Top "world brands" in higher ed-THE Rankings

[warblersrule]

<p>I would move UNC and Minnesota up (above U Mass at the very least) and Yale up slightly. Otherwise, I surprisingly have few complaints about the order of the American universities, which seems pretty accurate if you are only looking at overall strength and research reputations. </p>

<p>It is interesting that although Brown and Duke performed quite well in the recent NRC rankings (much better than in the old ones), they maintain a weaker research/academic reputation. If the NRC rankings are measuring actual improvement in programs at these universities, an improvement in their reputations abroad seems to lag. </p>

<p>I am not familiar with most universities in non-English speaking countries, so whether I agree with the placement of some American universities vis-a-vis others abroad (e.g. NUS over UT Austin), I can’t say. </p>

<p>

@bclintonk

There are a few anomalies. UCLA, NYU, and UMass rate much higher with global academics than with US university administrators. Maybe they’re getting a “location bonus” globally? Beyond that, I’ve got to think UMass is enjoying the benefit of some brand confusion with MIT. A couple of private schools, Duke and Northwestern, do much better in PA than in global academic reputation, and the public universities generally don’t do quite as well in PA as in THE reputational rank. In both cases I suspect this reflects adjustments that are being made to PA to account for undergraduate education; if that’s the case, then PA isn’t a perfect proxy for faculty strength (but then it’s not supposed to be). Instead, it’s more like perceived faculty strength, adjusted upward for smaller private schools to reflect imputed undergraduate educational excellence, and adjusted downward for large public institutions to reflect things like s/f ratios and larger classes.

That has been the crux of my criticism of PA for ages. It cannot make up its mind about what exactly it’s measuring and is therefore wildly inconsistent.</p>

<p>

@warblersrule

Now that I’m actually looking at those numbers, they strike me as decidedly off. It seems they’re trying to combine both research and undergraduate focus, resulting in a bastardized mix that reflects neither.</p>

<p>Berkeley scores higher than any of the other publics, and while it has a slight lead in selectivity, this is clearly a testament to its strong graduate programs. One could reasonably conclude that the measurement is therefore measuring pure academic heft, something supported by HYMPS also being at the top and Michigan’s reasonable rank as high but a few slots below Berkeley. So far, so good.</p>

<p>But! Things get odd when you start to look at the other publics. UCLA and Michigan are virtually interchangeable in selectivity, and with the notable exception of engineering, the two are neck and neck in most fields. The difference between the two in PA is a not inconsiderable 0.3 points, however (i.e. 0.9 points on the overall ranking). Similarly, you have UVA receiving the highest peer assessment in the South, despite both UNC Chapel Hill and UT Austin having noticeably stronger faculties. Some of the private universities also seem displaced relative to their academic heft – Hopkins receiving a higher PA score than Penn is one example, and Caltech’s score seems quite low. The high selectivity of Dartmouth trumps its lack of top-flight graduate programs for PA, yet the same does not hold true for WUStL. So many inconsistencies!

</p>