Worldwide University Rankings
August 22, 2005 11:50 AM   Subscribe

Rankings of world universities as published by the Beijing Jiaotong University. This is the third year this list has been published.
posted by nervousfritz (55 comments total)
 
My alma mater is #36; pretty neat even if I take these sort of things with a grain of salt
posted by TedW at 12:04 PM on August 22, 2005


They seem to have a bias toward science education, but it is still pretty interesting.
posted by caddis at 12:06 PM on August 22, 2005


Looking at where the Chinese institutions fare, I guess the Cultural Revolution's impact is still being felt.
posted by caddis at 12:12 PM on August 22, 2005


Well, who'da thought American universities would dominate the top 50 to such an extent?

I am somewhat less than convinced.
posted by Decani at 12:12 PM on August 22, 2005


Todai is 20th. Heh.
posted by delmoi at 12:14 PM on August 22, 2005


Wow, UC Berkely is 4th in the world. That's pretty impressive from a state school, IMO.
posted by delmoi at 12:15 PM on August 22, 2005


Christ. I just looked at their methodology. Only 10% weighting for academic performance? 90% for narrow criteria such as "Number of Nobel prizes won"?

I declare this to be a bag of arse.
posted by Decani at 12:16 PM on August 22, 2005


My school was in the 152-202 range
posted by delmoi at 12:18 PM on August 22, 2005


24's not bad! Bet this will fuel the superiority complex fire. On another note, I probably should read the grad school prospectus and not rely on this list.
posted by phyrewerx at 12:21 PM on August 22, 2005


San Diego in the top 20???
posted by ORthey at 12:22 PM on August 22, 2005


My alma matter is in the 400-500 range, but my husband was an undergraduate at the school down the road which is ranked #24. Yet, our undergraduate experiences were really very similar (same departments, similar size of universities), and now we are both in similar graduate schools. Of course, you want your own to do well (we all love ranking things), but it makes you think about what rankings mean, in terms of experience.
posted by jb at 12:22 PM on August 22, 2005


I am shocked at how high my school is ranked. I don't know that I would have called it "academic rankings" though. It's more like "best science research schools".
posted by smackfu at 12:25 PM on August 22, 2005


What an idiotic methodology. Some very average schools like UC-Boulder, San Diego, St. Louis are in the top 100 universities in the world? Nope.

It has UT Southwestern Medical School in the top 50. Yeah, it's one of the top medical schools in the world. But it's a medical school; not a university. A university has a specific definition, iirc---a college with graduate programs.

UT Southwestern is a graduate program; not a university. It is part of the University of Texas system. Thus, if you want to credit the fine medical education one receives from the UTSW, then one ought to credit the University of Texas.

What a bad study.
posted by dios at 12:27 PM on August 22, 2005


ORthey - there's a huuuuuuge bias towards the sciences in the ranking system ("publications in Nature and Science" is a ranking category of its own). San Diego has a fabulous medical school, and fabulous biology/clinical research is done there. They are one of the best neuroscience institutions in the world, with literally hundreds of labs. Based on those criteria, their ranking is not surprising.

I am a little bit suprised by the complete absence of the India Institutes of Technology. I suppose they fail on the specific journal publications, and on the density of Nobel laureates.
posted by synapse at 12:32 PM on August 22, 2005


A university has a specific definition, iirc---a college with graduate programs.

Actually, that is only true in the U.S. (and a few other places?)

In Canada, a university is a degree granting institution, regardless of whether it has a graduate school or not. A college grants only diplomas.

I don't know what the definition is in China, but I suspect they may not make such a fine point on English usuage as we do, what with the official language being Chinese, not English.
posted by jb at 12:34 PM on August 22, 2005


ITT is missing? But that's crazy! Even I've heard of ITT.
posted by jb at 12:35 PM on August 22, 2005


Fair enough, jb. But I still find it curious (read: wrong) to call a medical school, which is a part of a univeristy, a university unto itself.
posted by dios at 12:36 PM on August 22, 2005


Although I'm biased, I would tend to regard any list that ranks Michigan State University (regarded by many at my high school as the "dumb in-state option") above Brown University (my school).
posted by awesomebrad at 12:36 PM on August 22, 2005


Site is down
posted by ParisParamus at 12:37 PM on August 22, 2005


Heh. Whackily enough I have been to this Univeristy and worked with people from there. One of the professors in my department got his BS and MS from there and sent me to a conference sponsored by this university several years ago.

/not sure what this comment contributes to the thread....
posted by Yellowbeard at 12:40 PM on August 22, 2005


I searched the site for their ranking of best party schools but couldn't find it. Does anyone have the link?
posted by BuzzKill at 1:03 PM on August 22, 2005


I was sadly disappointed when I read the article that accompanied the title "America's Hottest Colleges". No pictures of co-eds or nothin'.
posted by Moral Animal at 1:15 PM on August 22, 2005


While it won't win many prizes for party school, the U of C is 9th. Which is kinda sucky when you think that it's got the most Nobel laureates on the faculty, and a very good showing in Science/Nature journals, as well as top ranked medical and sciences. Hrmph.

I honestly don't care about rankings. But with their criteria, (that I don't necessarily agree with), I figured we'd do better.
posted by zpousman at 1:16 PM on August 22, 2005


What do you expect--It's China!
posted by ParisParamus at 1:18 PM on August 22, 2005


So why is UCSF so highly ranked?
posted by gyc at 1:30 PM on August 22, 2005


JB, what graduate school program are you in now?
posted by phyrewerx at 1:31 PM on August 22, 2005


w00t! #12 BITCH.

GO BIG RED.
posted by Stynxno at 1:52 PM on August 22, 2005


Georgetown University in the 203-300 list AND below George Mason AND George Washington. Unadulterated crap. Utter, utter crap.
posted by Mister Fyodor at 2:01 PM on August 22, 2005


Maybe this list is intended to make mediocre Chinese students feel good when they don't get into top US schools?
posted by ParisParamus at 2:14 PM on August 22, 2005


I was surprised to see Paris 1 and Paris II nowhere near the top of this list. I'm not sure if it's the ranking criteria or what, but the Sorbonne used to be (10-20 years ago), right near the top spot of all of these lists.

Go Maroons, zpousman! 9 sounds about right, thought I'd seen it ranked much higher in the past. Aggressive up and comer schools like UT-Austin, Carnegie-Mellon, Duke and WashU have been hiring away UofC faculty for a couple decades now (more money, less competitive stress). The current administration is starting to turn this around of late, as I understand it.
posted by psmealey at 2:19 PM on August 22, 2005


No Univ of Oregon at all but ASU in top 100..rofl..clear bias to beer vs weed!! Even with a 4% error.
posted by Mr Bluesky at 2:33 PM on August 22, 2005


What's up with the garbage of only actually ranking the top 100? Why even bother listing the rest of them if you're just going to give them rankings like "203-300"? But then, the whole study is pretty much ridiculous any way.
posted by antifuse at 2:48 PM on August 22, 2005


My school's 101-152, but we're listed in the article Moral Animal linked to for being all techy and stuff. Woo, go wifi!
posted by strikhedonia at 3:09 PM on August 22, 2005


So why is UCSF so highly ranked?

Because this list is hopelessly flawed. Like UT Southwestern, UCSF is a graduate school or, as their website says, "a graduate health sciences university". Yes, it's one of the premiere medical schools in the nation, but it's really not fair to place it in direct competition with comprehensive undergrad and grad institutions like Madison and Ann Arbor.

They should have called this list "Some Schools".
posted by gramschmidt at 4:03 PM on August 22, 2005


The Times of London (click the "download" link) also did a list of the top universities. Unsurprisingly, the USA has a good showing on this list as well, with 7 of the top 10.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 4:13 PM on August 22, 2005


Because this list is hopelessly flawed.

Your reasoning is flawed. The list is for Chinese undergraduates surveying possible Ph.D.-granting schools to continue their education abroad in order to bring back knowledge to the motherland.

By that context, basing the list primarily on Nobel laureates is fairly accurate, as such awardees tend to have big labs with big money -- meaning funding for a foreign student.

Awards, alumni, and grants; these are the big ticket items you look for in graduate school.
posted by linux at 5:00 PM on August 22, 2005


Wow, UC Berkely is 4th in the world. That's pretty impressive from a state school, IMO.
posted by delmoi at 12:15 PM PST on August 22 [!]


The Times of London likes Cal a little better. They rightly placed them ahead of Stanford, unlike in this survey. Of course, that's just my slightly biased opinion. Actually, US News and World Report ranks Cal outside of the top twenty just in the US, while all the usual private schools are higher up. I think for whatever reason the rest of the world gives Berkeley a bit more credit than our own people do.
posted by Stryke11 at 6:43 PM on August 22, 2005


The list is for Chinese undergraduates surveying possible Ph.D.-granting schools to continue their education abroad in order to bring back knowledge to the motherland.

Where does it say this explicitly? On their Ranking Resources page, the first heading is "GENERAL / UNDERGRADUATE RANKINGS", which forces me to conclude that they are indeed simply interested in ranking the universities of the world, not the graduate programs.

Yours is a compelling inference, but it's not made explicit, and if I've learned anything it's to absolutely trust anything official or official-sounding that emerges from China.
posted by gramschmidt at 7:05 PM on August 22, 2005


Well, I can't say I put much faith in a survey that lists Stanford above Columbia, Penn, Chicago, Yale, Oxford, and Princeton.

Then again, I also can point out a host of other faults: UMich Ann Arbor over UToronto, WUSTL over Duke, and UIUC far above TU Munich.

I think for whatever reason the rest of the world gives Berkeley a bit more credit than our own people do.

It probably has something to do with the difficulty of finishing in four years.
posted by oaf at 7:48 PM on August 22, 2005


World Rank #37. That's a tad high, methinks. Nice campus, though.
posted by dreamsign at 7:53 PM on August 22, 2005


#1! w000t! What a shock. But still!
posted by Hildegarde at 8:07 PM on August 22, 2005


Thus, if you want to credit the fine medical education one receives from the UTSW, then one ought to credit the University of Texas.
Eh, as someone who stongly considered going to UTSW, I dare say that University of TX doesn't play much of a role in UTSW's success. UTSW is quite its own entity.
And while I love my bulldogs, how in the hell is the University of Georgia ranked 101-152, just a little behind Georgia Tech?? UGA's a decent enough school, but GT is still light-years ahead of GT, especially in the science field.
posted by jmd82 at 9:29 PM on August 22, 2005


Rankings like this are almost completely useless. If you're trying to decide where to go to university, you have to look at each possible destination's level of excellence in your specific field. Research where the interesting / innovative / best work is being done in that area, see what kind of vibe you get from visiting the campus and browsing their Web site, [etc...], and make your decision accordingly. [Or maybe I'm just fucking pissed that McGill is all the way down at 67, while shitty UBC is at 37. I mean, c'mon! UBC?! Hello?! Gawd!]
posted by Ricky_gr10 at 10:50 PM on August 22, 2005


UBC was a fine school when I went there. Whether it still is, I am uncertain. That was quite a while back.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:27 PM on August 22, 2005


Still is a mighty fine school, stavros. Still has a friggin' ugly clock tower tho.
posted by stray at 12:16 AM on August 23, 2005


It does seem odd that the UK institutions end up in an order so at odds with the many ranking schemes carried out in the UK. The focus on science I think tends to skew things quite badly against the more modern universities such as Bath, York and Warwick.
posted by biffa at 1:50 AM on August 23, 2005


453rd in the world for my employer. This is better than the five figure number I was expecting. Read it and weep, Hudderfield Poly'. :)
posted by vbfg at 2:02 AM on August 23, 2005


I like the list (my schools #4 and #9) but I'd like to see a list ranking undergraduate schools strictly by pure output metrics (% of students getting jobs with a defined top 20 list of employers and being admitted to a top 10 graduate or professional program.
posted by MattD at 5:07 AM on August 23, 2005


I can't believe how annoyed people are about this list! It is a perfectly normal result given the selection criteria, which is entirely weighted towards the quality of research faculty- quality of graduate/undergraduate education and breadth are essentially non-factors. If the school is not oriented towards research or science, it will not rank highly on this list. Period.
posted by Dr_Johnson at 6:49 AM on August 23, 2005


Dr_Johnson, the UK universities I mentioned regularly come top 10 in research in UK assessment exercises, yet fail to make the top 20 in this case.
posted by biffa at 7:06 AM on August 23, 2005


psmealey: Paris I-Xwhatever, blow. The whole French higher education system blows.
posted by ParisParamus at 7:13 AM on August 23, 2005


My alma mater is #87, beating out such places as Tufts and Dartmouth and just one spot behind Brown. Cool. : )
posted by SisterHavana at 8:32 AM on August 23, 2005


The University of Wisconsin - Madison, number 16 on the Chinese list and now number one on this one.
posted by caddis at 8:40 AM on August 23, 2005


MattD: Agreed that some of these rankings are a little whacky, but your suggestion which seems to be designed to measure something like "what does an education from this school buy you" still seems a little off. It biases towards schools that attract (or create) students who want work with top firms or to go to top professional or grad schools.

A student body that valued other things would pull a schools ranking down (i.e. the school could produce plenty of students who *could* do those things, but choose to do other things instead, or a school could attract students who value other outcomes and make them enourmously successful at those outcomes). Since I think a student body that's diverse (including in its goals and values) is a good thing that benefits even those students who do want to run off and be i-bankers making millions of dollars, it would be a shame to penalize schools for that.
posted by duck at 9:16 AM on August 23, 2005


the UK universities I mentioned regularly come top 10 in research in UK assessment exercises, yet fail to make the top 20 in this case.

perhaps they need more fields medal winners...
posted by Dr_Johnson at 7:15 PM on August 23, 2005


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