posterX

For the top 30 universities in COHE's 2005 Scholarly Quality Index rankings. Remember, any school to make the top 30 (below) is doing very well, since there were hundreds of other universities rated that didn't end up making the cut here.

The original ranking has Harvard, Caltech, UCSF, MIT and Yale as the five top universities in the United States in terms of Scholarly Quality Index. It's interesting to see what happens when you adjust for the number of programs.

Rank, School, Scholarly Quality Index, # of programs (both Items from COHE 2005 Ranking), Composite Index of Items

1 U. of Wisconsin at Madison +0.90 83 74.7
2 Yale U. +1.35 55 74.3
3 U. of California at Berkeley +1.03 70 72.1
4 U. of Washington +0.82 79 64.8
5 Harvard U. +1.68 38 63.8
6 U. of Pennsylvania +1.06 55 58.3
7 Duke U. +1.07 52 55.6
8 Pennsylvania State U. +0.64 85 54.4
9 Johns Hopkins U. +1.08 49 52.9
10 Vanderbilt U. +1.09 48 52.3
11 New York U. +0.89 56 49.8
12 Cornell U. endowed colleges +0.73 68 49.6
13 U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor +0.65 74 48.1
14 Stanford U. +0.89 52 46.3
15 Princeton U. +1.03 43 44.3
16 Columbia U. +0.66 59 38.9
17 U. of Virginia +0.81 48 38.9
18 Washington U. in St. Louis +1.16 33 38.3
19 U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill +0.67 56 37.5
20 Massachusetts Institute of Technology +1.44 26 37.4
21 State U. of New York at Stony Brook +0.80 41 32.8
22 Carnegie Mellon U. +1.18 27 31.9
23 California Institute of Technology +1.59 19 30.2
24 Northwestern U. +0.64 46 29.4
25 Emory U. +0.71 41 29.1
26 U. of California at San Francisco +1.59 15 23.9
27 U. of California at San Diego +0.64 33 21.1
28 Georgia Institute of Technology +0.69 29 20.0
29 Rice U. +0.71 27 19.2
30 Dartmouth College +0.73 21 15.3

VertigoFrog

I wonder how Stony Brook/Vanderbilt/Emory made the cut over Chicago. Seems odd.

BIGTWIX

yeah well first off those rankings are crap.
And second, yeah u cant really beat chicago with most grad schools. Chicago has great programs in almost everything for gradschool.

Sklog_W

wait ... why would you adjust for programs? Are we assuming being average in a lot of programs beats being excellent in a few, because personally I don't mind the whole quality over quantity mantra. But hey, that's just me.

Or is there some other method to your madness?

posterX

Yes, I agree in quality over quantity as well. The top five in the ranking before it was adjusted, Harvard, Caltech, UCSF, MIT and Yale, are probably the best out there in terms of research quality (the original rankings are quality-based rankings, which is the reason why Caltech appeared at the very top -- in any survey type or overall university ranking, Caltech often gets severely penalized because it is so small).

Chicago wasn't among the top 30 in the original ranking. However, I agree it is certainly one of the best universities in the world. There are other rankings, like the one at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14321230/ , which have Chicago among the top 20 universities in the entire world - above even the prestigious Kyoto University that is in today's headlines.

The "adjustment" here is just for fun. It just gives a balance between the quality ranking (Scholarly Quality) and the number of programs. In other words it gives a minor boost to universities that happen to have a greater academic breadth, like Wisconsin and Berkeley, and U-Washington-Seattle, all of which are incredible research universities.

Personally, I would give more validity to the original ranking, not this adjusted one.

hoedown

Are you sure you have properly attributed this ranking? I was not aware that the Chronicle of Higher Education ranks schools.

posterX

COHE published all of these rankings, including rankings of many specific fields, in an extensive issue this past year. The surveys were actually conducted by a separate company, though.

BIGTWIX

yeah it is, click your link...it is number 20... And i know that on the Times Higer education it is 10ish

posterX

I agree - it's #20 in the Newsweek Top 100 Global Universities ranking linked above. In the COHE Scholarly Quality Index, however, it's unfortunately not in the top 30 in the original 1/12/07 ranking, which is why I didn't include it. (It's actually #33 in that, and if I had included #31-50 in my adjusted ranking, it would have showed up somewhere in the list at the top of this thread).

jazzymom

What are the top 10 universities in the original, nonadjusted, list?

posterX

Here's the original list of the top 30, before the adjustment.

1 Harvard U. +1.68 38
2 California Institute of Technology +1.59 19
2 U. of California at San Francisco +1.59 15
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology +1.44 26
5 Yale U. +1.35 55
6 Carnegie Mellon U. +1.18 27
7 Washington U. in St. Louis +1.16 33
8 Vanderbilt U. +1.09 48
9 Johns Hopkins U. +1.08 49
10 Duke U. +1.07 52
11 U. of Pennsylvania +1.06 55
12 Princeton U. +1.03 43
12 U. of California at Berkeley +1.03 70
14 U. of Wisconsin at Madison +0.90 83
15 New York U. +0.89 56
15 Stanford U. +0.89 52
17 U. of Washington +0.82 79
18 U. of Virginia +0.81 48
19 State U. of New York at Stony Brook +0.80 41
20 Cornell U. endowed colleges +0.73 68
20 Dartmouth College +0.73 21
22 Emory U. +0.71 41
22 Rice U. +0.71 27
24 Georgia Institute of Technology +0.69 29
25 U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill +0.67 56
26 Columbia U. +0.66 59
27 U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor +0.65 74
28 Northwestern U. +0.64 46
28 Pennsylvania State U. +0.64 85
28 U. of California at San Diego +0.64 33

jazzymom

Thanks for posting it.

thethoughtprocess

Ok, in two sentences, can someone explains what this ranking means?

unalove

I was about to ask the same.

BedHead

For the purposes of anything meaningful on CC, this is an unintelligible and meaningless ranking. University of California, San Francisco -- the de facto or functional equivalent of UC Berkeley's med school, but an institution that stands alone in spite of direct ties -- is ranked right up there with Harvard, for instance, a multi-faceted university that covers sciences, social sciences, and humanities. It's like comparing apples and ducks. (Oh, and by the way, UCSF is not just a med school; it has a small number of academic PhD programs in the life sciences, a dental school, and a nursing school too.)

It cracks me up that rankings get so much attention. I remember seeing a ranking in a California magazine that ranked MBA programs in the state. Number 1 was Pepperdine. Berkeley/Haas and Stanford ranked considerably down the list -- and the fine print disclosed the sole ranking criterion was size of student body.

What's the point of this ranking?