<p>FYI: University of Florida gets mad respect Internationally</p>
<p>Those rankings are bogus. Just look at the top 10. Harvard scored a 100 but somehow Princeton who is always a close contender scored somewhere around a 58?</p>
<p>Well the rankings are bogus in respect to the criteria applied to US News. But remember this isn't a measure of the best Undergraduate Colleges. This is a ranking that focuses solely on Research output (this is an indicator of the strength of some key Graduate Programs).</p>
<p>The Academic Ranking of World University put significant emphasis in the research output that a particular university produces. The reason Princeton seems amazingly low is because they focus primarily on their Undergraduate College and a few select Professional & Graduate Programs. In this respect they are just merely a glorified overgrown Liberal Arts College (albeit they are outstanding on what they do focus on).</p>
<p>The same can be said about Georgetown. In the US News rankings they are always ranked in the Top-25, but they get horrible marks in the World Academic Rankings. This is because they are also a glorified Liberal Arts College with a few select Graduate & Professional Programs.</p>
<p>Any ranking system must have a methodology, which gives a ranking index meaning. The particular methodology used in this case is:</p>
<p>In determining the rankings, it they appears they limit the fields considered to life sciences, medicine, physical sciences, engineering, social sciences, and economics. As to who compiled this ranking list and why:</p>
<p>"Our original purpose of doing the ranking was to find out the gap between Chinese universities and world-class universities, particularly in terms of academic or research performance. It has been done for our academic interests without any outside support."</p>
<p>So this ranking is how UF stacks up in the international arena through the eyes of the Chinese. Preliminarily, I think this bodes very well for UF. Their main motivation is to objectively rank world-class universities and see how Chinese universities fit in, which provides them a framework of metrics which they can use to improve themselves. Anyone paying attention to world economics will see the value of this work. They are not doing this work for the sales of books or magazines, rather for the purpose of self-assessment and improvement. In that sense, the work is probably free of the types of biases included in other ranking systems. Interestingly, they humbly acknowledge their method's shortcomings and also cite other systems:</p>
<p>This ranking is completely bogus. No one looks at it nor pays any attention to it. Come on people...In the "international arena", NO ONE has any idea what the University of Florida is...!</p>
<p>Moviebuff if they are so irrelevant why do you feel the need to come to the UF forum to bash them?</p>
<p>Methinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much....</p>
<p>Face it, Liberal Arts Colleges & Private Universities that do not focus on Research are on the decline. Internationally no one cares about the USNews Rankings. This is why alot of Asian coutries equate Berkeley with the prestige of Harvard & Yale.</p>
<p>How do Liberal Arts College stack up to this????</p>
<p>The University of Florida, the state’s largest university and one of the biggest research universities in the nation, contributes nearly $6 billion annually to Florida’s economy and is responsible for nearly 75,000 jobs. The Milken Institute named UF one of the top-five U.S. institutions in the transfer of biotechnology research to the marketplace (2006). Some 50 biotechnology companies have resulted from faculty research programs. UF consistently ranks among the top-10 universities in licensing. Royalty and licensing income includes the glaucoma drug Trusopt, the sports drink Gatorade, and the Sentricon termite elimination system. It should also be noted that the UF is currently ranked seventh among all private & public universities for the total number of patents awarded for 2005.</p>
<p>UF was awarded $518.8 million in total research expenditures (which is more than all the other Florida universities combined - in sponsored research in 2005-2006). Research includes diverse areas such as health-care and citrus production (the world's largest citrus research center). In 2002, UF began leading six other universities under a $15 million NASA grant to work on a variety of space-related research during a five-year period. UF has a partnership with Spain that helped to create the world's largest telescope in the Canary Islands (the total cost was $93 million). Plans are also under way for the University of Florida to construct a new 50,000-square-foot research facility in collaboration with the Burnham Institute for Medical Research that will ultimately be located adjacent to the UCF's Health Sciences Campus in Orlando, FL. Research will include the areas of diabetes, aging, genetics and cancer.</p>
<p>This ranking system strips away the frills and comforts that so many Americans feel are necessary for a college experience. What are left are academic strength and record of accomplishments. The Chinese are a no nonsense sort of people when it comes to academics and business. Less "show" and more "go".</p>
<p>Their ranking system is not at all bogus. They carefully define their criteria for measurement and the weighting of each component factor. And again, they stick to objective, measurable academic criteria, which are mainly academic output and actual acomplishments. Contrast this with, for example, U.S. New & World Report, who uses quite a few non-academic criteria, such as peer assessment (elitist and self-serving IMHO) and alumni giving rates, and indirect academic criteria, such as class size, graduation rates. </p>
<p>The closer I look at the methodologies of the U.S. New and World Report, the more surprised I am at the weakness of their approach. Consider the factor to which they give the highest weight: peer assessment. In their own words, here’s what they say:</p>
<p>Peer assessment (weighting: 25 percent). The U.S. News ranking formula gives greatest weight to the opinions of those in a position to judge a school's undergraduate academic excellence. The peer assessment survey allows the top academics we consult—presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions—to account for intangibles such as faculty dedication to teaching. Each individual is asked to rate peer schools' academic programs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). Those who don't know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly are asked to mark "don't know." Synovate, an opinion-research firm based near Chicago, collected the data; of the 4,089 people who were sent questionnaires, 58 percent responded.</p>
<p>Okay, so the highest weighted factor is strictly asubjective one (note that 42%, or better than 2 out of 5 of their “experts” *did not[i/] wish to, or did not bother to respond to the survey). So before the overall ranking of a school can increase significantly, the school’s reputation within the peer group must first improve. This would seem to be somewhat of a popularity contest in which conventional wisdom is given the greatest credence (“everybody knows that Princeton is tops”).</p>
<p>Princeton = 8 in the world, and 7 in the US
Vanderbilt = 41 in the world, and 31 in the US
<strong>UF</strong>* = 51 in the world, and 38 in the US
Carnegie Mellon = 60 in the world, and 40 in the US
Brown = 70 in the world, and 43 in the US
Dartmouth = 102 -150 bracket, and 55 - 70 in the US bracket
Emory = 102 - 150 bracket, and 55 - 70 in the US bracket
Brandeis = 203 - 304 bracket, and 89 - 117 in the US bracket
Georgetown = 203 - 304 bracket, and 89 - 117 in the US bracket
Tulane = 305 - 401 bracket, and 118 - 140 in the US bracket</p>
<p>------Remember these Rankings primarily just reflect Graduate Research rankings------</p>
<p>SSobick, I did not come into a UF forum to bash anyone. I ran into this by looking at the Latest Posts thread. But, i do not really need to explain that to you anyway..</p>
<p>And snap out into reality. Outside of the very well orchestrated noise that you people make in Gainesville, NO ONE, read this again, NO ONE would come from another country to attend the University of Florida when they can go to so many of the top universities in the country.</p>
<p>And by the way, University of Miami beats you every time among foreigners as far as desirability, campus location and.......everything else.</p>
<p>wait what are you talking about...i ran into international students when i was asking for directions on campus</p>
<p>UF may not have the same level of international draw as a school like Harvard, etc., but it certainly does have international draw. I have seen many "chances" postings from international students hoping to be admitted to UF. I am sure U Miami also has a large contingent of international students. I think that international students have a wide variety of interests and are likely to apply to a wide variety of schools -- just like American students do.</p>
<p>Just as many international students have a strong preference for U Miami, there are many for whom UF is their dream school. The success of one in no way diminishes the success of the other!</p>
<p>Far from the truth..! International students have a much stronger preference for Miami than for the University of Florida! Have u looked at the stats ? </p>
<p>UF has been very effective in recruiting nationally by throwing money around to National Merits, etc ( a practice that because of so much criticism, they just ended this year ) This has been one of the ways they have manipulated their stats. It is a good school ( the best of the state schools in Florida ) but from that to have an "international reputation", come on.....</p>
<p>Moviebuff, I think your bias is showing. :)</p>
<p>Actually for the Fall 2006 term: UF had 5,544 total foreign students</p>
<p>The total enrollment for Fall 2006 was: 51,520 students</p>
<p>*In all Foreign Student account for about 10.7% of all students.</p>
<p>This thread began by calling attention to one Chinese university’s attempt at ranking universities internationally. Their criteria were:</p>
<ol>
<li>Quality of Education - Alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals</li>
<li>Quality of Faculty - Staff of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals; Highly cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories.
3.Research Output - Articles published in Nature and Science; Articles in Science Citation Index-expanded, Social Science Citation Index.</li>
<li>Size of Institution - Academic performance with respect to the size of an institution.</li>
</ol>
<p>Let’s take them one at a time. Their measure of quality of education is the number of students produced by the organization who won either Nobel Prizes or Fields Medals. Fair enough. Similarly, quality of the faculty is also measured by how many faculty were awarded these honors. So the first two criteria measure the strength of their student body and faculty.</p>
<p>Research Output is their third criterion which is measured by number of citations in international journals. Having a high number here defines how often other universities—both U.S. and international—come across papers authored by UF folks. A high number by UF certainly makes them more visible internationally.</p>
<p>Size of Institution is essentially a scale factor to ensure the output is tied to the size of the school. That is, the larger the school, the more output and accomplishments are required.</p>
<p>To me, these criteria seem quite reasonable as a measure of a school’s academic strength on an international scale. But this is quite different from measuring international diversity of a school or the disirability of a school to a foreign student. I don’t think anyone would argue that in general it is good to have many countries represented in a school's student body and faculty. However, diversity per se has no real inherent value; it just has potential value.</p>
<p>Re U. Miami, I haven’t checked, but perhaps since UM is a private school, perhaps they are more apt to take a greater percentage of international applicants than UF, since UF is a state school. Perhaps the cost of attending UM vs. UF for an international student is the same too. Given these factors, plus the fact that UF is more difficult to get into, that might partly explain why there is a higher percentage of international students attending UM.</p>
<p>UF is the best SCHOOL in Florida, public or private</p>
<p>Evidently the University of Miami only has 11.54% Internal Students.</p>
<p>"11.54% of students are nationals of a country outside the U.S"</p>