Stanford or MIT?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
21

<p>

</p>

<p>Nobody takes these rankings seriously. In the top 15 alone, 6 of them are Asian:</p>

<p>Nanyang Technological University (#4 above CMU? Really?)
Tsinghua University
City University of Hong Kong
National University of Singapore
National Cheng Kung University
Hong Kong Polytechnic University</p>

<p>No other ranking in the world puts that many in the top 15. Honestly, City University of Hong Kong? National Cheng Kung University? The obvious pro-Chinese bias (in all of its rankings) eliminates its credibility.</p>

22

<p>^Most of these rankings are based on the graduate school, which is important but doesn’t tell you about the undergrad experience. Comp sci. is quite different from other fields so you should find people who actually have majored in this at MIT or Stanford (and for MIT, find a course 6-3 rather than a EECS person.)</p>

<p>The volume of work at MIT tends to be more across the board regardless of field, so my guess is that there would be a lot more work at MIT even in comp sci. You could take this two ways, though. You may have more time to actually start a business while in school at Stanford.</p>

23

<p>datalook:
In terms of impact per faculty, Stanford is not quite at the top either. Caltech is the first, University of Basel and Bangor University are also ahead of Stanford. </p>

<p>If you think that QS ranking is a joke, please read those colorful comments on NRC ranking as well. There are plenty more of them in the web. I have no relationship with MIT, just fun to read the comments from some of the die-hard Stanford fans. Can’t help to chime in.</p>

<p>Phanta:
The Taiwan ranking cames from the data of Reuter Thompson (you may claim Reuter Thompson a Chinese propaganda department, too). If you bother, please help yourself to check it out. Those data are readily available and reproduced. The Chinese has spent enormous amount of money in technology and science in recent years. There are quite some publication volume from their side. If their papers have similar impact as ours, we will be in trouble. But that may change. The main body of research publications actually comes from Chinese Academy of Science, which published 5-6 times the volume of Stanford University, and is not listed in the ranking. We may underestimate their strength.</p>

24

<p>QS ranking has a shameless agenda: boosting British universities, no matter they suck or not. MIT benefits from their agenda somehow. A good example is QS ranking in statistics major. MIT is #5 in statistics in the world. But MIT does not even have a statistics department. The work MIT has done in statistics is close to 0 if any. However, MIT even beats Berkeley in academics review and employer review. As a statistician myself, I think it’s fair to say that the relative strength of these 2 universities is: Berkeley 10, MIT 0.</p>

<p>By the way, Princeton does not have a statistics department either. But Princeton has at least created some famous statisticians several decades ago, such as John Tukey. So it is more deserved and less ridiculous.</p>

<p>Here is the laughable ranking by QS in statistics:
Rank/Institution/Country/Academic/Employer/Citations/Score</p>

<p>1 Stanford University United States 100 65.8 82.8 93.1
2 Harvard University United States 93.1 100 55.6 86.3
3 University of California, Berkeley (UCB) United States 91.7 57.3 79.9 85.9
4 University of Cambridge United Kingdom 97.1 96.8 40.9 85.8
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) United States 94.4 67.1 51.2 83
6 University of Oxford United Kingdom 95.5 88.9 27.1 81.2
7 National University of Singapore (NUS) Singapore 72.3 39.3 57.8 66.1
8 University of Toronto Canada 73.5 30.1 41.2 62.7
9 Imperial College London United Kingdom 66 51.7 51.5 61.7
10 Princeton University United States 66.9 44.2 46.7 60.6</p>

25

<p>QS World University Rankings by Subject: Medicine</p>

<p>Rank Title Country Academic Employer Citations Score
1 Harvard University United States 100.0 100.0 84.0 93.6
2 University of Cambridge United Kingdom 81.7 94.1 74.1 79.9
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) United States 62.6 83.2 100.0 79.6
4 University of Oxford United Kingdom 76.5 90.0 79.2 78.9
5 Stanford University United States 74.9 66.3 70.4 72.2
6 Yale University United States 67.1 55.9 70.3 67.3
7 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) United States 63.5 54.5 67.2 64.1
8 Johns Hopkins University United States 63.7 29.6 65.7 61.1
9 Imperial College London United Kingdom 56.9 45.6 63.9 58.6
10 University of California, San Diego (UCSD) United States 50.6 27.0 71.2 56.5
11 California Institute of Technology (Caltech) United States 32.4 38.1 90.8 56.3
12 University of Toronto Canada 55.7 47.9 54.0 54.2
13 McGill University Canada 45.9 63.0 60.4 53.4
14 Duke University United States 39.7 57.3 68.6 53.0
15 The University of Melbourne Australia 53.2 60.4 49.6 52.5
16 Columbia University United States 42.8 60.8 62.2 52.4
17 University of California, San Francisco United States 45.2 24.5 67.5 52.1</p>

<p>This time, MIT is #3 in the world. It beats Stanford, Johns Hopkins, U-penn, and UCSF. Wait a second, even Caltech beats UCSF according to QS.</p>

<p>As I know, UCSF has the 2nd most membership in Institute of Medicine (IOM), one of the 3 branches of national academies. Sadly, the mighty UCSF is crashed by MIT and Caltech in QS ranking. </p>

<p>**Fact: Neither MIT nor Caltech has a medical school. Neither appears in US NEWS medical school ranking **</p>

26

<p>Hopefully, people with a brain should at least doubt QS rankings by British.</p>

27

<p>I do not know about statistics. However, in terms of translational medicine and basic life science, MIT is right at the top, and is extremely influential, even though it does not do clinical service teaching. If it was included in medical science ranking, it may very well beat Stanford or at least just as good.</p>

28

<p>Yeah, the medicine ranking is not a joke. The largest biomedical engineering lab in the world (Langer lab) is at MIT. And there is a ton of translational research that comes out of the engineering, bio, and chem departments. There is also a medical engineering program.</p>

<p>As for stats, it depends on how you define it. MIT’s poli sci. department is ranked highly because it is so strong on quantitative analysis; this may have an impact on the stats ranking. Also, parts of the applied math department may impact the stats ranking.</p>

29

<p>Imagine a person wants to have an emergency medical treatment. If there are only 2 choices, either to see a doctor trained at UCSF, or to see an engineer from MIT’s biomedical engineering program, where would the person go? the UCSF guy or the MIT guy?</p>

<p>I bet if the person is normal, not stupid, he will go to the UCSF guy. </p>

<p>We are talking about medicine, not just biomedical engineering. MIT beats Stanford in medicine? No joking please.</p>

30

<p>In terms of statistics, as a professional statistician with a PhD in this field, I know what I am talking about. I said MIT has made virtually zero contributions to statistics. I think I am fair on this one. If you don’t believe me, please name one person from MIT who is or was famous in statistics. Just one person, deceased or alive, at the level of member of national academy of science. </p>

<p>QS ranking staff tried hard to fool the world. Please don’t be fooled by them, especially if you are from MIT, because I believe MIT people are generally smart people.</p>

31

<p>The guy from Harvard med will be using drugs developed at MIT.</p>

<p>This is such a pointless argument, anyway. As a statistician, you should know that it all depends on how you define the subject. If you define medicine as medical research, well then, it is not a surprise MIT is #3. </p>

<p>So go ahead and find how QS defines “medicine” and “statistics”. There is no point in discussing it further without those definitions.</p>

32

<p>MIT is #37 this time. </p>

<p>World
Rank Institution Country Total Score Score on Alumni Award HiCi PUB TOP<br>
1 Harvard University 100.0 100.0 75.1 100.0 100.0 100.0<br>
2 University of California, San Francisco 83.8 0.0 100.0 93.3 72.6 96.6<br>
3 The Johns Hopkins University 77.1 62.0 58.8 71.7 69.4 95.6<br>
4 University of Washington 76.6 55.5 74.7 67.6 67.3 93.1<br>
5 Columbia University 70.2 73.4 54.6 52.5 62.5 93.2<br>
6 University of California, Los Angeles 66.6 0.0 39.2 70.7 67.1 95.1<br>
7 The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas 65.9 62.0 76.0 41.7 45.1 96.4<br>
8 University of Michigan - Ann Arbor 64.6 27.7 0.0 73.7 70.3 93.5<br>
9 Karolinska Institute 62.9 48.0 55.5 46.6 59.6 83.4<br>
9 University of Pittsburgh 62.9 39.2 0.0 65.9 67.8 92.8<br>
11 University College London 62.8 39.2 27.7 57.1 59.3 93.0<br>
12 Stanford University 61.8 0.0 53.7 56.5 56.3 93.0<br>
13 University of Oxford 61.5 55.5 43.9 46.6 44.6 97.0<br>
14 University of Cambridge 60.3 92.0 43.9 36.1 38.0 95.0<br>
15 University of Minnesota, Twin Cities 59.9 39.2 0.0 65.9 58.6 90.6<br>
16 Mayo Medical School 59.3 0.0 0.0 64.3 67.8 96.2<br>
17 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 58.4 0.0 43.9 46.6 59.4 92.7<br>
18 Vanderbilt University 56.2 0.0 63.5 35.1 46.8 96.5<br>
19 The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center 55.8 0.0 0.0 59.0 58.1 97.7<br>
20 University of Wisconsin - Madison 55.3 55.5 34.0 29.5 50.4 90.6<br>
21 Yale University 55.2 62.0 27.7 24.1 52.9 94.2<br>
22 University of Pennsylvania 54.2 62.0 0.0 20.9 68.5 94.7<br>
23 The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine 53.7 0.0 0.0 60.2 51.3 95.3<br>
24 Duke University 53.4 0.0 0.0 51.1 61.1 93.4<br>
25 University of California, San Diego 53.0 48.0 0.0 38.1 52.2 94.7<br>
26 Cornell University 52.5 48.0 19.6 39.0 41.8 90.3<br>
27 King’s College London 51.4 0.0 39.2 41.7 47.2 85.3<br>
27 Tufts University 51.4 0.0 34.0 44.2 40.5 92.9<br>
29 University of Toronto 51.1 0.0 0.0 36.1 75.0 85.6<br>
30 University of Nottingham 51.0 0.0 53.7 41.7 33.9 88.4<br>
31 University of California, Berkeley 50.8 78.4 0.0 39.0 28.8 96.3<br>
32 Emory University 50.0 0.0 0.0 46.6 53.2 92.8<br>
33 The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston 49.3 0.0 39.2 41.7 35.8 88.9<br>
34 McGill University 49.0 55.5 0.0 25.5 50.1 90.8<br>
35 Boston University 48.4 0.0 0.0 41.7 47.7 96.9<br>
36 Leiden University 48.0 0.0 0.0 41.7 46.9 96.0<br>
37 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 47.8 78.4 94.1 24.1 26.2<br>
38 University of Zurich 47.6 0.0</p>

33

<p>This ranking is a little better than QS ranking. They spent a little less effort to promote UK universities at least.</p>

<p>MIT and Caltech are not ranked in top 50, or perhaps not ranked at all. </p>

<p>The world ranking in Clinical, pre-clinical and health by Times Higher education</p>

<p>1 University of Oxford United Kingdom 93.3 89.1 85.6 96.9 90.8 99.9
2 Harvard University United States 92.5 92.6 66.3 39.4 96.3 98.9
3 Imperial College London United Kingdom 89.4 83.4 89.5 83.3 84.2 98.8
4 University of Cambridge United Kingdom 88.6 80.8 81.3 50.9 88.5 99.1
5 Johns Hopkins University United States 88.4 85.1 64.1 99.9 87.2 96.4
6 Stanford University United States 87.6 87 63 54.1 87.9 95.6
7 University College London United Kingdom 87.2 83.3 86.9 47.7 85.4 94.7
8 Yale University United States 85.2 87.4 65.5 42.6 85 90.8
9 University of California Los Angeles United States 85.1 87.5 39.1 Data withheld by THE 86.2 95.1
10 Duke University United States 84.3 78.4 48.7 98.9 82.6 96.9
11 McGill University Canada 84.2 88.3 65.9 40.3 86.4 86.5
12 Washington University in St Louis United States 83 82.5 62 Data withheld by THE 77 94.6
13 University of Pennsylvania United States 82.9 84.8 35.2 43.3 82.5 94.7
14 University of Melbourne Australia 82.8 81.3 76.1 58.5 84.9 85.4
15 University of Michigan United States 82.6 83.1 44 46.5 82.4 93.2
16 McMaster University Canada 82.5 74.7 72.2 97.6 72.8 97.3
17 University of Toronto Canada 82.4 87.4 69.6 62.3 88.2 77.9
18 University of California Berkeley United States 82.3 79.1 46.7 39.6 82.7 95.3
19 University of Washington United States 82.2 80.4 39.5 38 82.5 95.8
20 Karolinska Institute Sweden 81.3 83.7 69.7 58.6 90 76.6
20 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill United States 81.3 82.3 26.3 41.6 79.7 96.4
22 King’s College London United Kingdom 79.6 75.3 88.7 43 75.9 86.6
23 University of Pittsburgh United States 79.4 78.2 33.3 40.8 77.3 94.5
24 The University of Sydney Australia 78.8 75.2 84.8 90.4 78.6 79.7
25 University of Edinburgh United Kingdom 76.7 70.8 66.4 46.6 63.3 96.1
26 Boston University United States 75.5 72.4 45.5 35.9 62.6 97.4
26 University of Chicago United States 75.5 74.9 53.7 Data withheld by THE 61.5 93.4
28 Emory University United States 75.2 69.9 42.1 39.9 69.3 93.6
29 Cornell University United States 74.5 69.5 59.2 Data withheld by THE 70.4 87.4
30 Vanderbilt University United States 71.3 65.4 28.1 65 64.2 91.3
31 University of Massachusetts United States 71.1 71 25.4 40.9 76.2 79.2
32 University of Tokyo Japan 69.9 79.1 24.1 55.3 80.3 65.2
33 Monash University Australia 69.6 64.6 70.9 71.2 67.5 74.7
34 The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong 69.3 63.9 85.3 70 71.2 68.6
35 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit</p>

34

<p>I just googled “medical research mit” and found a lot of activities at MIT:</p>

<p>[MIT</a> Course Catalog: Clinical Research Center](<a href=“Welcome! < MIT”>Welcome! < MIT)
[Harvard-MIT</a> Health Sciences and Technology](<a href=“http://hst.mit.edu/index.jsp]Harvard-MIT”>http://hst.mit.edu/index.jsp)
<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres07/08.01b.pdf[/url]”>http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres07/08.01b.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
[MIT</a> - Research](<a href=“Research | MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology”>Research | MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
[Massachusetts</a> Institute of Technology | HCCRC Sites | Harvard Catalyst Clinical Research Center (HCCRC) | Harvard Catalyst](<a href=“http://catalyst.harvard.edu/programs/hccrc/mit.html]Massachusetts”>http://catalyst.harvard.edu/programs/hccrc/mit.html)
[Gift</a> launches center for psychiatric research | Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard](<a href=“http://www.broadinstitute.org/news/137]Gift”>Gift launches center for psychiatric research | Broad Institute)
[MIT</a> Department of Biology Glenn Foundation for Medical Research](<a href=“http://glennfoundation.org/consortium/mit/]MIT”>Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at MIT)</p>

35

<p>

</p>

<p>It’s “better” because it has more emphasis on clinical research. Please…</p>

<p>Clinical research is derivative. MIT doesn’t do it. Neither does Caltech.</p>

<p>MIT invents new therapies, then farms them out to places that do clinical research.</p>

36

<p>2012 US NEWS ranking in biological science fields.</p>

<p>** biological science overall ranking **</p>

<h1>1 Stanford University</h1>

<p>Stanford, CA
4.9<br>
#2 Harvard University
Boston, MA
4.8<br>
#2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA
4.8<br>
#2 University of California–Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
4.8<br>
#5 California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA
4.7<br>
#5 Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD
4.7<br>
#7 Princeton University
Princeton, NJ
4.5<br>
#7 Scripps Research Institute
La Jolla, CA
4.5<br>
#7 University of California–San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
4.5 </p>

<p>** biochemistry and biophysics**</p>

<h1>1 Harvard University</h1>

<p>Boston, MA</p>

<p>#2 Stanford University
Stanford, CA</p>

<p>#3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA</p>

<p>#4 Yale University
New Haven, CT</p>

<p>#5 University of California–San Francisco
San Francisco, CA</p>

<p>#6 Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD</p>

<p>#6 University of California–Berkeley
Berkeley, CA</p>

<p>#8 California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA</p>

<p>#9 Rockefeller University
New York, NY</p>

<p>#9 Scripps Research Institute </p>

<p>ecology </p>

<h1>1 University of California–Berkeley</h1>

<p>Berkeley, CA</p>

<p>#2 Harvard University
Boston, MA</p>

<p>#3 University of California–Davis
Davis, CA</p>

<p>#4 University of Chicago
Chicago, IL</p>

<p>#5 Stanford University
Stanford, CA</p>

<p>#6 Cornell University
Ithaca, NY</p>

<p>#6 University of Texas–Austin
Austin, TX</p>

<p>#6 Yale University
New Haven, CT</p>

<p>#9 Princeton University
Princeton, NJ</p>

<p>#9 University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ</p>

<p>** Imunology/infectious disease **</p>

<h1>1 Harvard University</h1>

<p>Boston, MA</p>

<p>#2 University of California–San Francisco
San Francisco, CA</p>

<p>#3 Stanford University
Stanford, CA</p>

<p>#3 Yale University
New Haven, CT</p>

<p>#5 Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD</p>

<p>#5 Washington University in St. Louis
St. Louis, MO</p>

<p>#7 Duke University
Durham, NC</p>

<p>#7 University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA</p>

<p>#9 University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center–Dallas
Dallas, TX</p>

<p>Neural science</p>

<h1>1 Harvard University</h1>

<p>Boston, MA</p>

<p>#2 Stanford University
Stanford, CA</p>

<p>#3 University of California–San Francisco
San Francisco, CA</p>

<p>#4 Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD</p>

<p>#5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA</p>

<p>#6 Yale University</p>

37

<p>** genetics and bio-informatrics**</p>

<h1>1 Stanford University</h1>

<p>Stanford, CA</p>

<p>#2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA</p>

<p>#3 Harvard University
Boston, MA</p>

<p>#4 University of California–Berkeley
Berkeley, CA</p>

<p>#5 University of Washington
Seattle, WA</p>

<p>#5 Washington University in St. Louis
St. Louis, MO</p>

38

<p>

</p>

<p><a href=“http://academic.research.microsoft.com/RankList?entitytype=7&topDomainID=2&subDomainID=0&last=0&start=1&end=100[/url]”>http://academic.research.microsoft.com/RankList?entitytype=7&topDomainID=2&subDomainID=0&last=0&start=1&end=100&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Stanford CS is also small relative to its peers. It definitely has the greatest impact per faculty member.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>The US spends more than 3x as much in R&D each year.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Are you new to this topic? The Chinese have been producing tons and tons of research articles for quite a while. But most of them are worth very little or are worthless. They mostly do not produce high-quality research, and most of the research has little to no impact. This is a well-acknowledge phenomenon.</p>

39

<p>It’s interesting to see the results from the Microsoft Academic Search site that phantasmagoric mentioned.
According to this site, the ranking of the academic publications in the last 5 years are:</p>

<p>MEDICINE
Organizations, Publications, H-Index
1 Harvard University 75460 172
2 National Institutes of Health, United States 45322 144
3 Mayo Clinic 28409 118
4 University of California San Francisco 30702 116
5 University of Washington 27960 114
6 Assistance Publique H</p>

40

<p>This argument is idiotic. Research publication rankings are barely even relevant to the original poster’s questions.</p>