<p>1 University of Cambridge United Kingdom
2 Harvard University United States<br>
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) United States<br>
4 Yale University United States<br>
5 University of Oxford United Kingdom </p>
<p>6 Imperial College London United Kingdom
7 UCL (University College London) United Kingdom
8 University of Chicago United States<br>
9 University of Pennsylvania United States<br>
10 Columbia University United States </p>
<p>11 Stanford University United States<br>
12 California Institute of Technology (Caltech) United States<br>
13 Princeton University United States<br>
14 University of Michigan United States<br>
15 Cornell University United States </p>
<p>16 Johns Hopkins University United States<br>
17 McGill University Canada
18 ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) Switzerland<br>
19 Duke University United States<br>
20 University of Edinburgh United Kingdom </p>
<p>21 University of California, Berkeley (UCB) United States<br>
22 University of Hong Kong Hong Kong<br>
23 University of Toronto Canada
24 Northwestern University United States<br>
25 The University of Tokyo Japan</p>
<p>Michigan over Berkeley is understandable. What isn’t is JHU and Duke over Berkeley. Also, Chicago, Penn and Columbia over Stanford is not acceptable.</p>
<p>It feels as if the rankings have gotten more British biased oriented since THES left. </p>
<p>Some European and Asian universities clocking higher on the list than I’m accustomed. Particularly, the French universities make a sudden appearance (but Pierre and Marie Curie is gone). Were Bristol and Manchester always there? Never noticed them either. The boost to the Asian universities is welcome, however.</p>
<p>I think this QS rankings is definitely divergent for the QS of the past. There are new universities appearing and disappearing.</p>
<p>Well, we’re all going to have our own favorites. (I don’t have a dog in the Mich vs. Cal fight, but I called it out because lots of folks here really care!) </p>
<p>By and large, I pretty much agree with you, except that I think Chicago truly belongs among the very elite.</p>
<p>QS lost much of its former prestige after it broke its association with THES. International students, government agencies and employers tend to give much greater weight to the new THES list (which is due in October ?) than to QS.</p>
<p>As far as the US rankings are concerned, these are nonsensical–try to find a US source which would rank Dartmouth, Rice, Vanderbilt and the University of Chicago behind Penn State</p>
<p>Well, on a global scale, I would understand why Penn State is ahead. It’s a very large research institution. And the more research a school does, the more people know about it. So, that is why the top US schools have most of the ivies (which do tons of research), other large universities (BU, NYU) and the public schools, at the top.</p>
<p>I agree with Bruno. Most universities in Continental Europe are highhly speecialized, generally focusing in a handful of related fields. They typically exccel in those fields, but how can they be ranked against US and British universities which offer a far larger selection of fields of study?</p>
<p>UK universities are favored because of the measure of % international students/faculty. Since the UK is so small, they have no choice but to draw heavily from other countries, mainly the EU. I can’t think of a good reason that this is important for a ranking; the explanation that QS gives sounds like BS - IMO the measure is most likely included just to give a bump to UK universities. Without it, Cambridge would not have edged out Harvard, Imperial/UCL would not have edged out Chicago, etc.</p>
<p>Why not? Why exactly should we trust your opinion over the QS measurements?</p>
<p>All these schools show up again and again near the top of one academic ranking after another, year after year. As long as they don’t emphasize too many extracurricular factors (like cost or student social mobility), the set of top 20-30 schools comes out about the same. What changes, more or less, is the order. That is because nobody agrees on exactly the right criteria and measurements to make precise distinctions among schools that are not all that easily distinguishable. These are fairly large, complex organizations with many facets.</p>
<p>Not really. Citations per faculty (as opposed to absolute number of publications) is only a small part (20 %) of the QS score. Most of the score (50 %) is based on “academic reputation” (i.e academic peer review) and “employer reputation” (based on employers’ surveys). The global score also considers student/faculty ratio (which is directly relevant to undergraduate education and is also 20 % of the index) and percentage of international faculty/students. </p>
<p>Overall, QS is really pretty much a “prestige ranking” like USN&WR. It is not meant to be a research quality indicator or to be focused on graduate education as moderators on CC claim as an excuse to move all discussions about world rankings from the main “College Search and Selection” board. </p>
<p>BTW, even if it were true that QS and other world rankings were based on research quality or volume only, that in itself would not justify blocking all discussion on the topic in the main “College Search and Selection” board as research indicators may be a factor that many HS seniors use to select their undergraduate college. After all, there are threads on that board on ranking colleges based on male/female ratio or percentage of students who go Greek. Why can’t seniors discuss ranking colleges based on research output ?</p>
<p>“Michigan over Berkeley is understandable. What isn’t is JHU and Duke over Berkeley. Also, Chicago, Penn and Columbia over Stanford is not acceptable.”</p>
<p>Collateral damage. When Cambridge is ranked ahead of Harvard and MIT and Imperial and UCL are ranked ahead of Stanford, UChicago and Berkeley, you know that the whole list would be screwed up. QS is finally able to do it’s thing, and it has reached a new height in terms of ridiculousness.</p>
<p>“Overall, QS is really pretty much a ‘prestige ranking’”</p>