<p>For those who can’t resist top ten lists and college rankings, here are the results from the latest annual Times Higher Education Supplement - THES-QS survey (available online tomorrow):</p>
<p>and The THES Top 10 British and American IHEs are:</p>
<li>Harvard
<p>
The university rankings are based on a survey of 3,703 academics worldwide.</p>
<p>They were asked to nominate up to 30 institutions they regarded as the best at research in their own fields.</p>
<p>On that measure, Cambridge came top, followed by Oxford then Harvard…</p>
<p>Other factors influencing the rankings included the ratio of academics to students and success in attracting foreign students and internationally renowned academics.</p>
<p>The editor of the THES, John O’Leary, said: “The presence of so many American and British universities at the top of the ranking owes something to the dominance of English as a world language in academic life as well as in business, but by every measure these are outstanding institutions.”
</p>
<p>[BBC</a> NEWS | UK | Education | Oxbridge edges up world rankings](<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/5409624.stm]BBC ”>BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Oxbridge edges up world rankings )</p>
<p>The Top 10 QS ranking in full is:</p>
<p>1 Harvard University (US)
<p>
Britain’s performance in a league table of the world’s top universities has improved, but the US still dominates…The annual survey by the Times Higher Education Supplement and careers and education group QS ranks according to factors including academics’ opinions…The rankings are based on a number of factors including the opinions of academics and of companies employing graduates, international student and staff numbers, and research.
</p>
<p>[BBC</a> NEWS | UK | Education | UK universities rise up rankings](<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7083292.stm]BBC ”>BBC NEWS | UK | Education | UK universities rise up rankings )</p>
<p>[QS</a> Top Universities: Guide to the World’s Top Universities - the definitive international study abroad guide](<a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/]QS ”>http://www.topuniversities.com/ )</p>
<p>“US and UK fill top 10 places”http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2038956[/url] ”>http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2038956 </a></p>
UCLAri
November 9, 2007, 4:29am
2
<p>Wow, this ranking is even worse this year.</p>
<p>How on earth do they justify moving Washington University from 48th to 161st in one year? </p>
<p>Any ranking that has that kind of variation in one year scares me. A lot.</p>
<p>and what about the artful way of putting it all together into “top ten” UK-US lists?</p>
<p>and if those two top ten “world’s best” lists for 2007 don’t quite do it for you, don’t forget this one:</p>
<ol>
<p><a href=“http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_Top100.htm[/url] ”>http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_Top100.htm</a></p> ;
<p>[url=<a href=“http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007Methodology.htm]ADRW2007-Methodology[/url ”>http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007Methodology.htm ]ADRW2007-Methodology[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Or this one, courtesy of “Webometrics Ranking of World Universities”, an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Centro Superior de Investigaciones Cient</p>
<p>Princeton, ranked 6th best in the THES world ranking, chimes in:</p>
<pre><code>
Princeton ranked below Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Yale and Imperial College London.
The University has ranked first, tied with or above Harvard and Yale, in the U.S. News and World Report’s rankings of American universities for the last eight years.
The discrepancy between where the University ranks on the two lists can be attributed to the inaccurate nature of the rankings themselves, said Lloyd Thacker, executive director of Education Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that works on college admissions reform.
Thacker attributed the University’s lower rank on the THES list to the international name recognition of the other institutions, especially Harvard.
Thacker was critical of the nature of college rankings. “Whether you’re [ranked] five or one or four or 10 is meaningless. The only meaning is that which one would ascribe to it because of their vanity,” he said.
</code></pre>
<p>[The</a> Daily Princetonian - News and Notes](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/11/09/news/19284.shtml]The ”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/11/09/news/19284.shtml )</p>
xiggi
November 10, 2007, 5:20pm
7
<p>Oh, the little guitar strumming guidance counselor has now found yet another field of expertise in the form of international rankings. </p>
<p>The fifteen minutes of fame keeps on ticking.</p>
<p>does anyone know where stanford was on the list?</p>
Bay
November 12, 2007, 9:56pm
9
<p>Has Princeton ever been ranked first on any list other than USNWR?</p>
Scipio
November 12, 2007, 10:10pm
10
<p>“does anyone know where stanford was on the list?”</p>
<p>19th.</p>
<p>Bay - Princeton’s lukewarm response to its rise to 6th position (from 10th for 2006 - see lists in OP post) in the THES/QS 2007 world ranking - couched in terms of a dismissive take on rankings in general - is, in part, just the pragmatic recognition that for 2008 we may indeed see a shake-up in the USNWR echelon when it comes to that coveted #1 spot.</p>
<p>
…With the prospect of an increased admit rate and decreased yield, the University may jeopardize its number-one spot in U.S. News and World Report’s annual ranking of the top schools in the nation, since the magazine uses both criteria in drawing up its list.</p>
<pre><code>But Rapelye said the University should not be concerned about a possible slide in its U.S. News ranking. “There isn’t a school in a stronger position than Princeton to be able to stand up and say [that] we are not going to judge ourselves on this artificial standard by which the outside world judges us,” she said. “What do we gain by competing in the race for the lowest admit rate?”
<p>A new strategy for applicants</p>
<pre><code>The acceptance rate for Early Decision candidates has always been significantly higher than for Regular Decision, which has prompted some applicants to apply early to the University even if they don’t have a clear first-choice school. “I see many students stressed because of pressure that they need to apply ED even if they are not sure about their first choice,” said Sarah Williams, a college counselor at the Hun School of Princeton. “Students feel like they are not going to have a shot unless they apply early.”
But, by dropping Early Decision, Rapelye said she hoped to discourage these kinds of calculations. “My concern about Early Decision over the past few years has been that students were not using it for their first choice,” she said. “They were using it as a strategy.”
Since Princeton and Harvard are the only Ivy League schools to have dropped their early admissions programs, it’s possible that high school seniors aiming for the security of early acceptance will focus on other schools. But Rapelye said she is willing to accept this risk. “We literally had 10,000 students in our pool last year of almost 19,000 students who were qualified to be here, at the highest level,” she said. “So what if some of them decide to go early somewhere else? We will still have thousands more from which to choose.”…
</code></pre>
<p>[The</a> Daily Princetonian - With no early applicants, U. will draw heavily on waitlist](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/11/09/news/19278.shtml]The ”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/11/09/news/19278.shtml )</p>