-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
The best universities in the world
- Thread starter Forerunner
- Start date
- Status
Vault Dweller 111
Member
U-S-A U-S-A
I go to the 66th best college in the world I guess. Cool.
I go to the 66th best college in the world I guess. Cool.
Well the way most of these rankings work is that they are made to have those be the most prestigious as baseline. In general, they take a number of metrics and then tweak them until Harvard gets out on top. If your top x also contains Stanford and MIT, you know you have decent metrics. And by that same token, the universities who operate the most similar to Harvard, i.e. other American universities, get to ride on the tailwind. When Times started doing their Times Higher Education, they used some different metrics and hey presto, Cambridge and Oxford were the highest ranking universities. And other European universities rose upwards based on the tweaking of these metrics as a result. So there's quite a bit of politics and subjectivity behind the objective looking numbers. These things are usually nice for dickwaving and university presidents to boast about, though sadly grants are also influenced more than they should be. Most scientists know who are leading in their field, which is usually very different from lists like these, and that you should look at it more like 'general top 100', 'somewhere 100 to 300', top 500, and then basically rest. For education we have different local review lists, for instance they are practically the inverse of what the metrics of this ranking consider the best education universities. I put more stock in national rankings for something like that.
That's not to say by the way that Harvard et al shouldn't be the top raking universities of course.
UnemployedVillain
Member
They're talking about public K-12 schools
CyclopsRock
Member
They're very useful for "kids" deciding what university to go to. It's not really obvious whether Durham or Huddersfield is a better university just from reading the prospectus and going to open days. It takes, I think, years of navigating through the world of academia and then work to truly have a grasp on what universities are good and what ones aren't, and the Times and Guardian et al lists help make sure kids aren't making dumb mistakes out of ignorance (but, rather, for other reasons!)
Yup. Our K-12 system's kind of a mess, but our Universities are pretty rockin'.
this is also true
Chezzymann
Member
Considering how expensive universities are, they better be way better than our public schools
PdotMichael
Banned
The result rather reflects that such rankings are designed around the American education system.
Germany (or Europe itself) and Japan barely appear in such rankings although they are leading in high-tech fields. Either they get that know-how out of their asses or the ranking doesn't reflect that different countries operate in different ways.
That's true I guess, but as the rankings most often favor research output, that doesn't mean that the students actually necessarily benefit from it. The more classical advanced research universities I worked for, the faculty are career scientists who hate teaching and students with a passion.
I currently work for a small university where most of it is in service of making the students grow as much as possible. Which can be frustrating for a career scientist like me lol, because it doesn't do well on rankings, but I wish I had that level of attention when I was still studying. Still, my alma mater definitely looks better on my CV.
Vault Dweller 111
Member
We pay out the ass for them.
AllIsOneIsNone
Banned
#256, I guess I'll take it. I coulda been a contenda.
California dominating the rankings.
We have a lot of terrible colleges/universities, too. I don't know how our averages compare to, say, Germany's or the UK's, but I doubt such a comparison looks as favorable as this one.
We have a lot of terrible colleges/universities, too. I don't know how our averages compare to, say, Germany's or the UK's, but I doubt such a comparison looks as favorable as this one.
Just this seems to weight the list wildly towards business, medical, and engineering focused universities; so much so that it makes the list seem almost useless for describing the quality of an institution's Arts education. The fact that neither the Pantheon-Sorbonne nor the École pratique des hautes études made it in blows my mind. It's also seriously weird to me that two of my local universities, which are regarded as essentially equivalent except in medicine, have a 300 rank gap between them.
They should have won that one Japanese art prize they included in their list, lol.
I think there's probably two main causes. One is the amount of money they have. Harvard is the richest university in the world (by some degree: Harvard has $36.4bn; Yale has $25.5bn; Cambridge has $7.7bn), whereas many universities outside of the USA are publically funded institutions.
The second is an entrenchment effect over time. The best universities attract better academics and better students, who both increase the attractiveness of the university via reputation and rankings such as this, as well as give them money. So then they can get more of the best academics and the best students, etc. etc.
I think it's OK to be proud of this. American Universities as a group have completely transformed entire geographic areas and cities, including the one I live in, Cambridge.
This isn't' a perfect ranking or anything but to my mind, they're one of the better things our country has going for it. Other educational issues such as financing as many students to get to experience these transformative institutions as possible, as well as K-12 education (which I'm particularly passionate about), are very important, but I think it's equally important to not sacrifice or forget about what makes American Universities great.
66% of the top 3 are in Massachusetts.
I consider myself lucky to have worked for both of them.
This isn't' a perfect ranking or anything but to my mind, they're one of the better things our country has going for it. Other educational issues such as financing as many students to get to experience these transformative institutions as possible, as well as K-12 education (which I'm particularly passionate about), are very important, but I think it's equally important to not sacrifice or forget about what makes American Universities great.
66% of the top 3 are in Massachusetts.
I consider myself lucky to have worked for both of them.
loaf of bread
Member
Top 500, top 150 in US. I don't know why I'm going here with the prices as high as they are.
honestrade
Member
Nice to see my alma mater checking in at #15.
RandomExpletive
Member
SJSU nowhere to be seen, sighhhhhhh (I'm not shocked)
Angelus Errare
Banned
Not surprising, I mean America has more colleges than pretty much every other first world country combined. So it's not surprising we're going to dominate the list even outside of the top 50.
Er. even if this is true, which I doubt, then it's because most other first world countries don't lump colleges in with universities. If it comes to high ranking universities per e.g. capita, some other countries do much better.
LeroyPantwether
Member
Hooray #74. That said the ratings seem a bit suspect. I find it hard to believe that U of Arizona is ahead of Brown, Notre Dame, and UC Irvine.
victreeb3l
Member
Andrew Korenchkin
Member
Fuck the University of Arizona.
LeroyPantwether
Member
Lol, I am inclined to agree with this statement.
Andrew Korenchkin
Member
Your avatar though....
Heh. I used to think these were kinda bunk (at least in rating the quality of education at a place). After working with a lot of Hardvard / MIT / Stanford people, I know they're kinda bunk.
BUT I never realized how much faith people put in them until I was in the work force. Like, I know people who literally will not even look at resumes if the school isn't somewhere in the top 25 or so of that list, which I guess just serves to make it easier for those people to get jobs, thus reinforcing the list
BUT I never realized how much faith people put in them until I was in the work force. Like, I know people who literally will not even look at resumes if the school isn't somewhere in the top 25 or so of that list, which I guess just serves to make it easier for those people to get jobs, thus reinforcing the list
N7Commander95
Member
92 WHOOP WHOOP
KINGS COLLEGE LONDON
We are somewhat ok
KINGS COLLEGE LONDON
We are somewhat ok
Andrew Korenchkin
Member
Also, Lol at how low Brown is.
hockeypuck
Member
Hey now, don't diss UCSF's schools of pharmacy, nursing and dentistry. They're all "extremely good" schools. PhD grad program ain't that bad either, from what I could tell.
therealist
Member
Wow, other nations, get on the USAs level.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Cool list I guess, but personally, even if you went to one of the top 10 uni's, unless you have a job worth a shit or you're doing something awesome with your life, I certainly don't find your piece of paper impressive.
It seems like non-research colleges like liberal arts colleges (which are primarily teaching colleges) are at a disadvantage based on the metrics by which this list uses. The list puts on an emphasis on faculty publication and research rate.
I found, in my experience as an undergraduate at a large research oriented university, that there were some professors with impressive research credentials who absolutely sucked at the job of teaching undergrads - because they were so much more concerned with writing their next paper than teaching biology 101.
edit:
also this list is way more relevant for these university's graduate programs than they are for gauging quality of undergraduate education.
I found, in my experience as an undergraduate at a large research oriented university, that there were some professors with impressive research credentials who absolutely sucked at the job of teaching undergrads - because they were so much more concerned with writing their next paper than teaching biology 101.
edit:
also this list is way more relevant for these university's graduate programs than they are for gauging quality of undergraduate education.
- Status