramatically lower the student/faculty ratios for Harvard and Yale in particular. With 20% of the final ranking score coming from this calculation, it makes a big difference.</p>
<p>There are three more ranking categories that go into the final score. The first is an employer review score that attempts to assess the attractiveness of an institutions graduates to potential employers. Here, almost all the schools are tied with scores between 98 and 100.</p>
<p>Top U.S. Employer Review Score (10% of total score)</p>
<p>100 (tie)--------Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale
99 (tie) ---------Columbia, Cornell, Chicago, Michigan
98 (tie) ---------Duke, Penn, Princeton
78---------------JHU
74---------------CalTech</p>
<p>The next category attempts to measure the influence and prestige of the faculty. Again, most of the top schools are tied in the 98 to 100 range.</p>
<p>Top U.S. Faculty Citations Score (5% of total score)</p>
<p>100 (tie)--------CalTech, Harvard, JHU, MIT, Princeton, Stanford
99---------------Penn
98---------------Yale
96---------------Cornell
94 (tie) ---------Columbia, Duke
91---------------Chicago
84---------------Michigan</p>
<p>Finally, the remaining 5% of the score is calculated based on the percentage of students who are non-U.S. citizens. Here MIT clearly leads and Princeton is in the middle range.</p>
<p>Top U.S. International Students Score (5% of total score)</p>
<p>94---------------MIT
93---------------CalTech
89---------------Columbia
87---------------Stanford
83---------------Chicago
82---------------Princeton
81---------------Harvard
79---------------Penn
76---------------Cornell
71---------------Yale
68---------------JHU
66---------------Duke
51---------------Michigan</p>
<p>I hope this helps explain the scoring. Im a little confused as to why having a large percentage of non-domestic faculty or students is an indicator of quality but all of these rankings (including those from U.S. News) should be used with caution. The methodologies vary. </p>
<p>At any rate, its still nice for Princeton to be included in the top 20 internationally!</p>
<p>PtonGrad, that was awesome. Thanks for the research and clear explanation!</p>