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your contradicting yourself Bedhead, first you brush off one ranking(THES) due to huge diff in rankings between colleges that are similar in prestige/quality in the US, and then you put forth another ranking(ARWU) and lend credence to it even though its equally bs (just look at the diff between HYP and Y dropping out of top 10)...besides if this was directed to me, i've already stated clearly that to me the rankings are bs, though its a fact that many "uninitiated" ppl look to them like some "definitive evidence of academic repute and quality"
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I quoted you; of course my comments were directed at you. I didn't contradict myself in the least. I merely said I couldn't see that the THES rankings had any rhyme or reason. I brought up another set of rankings -- the Shanghai Jiaotong University rankings because at the very least its criteria for ranking are crystal clear and according to its standards the rankings very clearly show that Berkeley and Stanford are tip-top -- and somehow the THES rankings put them very far down the list. It isn't the only ranking to have done so; the NRC rankings of overall breadth and depth of graduate programs had them in the top spots as well, even above Harvard.
What is the usefulness of rankings? Well, that's an entirely different question. The key, I think, as I implied by my post is to look behind the rankings to see what they rate. The Shanghai rankings are at least consistent but probably mostly useless for someone simply choosing college. I think there is a strong argument that LACs provide the best purely educational experience and in that I'd agree. Down the list, I'd put research universities public or private. This is based on anecdotal observations -- for instance a friend who had gone to top research universities (Stanford, MIT) and was getting his PhD at Berkeley and noted the best prepared students were from places like Swarthmore not HYPSBM. I think the distinction between private and public per se may not be the most useful.
I think 100 percent of UK citizens who had no attachment to Oxford would say Cambridge is more highly thought of.