<p>Browsing the US News rankings, I noticed some oddities. I suspect there is a technical reason as to how this could happen, but it's odd that in World Rankings, Yale is #4, and Princeton is #13, while in US rankings, Princeton is #2, and Yale is #3. There are other examples of this, this jumped out at me. </p>
<p>Even if there is a technical explanation for this, it's illogical.</p>
<p>Nothing illogical. </p>
<p>The various “world” ranking amount to nothing more than navel gazing by academics and pseudo-scientists through silly analyses of criteria that are mostly irrelevant to the potential undergraduates. The USNews discussed in THIS forum does not share the research and graduate school focus of the other rankings.</p>
<p>Obviously, there are different criteria. I mean, you could probably come up with an interesting list (and I’d be surprised if it hasn’t been done) of ranking unis based on the frequency of professors being cited in scholarly journals. </p>
<p>But such a wide variation on the two lists calls into question the whole system. Another example is how Williams #1, overall, drops to #10 in undergraduate teaching, which would or should be the top reason to go to a college.</p>
<p>At least as far as Princeton and Yale are concerned, there is no real inconsistency between their relative positions in international and domestic rankings. A greater disparity tends to exist for MIT, Stanford and Caltech each of which does better in the international rankings than in the domestic rankings.</p>
<p>There are three major international rankings. These rankings tend not to normalize for institutional size so larger institutions generally do better. Still, roughly the same group of schools appears at the top of each of the lists.</p>
<p>You make your own judgment here.</p>
<p>2012 Times Higher Education World University Ranking</p>
<p>[Top</a> 400 - The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011-2012](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/top-400.html]Top”>World University Rankings 2011-12 | Times Higher Education (THE))</p>
<p>1—Caltech
2—Harvard, Stanford
3—
4—Oxford
5—Princeton
6—Cambridge
7—MIT
8—Imperial College London
9—U. of Chicago
10—Berkeley
11—Yale</p>
<p>2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) </p>
<p>[Academic</a> Ranking of World Universities - 2012| Top 500 universities | Shanghai Ranking - 2012 | World University Ranking - 2012](<a href=“http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2012.html]Academic”>http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2012.html)</p>
<p>1—Harvard
2—Stanford
3—MIT
4—Berkeley
5—Cambridge
6—Caltech
7—Princeton
8—Columbia
9—U. of Chicago
10—Oxford
11—Yale</p>
<p>2012 QS World University Rankings/US News Republishes this Ranking</p>
<p>[QS</a> World University Rankings - Topuniversities](<a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2012]QS”>QS World University Rankings 2012: Top Global Universities | Top Universities)</p>
<p>1—MIT
2—Cambridge
3—Harvard
4—U. College London
5—Oxford
6—Imperial College London
7—Yale
8—U. of Chicago
9—Princeton
10—Caltech</p>
<p>2012 Average of the Three Major International Rankings:
(with schools not ranked in one or more of the above lists receiving the highest score)</p>
<p>1—Harvard (2.0)
2—MIT (3.7)
3—Cambridge (4.3)
4—Stanford (5.0)
5—Caltech (5.7)
6—Oxford (6.3)
7—Princeton (7.0)
8—Berkeley (8.3)
9—U. of Chicago, Imperial College London (8.7)
10—U. College London (9.3)
11—Yale (9.7)
12—Columbia (10.3)</p>
<p>We don’t use the World Rankings in the US, or any of these odd third-world international rankings. They don’t mean anything for American universities. We only use U.S. News in America. Just an FYI.</p>
<p>So if I had wanted international respect, I should have taken my English degree at Caltech instead of Yale?</p>
<p>It’s silly.</p>
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</p>
<p>You could also add in 2013 USNWR academic peer assessment score, which closely mirrors the international rankings:</p>
<p>2013 PA:
<p>Not to suggest that national rankings like USNews are valid or reliable, but I find the world rankings particularly suspect.
First, universities are a point of pride for a country, and those who compile these rankings therefore make an effort to avoid disparaging individual countries. The US and the UK have the best universities in the world, and although this is still reflected in rankings like QS or the Times, it is not reflected to the extent that it should be because comprising the top 30 universities of 20 US universities and 10 UK universities (or something along those lines) would make the ranking appear biased, even though these universities have undeniably produced more and better research than those from other countries. Second, it is incredibly difficult to accurately measure the relative quality of universities in different countries. Someone in China will be more familiar with Chinese universities than someone in the US, and likewise, someone in the US will be more familiar with US universities than someone in China. When all universities are not judged through the same, unbiased view, the data will inevitably end up questionable.</p>
<p>^ ARWU rankings use only unbiased, objective data. You don’t need to be “familiar” with the universities to collect the public data used in their ranking criteria:</p>
<p>Alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, 10%
Staff of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, 20%
Highly cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories, 20%
Papers published in Nature and Science, 20%
Papers indexed in Science Citation Index-expanded and Social Science Citation Index, 20%
Per capita academic performance of an institution, 10%</p>
<p>[Academic</a> Ranking of World Universities - 2012| Top 500 universities | Shanghai Ranking - 2012 | World University Ranking - 2012](<a href=“http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2012.html]Academic”>http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2012.html)</p>
<p>ARWU from China doesn’t list a single Chinese university in the top 150.</p>
<p>
If these are the criteria, why isn’t this called the ranking of universities in the sciences?</p>
<p>As I’ve noted in other threads, it’s stretching a point to call CalTech a university.</p>
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</p>
<p>Thanks for making me smile this morning!</p>
<p>^^ Forget to add the argument!</p>
<p>The authors of ARWU claim that the ranking: uses “carefully selected objective criteria!”</p>
<p>Carefully selected versus unbiased?</p>
<p>ARWU has no bearing on prestige or quality of undergraduate education; it only offers us a glimpse perhaps of how productive the faculty of a university is.</p>
<p>
You’re welcome. :)</p>
<p>
It does though in a sense measure outcomes… like alumni that have gone on to win prestigious academic awards and faculty that publish in top academic journals. It does have bearing on the prestige of the faculty and institution. It can be argued how slight the meaning is for undergrads, but research is important to RESEARCH universities, since it’s public academic awards and publications that enhance academic prestige.</p>
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<p>Well, since a good deed never goes unpunished, here’s an early Xmas present. For someone like you who appreciates facts when they are available, this research on the relevance of the ARWU might be lift the veil a tiny bit. Interesting how researchers might not entirely agree that an exercise that tries to equate research with quality in education is relevant.</p>
<p><a href=“http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/39/93/PDF/Shanghai_JCB_DB_PV.pdf[/url]”>http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/39/93/PDF/Shanghai_JCB_DB_PV.pdf</a></p>
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<p>PS You might find it interesting that Nian Cai Liu and the authors of the ranking admit that they have no particular knowledge in bibliometry (e.g., Nian Cai Liu is a chemist specialized in polymers). It is likely that they have no particular knowledge in MCDM and in the development of evaluation systems either. </p>
<p>Some love among chemists?</p>
<p>^ Written by some French complaining of American and Anglo-Saxon hegemony…
…what else is new?</p>
<p>Well, the French balance that with a profound affection for Jerry Lewis. If you can set aside the anecdotal attack of the Anglo-Saxon dominance, you might find that the technical appraisal of the ARWU is spot on, especially in terms of selective data and relevance. And, you might ignore it because the results happen to look good.</p>
<p>Yep, nothing new here. Have a safe weekend.</p>
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<p>Well, if you had wanted REAL international respect, you should have taken your Geophysics degree at Caltech. :)</p>
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<p>That is incorrect. We in fact use all of them, and on any given situation pick the one that best supports our agenda. That’s what our colleges do, and that’s the American way. Just an FYI.</p>
<p>Thank you, xiggi. You too.<br>
Hope my Teddy Bears come out safe from their trip to the 'shoe… ;)</p>
<p>I’ll be watching the 9am start Cal style with quiche and mimosas.</p>