<p>Released just hours ago by THE magazine.
Top</a> Universities by Reputation 2012</p>
<p>1 Harvard University United States
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States
3 University of Cambridge United Kingdom
4 Stanford University United States
5 University of California Berkeley United States
6 University of Oxford United Kingdom
7 Princeton University United States
8 University of Tokyo Japan
9 University of California Los Angeles United States
10 Yale University United States
11 California Institute of Technology United States
12 University of Michigan United States
13 Imperial College London United Kingdom
14 University of Chicago United States
15 Columbia University United States
16 Cornell University United States
16 University of Toronto Canada
18 Johns Hopkins University United States
19 University of Pennsylvania United States
20 Kyoto University Japan</p>
<p>A good question for this survey would be–what does this mean? who does the ranking</p>
<p>Legitimate rankings have always ranked universities by department and then you look to see who has the most departments at a certain level. This is about equivalent to the Gallup poll of most prestigious universities that means little.</p>
<p>Harvard would never be ranked #1 based on faculty. Berkeley has outranked it for decades.</p>
<p>I’m surprised to see Berkeley above Princeton and UCLA above Yale, Columbia and Cornell. And I doubt the University of Tokyo is that high in reputation as well.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/arts-and-humanities.html[/url]”>http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/arts-and-humanities.html</a> </p>
<p>UChicago ranks #3 in the Arts and Humanities according to the same source. Not sure why Stanford is #1 and Yale is #2 though. Australian National University at #4 also comes as a shock.</p>
<p>In addition, this survey ignores the very great differences between all of these schools and it is clear to me they are fixated on engineering and maybe science.</p>
<p>Usually universities are ranked based on their arts and sciences faculties. If you include engineering, it skews the results, since some schools (such as UChicago) don’t have engineering.</p>
<p>MIT is great in engineering and science but sucks in the humanities in general. Ditto Caltech.</p>
<p>UChicago has a top Divinity School, Social Work School, Law School, Medical School, and Business School. Princeton has none of these.</p>
<p>This magazine has made the value judgment that being great in electrical engineering more than compensates for being lousy in the English. And you can’t go to Law School at MIT or Caltech. Duh.</p>
<p>The point is all of these schools are very different and have their own strengths and weaknesses. I don’t object to rankings per se, but they are most useful when they rank schools in a particular field. This rankings is all about prestige, not quality. If it were, they would simply tell you–this school has this many departments at this level, that school has that many departments at that level. Instead, they chose a few of the many possible fields that could be ranked–and ignore many others–and simply try to come up with a simplistic overall ranking.</p>
<p>It’s bad enough when U.S. News tries to do this at the undergraduate level but these people are trying to rank universities as a whole. </p>
<p>And who are they surveying–IT staff in India? or China? Who exactly gets these surveys and fills them out? etc., etc.</p>
<p>Why do people scorn any mention of reputation or prestige? Isn’t that one of the most important things? When applying for a job, does it look better to be a Harvard grad or a Tulane grad? Will every employer really look through the college stats at each department and the “true” rankings of schools based on professors, specific classes offered? Or will they just be looking at the degree and the institution?</p>
<p>There are three ‘major’ world university rankings and this is one of them. Some have better methodologies than others. I give you U.S. News credit for being much more transparent about their own methodology, whatever the flaws of its rankings may be. But these days every one has a university ranking and I suppose I’ll make up my own.</p>
<p>@cardozo According to the Wall Street Journal, recruiters are more likely to hire someone from Penn State or a state school than Harvard:
[Best</a> Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ.com](<a href=“Best Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ”>Best Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ)</p>
<p>But the Times ranking is not based on surveying corporate recruiters, as the Wall Street Journal’s is.</p>
<p>In fact, it really isn’t clear who they asked. That’s the problem. And it skews strangely to Asia. The University of Tokyo in the Top Ten in the world?</p>
<p>Look, I live in LA and if you ask people what the top universities are, they will say UCLA and USC. And maybe if you ask people in Tokyo they will say University of Tokyo but that doesn’t mean it’s true for the whole world.</p>
<p>And if they spent more time focused on QUALITY rather than PRESTIGE it would be a better ranking.</p>
<p>I’ve seen dozens of university rankings and I don’t just eat up every one that some newspaper makes up.</p>
<p>The National Research Council rankings are much better done. Well, they used to be. (They used to have a very straight forward ranking but last time around they did a politically correct non-ranking ranking which no one could really make any sense of.)</p>
<p>when one says “international reputation”, it is really “international awareness” NOT prestige. On the international scale, it’s more about whether the school sounds familiar or not. UCLA and Berkeley, due to their sheer size, are well known. Somewhat true of U Michigan. (the exception is when the people who voice their opinions are professional/academic types: then “reputation” can be used interchangeably as “prestige”. At least this has been my observation. For instance, among general population in Asia, UCLA and Berkeley are much better known (high reputation). They hardly know about Columbia and U Chicago. Yet, if you talk to the professional/academic types, there is no way UCLA, Berkeley and U Michigan outrank Columbia and U Chicago. </p>
<p>IN terms of quality of undergraduate education, no way Berkeley and UCLA can even come close to the likes of U Chicago and Columbia given what’s going on in CA in terms of severe budget cuts for state universities, political mess, class size, etc. The reputation of UCLA and Berkeley will linger on for a while even if the current dire situation does not improve. However, unless the trend reverses soon enough, these two schools’ sterling reputation will be seriously hurt. They are starting to lose the very best students and faculty. This is very sad - since these two schools are truly outstanding institutions.</p>
<p>Yeah, again, if you ask people in LA the best universities they will say UCLA and USC. I doubt 1 in a 100 would even mention Caltech, if they’ve ever even heard of it. But obviously Caltech would be more highly ranked by any one in academia based on faculty quality.</p>
<p>OK, look if you want a silly prestige ranking, here it is from Gallup poll. What happens when you ask the general public what the best or second best university is.</p>
<p>The last time they did this in 2003, 24% of the public named Harvard the best or second best in the nation. 76% did not mentioned Harvard. (And if you only asked for best not second best, even fewer would have mentioned it.):</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Number One University in Eyes of Public](<a href=“Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public”>Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public)</p>
<p>So for those in the Ivy League who think everybody considers their school to be #1, actually the majority of Americans don’t think any particular school is #1. Or, in other words, there is very widespread disagreement about what school is #1.</p>
<p>This is why you don’t ask the general public for their opinion, since they are very misinformed / uninformed. Indeed 22% had ‘no opinion’ when asked what school was considered #1 or #2.</p>
<p>^ lol at the total disappearance or uchicago and upenn</p>
<p>I think the reason why professional schools aren’t really considered in these rankings is that they vary so much between countries making any international comparison basically worthless. Law schools are unlikely to interact much with law schools in Japan but because the laws are totally different but the sciences and engineering are fundamentally the same internationally.</p>
<p>This is an explanation of the methodology here [Behind</a> the numbers: reputation ranking methodology explained - Times Higher Education Reputation Rankings](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/reputation-methodology.html]Behind”>World Reputation Rankings 2012 methodology | Times Higher Education (THE)). Although it’s not entirely clear how they selected respondents, the overwhelming seem to be academics. The balance does seems a little weird at 20% physical sciences, 20% engineering and technology, 19% social sciences, 17% clinical subjects, and 7% arts and humanities. Perhaps that reflects a more international view though so I’m not sure what to make of it but that is likely what brings down Chicago’s ranking.</p>
<p>This ranking isn’t meant to be a stand-alone ranking but is simply one component of the TIMES world rankings that they break out because it’s interesting. In particular, it’s not a measure of undergraduate quality as 2/3 of it is research reputation and 1/3 is teaching reputation.</p>
<p>By the way, in 1999 when Gallup asked people simply to name the best university (not best or second best), Harvard was only mentioned 16% of the time and every other school dropped as well:</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Tops Gallup Poll List as Best University](<a href=“Harvard Tops Gallup Poll List as Best University”>Harvard Tops Gallup Poll List as Best University)</p>
<p>The reputational rankings are completely fair and accurate, decided via survey. Like it or not, this is the international reputation of US Universities, and it is accurate based on my experience. I don’t know why people complain that Chicago’s only #14; we’re right above Columbia, which is further testament that this is a pretty decent ranking, as Chicago and Columbia have essentially identical reputations internationally.</p>
<p>Berkeley, UCLA, and Michigan are ranked high because they’re all huge research universities with undebate-able international presence. I would expect nothing less. Most of the people responding to these surveys are not intimately aware of the actual makeup of the schools - all they know is how frequently they come across a certain school in their studies, magazines, newspapers, etc. Also, most of the respondents are likely not ever going to encounter many real-life graduates of these universities, which also means that you’re unlikely to encounter them as a potential employee. So I’m not sure why people are taking offense at this.</p>
<p>@UMTYMP so you can see the importance they place on arts and humanities LOL! About 60% science, technology, or clinical–but 7% art & humanities. That does skew things a bit. But you know Shakespeare isn’t really worth anything after all if he didn’t start an internet company in Silicon Valley. (That’s the kind of mentality you’re dealing with in this ranking.)</p>
<p>There have been attempts to rank business schools internationally, etc. but I think a better reason to leave out the professional schools is simply the fact that there is a great deal of variety and difference in the number and types of professional schools each has university has. The arts and sciences are the core of any major university. I would also exclude engineering, since it is not a science–it is a professional school basically. And if you are going to include that, then include them all–law, business, medical, divinity, nursing, dental, whatever.</p>
<p>It is good that they do mix in a few other components and do not make it the entire overall ranking, but it seems to stand on a very shaky / shady foundation.</p>
<p>And I agree that it’s not intended to be a ranking of undergraduate programs, though the average American high school student probably wouldn’t understand the difference.</p>
<p>@phuriku if the reputational rankings are completely fair, then why do they skew 60% science and technology to 7% arts & humanities. And why do they disagree with the 2 other major world university studies. Are they all correct depending on whichever one you’re reading at the moment?</p>
<p>UChicago does not have engineering and by including a professional school that the university does not offer it automatically is going to lower its rank.</p>
<p>Take out engineering and arbitrarily add in Law and Medical Schools and see if Chicago moves up and MIT moves down. Or make Humanities 60% and science / technology 7% and see if MIT keeps the same ranking.</p>
<p>Frankly, a 60%-7% science/art ranking is completely fair in terms of reputation. Many more people are going to read about scientific innovation than they’re going to read about art history or Greek poetry.</p>
<p>This isn’t about fairness. It’s not about judging the quality of an institution - THES has another ranking for that in which Chicago is top 10. This is REPUTATION Rankings.</p>
<p>But let’s face reality. THES is basically using an old US News trick. They have an ideal ranking, and they try to make an “objective” ranking that fits in with what they already think. If you wanted to do a real, objective study, no one would pick US News’ methodology. US News’ methodology is considered valid precisely BECAUSE it lines up universities based upon our intuition. THES Editors likely considered Harvard #1, MIT #2, Chicago #14, Columbia #15, etc. and thought, how can we make a survey that reflects this result? And they did. So it’s nothing to get worked up about.</p>
<p>Also, no one cares about THES. They act like they’re the ultimate authority, but no one really gives a ■■■ about them. The vast majority of people rely on US News. Regardless, I think THES fairly reflects what the rest of the world thinks. It’s easy to get a narrow perspective by being in the US too long; for instance, I can tell you that in Japan, Michigan is more well known than Johns Hopkins, and UCLA is more well known than Cornell.</p>