<h1>17 in world, #15 in US in this somewhat science/engineering weighted ranking that is widely used outside the US.</h1>
<p>Much better than that POC that Forbes puts outwith a huge worldwide impact.</p>
<p>World comments so far</p>
<p>AFP:</a> Harvard tops Chinese university rankings for eighth year</p>
<p>Bangkok</a> Post : Shanghai rankings rattle European universities</p>
<p>Why</a> British Universities don't attract China's best Telegraph Blogs</p>
<p>Every day I realize how lucky I am to have such a world class institution right in my backyard. On Wisconsin!</p>
<p>AFP Quote: “The rankings are focused almost entirely on a university’s achievements in scientific research, and do not cover the humanities – prompting concerns that they do not accurately reflect an institution’s overall performance.”</p>
<p>Bangkok Post Quote: “The rankings are focused almost entirely on achievements in scientific research, and do not cover the humanities.”</p>
<p>Barron’s quote: “this somewhat science/engineering weighted ranking”</p>
<p>Hmmm. </p>
<p>Good job, UW. No reason to sugarcoat, barrons.</p>
<p>What ARWU says. </p>
<p>Institutions are ranked by five broad subject fields, including natural sciences and
mathematics (SCI), engineering/technology and computer sciences (ENG), life and
agricultural sciences (LIFE), clinical medicine and pharmacy (MED), and social
sciences (SOC). Arts and humanities are not ranked because of the technical difficulties
in finding internationally comparable indicators with reliable data.</p>
<p>Yes, UW’s art dept is great. English is top 20 and language programs are frequently in the top ten nation wide. Certainly a good showing and no reason to sugarcoat.</p>
<p>Three of the top six are in California.</p>
<p>Ok then. And 1 of the top 20 is in Wisconsin.</p>
<p>In the 2011 USNR for Top Universities Wisconsin dropped to #45 from its #39 spot in 2010. Also 2011 USNR ranked Wisconsin #13 Best public university compared to 2010’s #9.</p>
<p>Usnews puts little weight on the actual faculty and lots on other factors. I prefer a stronger faculty than a strong ranking from guidance counselors most of which are not the brightest bulbs on the HS faculty and attended local teacher’s colleges.</p>
<p>Barrons, it continues to astound me how quick you are to provide a link to any survey where UW does well but then dismiss out of hand any survey where it does not. I’d venture a guess that many parents consider the opinions of high school guidance counselors (new to the 2011 survey) and a school’s graduation rate (weighted more heavily in 2011) to be very important factors in selecting a college – certainly as important as what a Chinese university thinks of a college’s graduate school accomplishments in science. As I’ve said before, it matters little that UW has outstanding graduate schools and famous and accomplished professors overseeing them if the typical undergrduate student can’t get into the classes and can’t graduate on time. </p>
<p>Not to mention that you can’t possibly know that “most” high school guidance counselors are “not the brightest bulbs on the HS faculty and attended local teacher’s colleges.” How many do you actually know? Can you provide any link that provides statistics on where high school guidance counselors have gone to college?</p>
<p>Actually in my admissions work I go to lots of local high schools and meet with the counselors. Most are focused just on the local colleges and know very little about the national scene outside maybe they have heard of the Ivy League–but could not name them all.</p>
<p>You still want to claim that graduation delays are based on access to classes. That is false. UW has the same ranking for class access as UVa. The reasons are many but that is the major one. The biggest one is the students are not paying much attention to what they need to take to graduate until it’s too late. They are studying ways to change that. It might require more riding herd on them early on to make sure they are on track. Traditionally UW has assumed students are adults and responsible for their own planning. Apparently some are not and need more direction.</p>
<p>As to the Chinese rankings–it is not a compilation of what they think. It is a gathering of actual data that they put into a report. They add no qualitative factors of their own. So to say it represents what they think is wrong.</p>
<p>Fine, barrons, fine, but like it or not you cannot dismiss the U.S. news rankings. Students and parents care more about them than they do the Chinese rankings, fair or not. And in my view it is fair because the factors that US News take into account are more relevant to assessing the quality of an undergraduate school than the Chinese survey. There is no question that, while UW is a strong school at the undergraduate level, its real strengths are at the graduate level. I don’t see it listed on the “best teaching” list, for example (a list on which U-Va, William and Mary, Berkeley, and UMich all appear prominently).</p>
<p>I agree with novaparent. As a UW alumnus, this slide in rankings is unacceptable and very embarrassing. When I attended, we were ranked in the mid 30’s and were amongst the top 8 public unis. The UW administration is clearly doing something wrong, and needs to reverse it and start trending back upwards by next year’s rankings.</p>
<p>That may depend on how they decide to tweak the ranking system next year. </p>
<p>I did not dismiss the US News rankings. I think the changes to the system are problematic and maybe somebody will recalc the rankings using the criteria they have used for the last several years. Also most of the improvement programs such as Madison Initiative are just getting off the ground with great results so far in actual people hired and added to UW departments. See my post on econ for a taste. Other similar programs are underway in Business, Poli Sci, Chemistry, Engineering and a few others. The response from faculty at other schools has been better than many had even hoped. I do think the counselor rankings are far more suspect than the often suspect peer rankings. What I would prefer is a data based system just as they use to rank the students. Faculty can also be ranked using such criteria for faculty excellence at research U’s as awards won, research published, patents earned and the like. If SAT scores and admit rates are really that important I think some faculty measure should be at least as important. They are the two halves of the overall university. LACs would have to develop their own system as they don’t do enough research or any of the other to really measure.</p>
<p>i looked at the USNEWS methodology for this year’s rankings and it seems to me the reason UW slid is:</p>
<p>1) academic peer review (which i believe is one of UW’s strengths) was de-weighted by 10 percentage points
2) the effect of this was magnified because these 10 percentage points were allocated to graduation rate (a UW weakness b/c no one graduates on time at the UW) and high school guidance counselor review (which i think is a silly measure in general)</p>
<p>this is starting to remind me of Tulane’s infamous slide back in the 90’s (from 30’s to 50’s) brought about by the significant changes made to ranking methodology in that period</p>
<p>also, barrons</p>
<p>do you know what the UW was ranked 10 years ago? better yet, do you know where i can find historical USNEWS rankings?</p>
<p>There was a history site but it was taken down. I might have some old ones at home. Generally we were as high as about 32 and as low as 39 before the last couple years. In the original one they did which was just based on peer ranking–not students UW was 20th I think.</p>
<p>For fun read the thread on recent econ hirings. Some language issues but nothing too bad.</p>
<p><a href=“Economics Job Market Rumors - Forum for Economists”>Am I in Trouble? What should I do? « Economics Job Market Rumors;
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<p>nova, please cite where this list is</p>
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<p>nova, please cite where this list is. i’d like to look at it.</p>