Post #58, NYU has a lot of name recognition (and it is #32 in US News this year so it must be good, right?), but its reputation on CC is affected by its perfect 1.00 index on GMTplus7’s IFII.
Post #60, but it’s not the same level as Cornell.
Post #59, I disagree about how easy it is to get into Cambridge and Oxford for American kid. In fact my kid really wanted to apply to them, but a guy who was admitted to Stanford discouraged her because he knew of people who had better grades and failed the interview.
But I agree with you about some Chinese university because one of my husband’s ex-colleagues is a professor there.
People keep touting the rankings where their alma mater does well, and denigrating the rankings where their alma mater doesn’t do so well.
^^^^^You noticed that too? 
I like this ranking in particular:
http://www.businessinsider.com/universities-with-most-billionaire-undergraduate-alumni-2014-9
We all can dream!
@DrGoogle The rankings are based on research output and often do not factor size into the equation. They tell us nothing about an institution’s undergraduate quality and are often heavily biased in favor of universities based in certain countries (anyone who thinks University College London deserves to be ranked ahead of Yale is deluded beyond belief).
For instance, the QS ranking uses percentage of international students and international faculty members to rank universities. How is this even remotely indicative of quality? It only serves to ensure that British institutions are perceived to be on par with American universities (because American institutions don’t need to rely on faculty members from around the world).
^ That is a rather peculiar factor in the QS methodology: http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/world-university-rankings/qs-world-university-rankings-methodology
Each ranking definitely has its own distinguishing features.
@SeattleTW, your claim:
is simply, objectively and comprehensively wrong- and I speak from direct, first-hand experience of both universities.
Admissions standards are getting higher as competition for places gets stiffer (example [here.](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/11152661/Toughening-up-of-entry-requirements-for-Oxbridge.html))
For Americans the success rate in applying to Oxbridge is about 8%. Not exactly easy.
I respectfully disagree. Few Americans want to go there and money will indeed open the door wide open.
@SeattleTW, can you give the basis for your assertions? evidence, not anecdotes please. For example, [url=<a href=“http://public.tableau.com/views/UoO_UG_Admissons2/AcceptanceRate?%3AshowVizHome=no#2%5Dhere%5B/url”>http://public.tableau.com/views/UoO_UG_Admissons2/AcceptanceRate?%3AshowVizHome=no#2]here[/url] is a table of acceptances over the last 3 years at Oxford, which says that the 3 year average for applications from Americans is 1,178, with an average acceptance rate of 105. I agree that the number of applicants is not big, but the acceptance rate is low, which does not suggest wide open doors.
My best friend (American) studied for grad school at Oxford, and explained that those two schools are so broke and literally falling apart that they will take anyone who can pay full freight. I met another Oxford alum UK citizen who told me the same thing. In fact, I asked him about my friend’s claim and he said the same thing. It’s like the Kennedy School at Harvard, it’s wide open for full payers, though obviously for different reasons.
Hmmm, Havard Kennedy School is hardly an open gate, if one were to persuade admission numbers for the last 10 years, it hovers between 20-30%-- with most years, closer to a 20% admission rate.
Grad school acceptance is very different from undergraduate…
A dark (if you’ve ever been through the process) joke that gets passed around—dark because it has a bit of truth to it: If you’ve ever gotten a doctorate and not hated your advisor, your department and university, and your topic, you’ve done it wrong.
I suspect your samples are exhibiting either false modesty, a touch of lingering grad-school bitterness,* or both.
- Or undergrad bitterness—it happens, too, though in my observation not as frequently.
Honestly, with the insignificant number of Oxford applicants from America, why are we wasting time discussing an irrelevant issue? At the undergraduate level, these world rankings are meaningless.
A friend sent me another ranking:
So many rankings, so little time…
http://qz.com/498534/these-25-schools-are-responsible-for-the-greatest-advances-in-science/
We have just released our 2016 Alternative U.S. News Rankings. These use a combination of individual departmental rankings across 15 disciplines and university-wide reputation rankings (50/50); grad rates; retention rates; classes <20; classes >50. Using the discipline rankings in tandem with the overall university reputation rankings has yielded some interesting results. This set excludes ALL input measures, financial and otherwise, that skew U.S. News rankings. http://publicuniversityhonors.com/2015/10/12/alternative-u-s-news-rankings-2016/
In related news, (sigh), Yale came so close to defeating the Duke Blue DEVILS!