TImes higher Education World Ranking for Universities Show US Universities gaining.

ParentOfIvyHope · 10-09-2008, 12:56 PM

Times Higher Education - Education news, resources and university jobs for the academic world

Yale, Caltech, MIT, Columbia, U Penn gain while U. Chicago down by 1.

Times Higher Education

It is funny to see that Caltech Employer Review Score of 74 is the lowest among the top 40 Universities.
I think Caltechians are too geeky to be employed. They might be best for research but might not be good at industrial jobs.

Big Bang Theory characters reflect that.

crs1909 · 10-09-2008, 01:11 PM

Yeah, I'd like to see the metrics they used to come up with these numbers because they just seem kinda random.

For the Staff/Student Score, Berkeley got a 24 meanwhile UT got a 26.

First, I'm pretty sure Berkeley has better students and a better staff (faculty) than UT.

Second, how did Berkeley and UT only get a 24 and 26, respectively?

ParentOfIvyHope · 10-09-2008, 01:32 PM

I think the Student/Staff score is what the students and staff of UCB have given the university. UCB being public students as well as Stafff might face lots of problems and so the lower score.

Also you need to take into consideration that the ranking is from UK and so there is a bias towards UK universities. I don't think Imperial College and University College London is better than rest of the top 10 US universities.

Sam Lee · 10-09-2008, 01:41 PM

^at least we are seeing less movement than Shanghai Index.

bclintonk · 10-09-2008, 03:17 PM

Some big gainers among US and Canadian schools:

Michigan +20, from #38 to #18
Cornell +5, from #20 to #15
Brown +5, from #32 to #27
UCLA +11, from #41 to #30
NYU +9, from #49 to #40
Toronto +4, from #45 to #41
WUSTL +101, from #161 to #60
Emory +12, from #74 to #62
Rice +14, from #92 to #78
Minnesota +55, from #142 to #87
Case Western +7, from #96 to #89
UVa +14, from #110 to #96
UC Santa Barbara +19, from #117 to #98
UNC Chapel Hill +49, from #151 to #102
USC +17, from #119 to #102

Some big losers:

Princeton -6, from #6 to #12
McGill -8, from #12 to #20
Northwestern -4, from #29 to #33
UC Berkeley -14, from #22 to #36
Dartmouth -6, from #48 to #54
Texas -19, from #51 to #70
Pittsburgh -20, from #77 to #97
Purdue -22, from #77 to #99
Vanderbilt -19, from #83 to #101
Penn State -15, from #90 to #105
Georgetown -8, from #102 to #110
U Maryland -43, from #79 to #122

These wild swings from year to year cast a lot of doubt on the validity of the rankings. But it's fun anyway, especially to see my own alma mater (Michigan) move up so dramatically in the rankings towards the top of the world's elite universities.

ColdWind · 10-09-2008, 03:38 PM

This is a worthwhile & notable effort. Of course, many are disappointed. But the nice aspect of these rankings--just like USNews rankings--is that each rating is broken out in a separate heading/category. For example, few knowledgeable folks would believe, in my opinion, that UCal-Berkeley & Northwestern University should be ranked below the top 20; but an examination of the "Employer Ratings" category shows Berkeley receiving a perfect score and Northwestern a very high score but also that both universities suffer quite unfairly in a single category titled the "International Staff Score"-whatever that may be. Sorry, but the International Staff Score of a European Publication isn't going to change my, or more importantly, employers', opinions that UCal -Berkeley & Northwestern University are well within the top 20 universities worldwide. In fact, with respect to certain disciplines both are the number one school in the world, and in other disciplines are certainly in the top 5 in the world. Regardless of the results, I still find the rankings to be very informative & thought provoking. thank you for sharing this info.!

artiesdad · 10-09-2008, 04:39 PM

I normally don't post in this part of the board but a couple of statements by the OP really caught my attention.

"Big Bang Theory characters reflect that."

Any hiring manager that thinks this way about Caltech graduates (or for that matter lets sitcom characters influence hiring decisions) will not hold his/her position for long.

"I think Caltechians are too geeky to be employed. They might be best for research but might not be good at industrial jobs."

It is true that a large number of Caltech students end up in grad school but the rest don't seem to have a problem finding good jobs at places like Microsoft, NVIDIA, Google or (present financial conditions notwithstanding) financial institutions that value their advance analytical skills.

I work in an industrial environment and over time I have had different hiring responsibilities. I would have loved to expand my team with a couple of geeky Caltech graduates. Unfortunately there are not nearly enough of them to go around.

artiesdad · 10-09-2008, 04:51 PM

Ecole Polytechnique is listed twice at #28 and #34 with different scores. ???

barrons · 10-09-2008, 04:54 PM

Why is this ranking allowed to appear here while "the other" international ranking was banished to some obscure board?

Porsche 06 · 10-09-2008, 07:25 PM

These rankings are so ridiculous! The UK bias is deafening...

ParentOfIvyHope · 10-09-2008, 08:17 PM

artiesdad : I was just trying to 'humor' the post that the Employer Review Score for Caltech matches the character portrayed by Big Bang Theory. I really regard Caltech education very high so don’t get offended by the comment.

By the way 'Sheldon Cooper' character on 'Big Bang Theory' is just not employable.

tortoise · 06-02-2010, 12:57 AM

According to the survey, the top five U.S. universities ...

1) Harvard
2) Yale
3) CalTech
4) Chicago
5) MIT

Ok. One may have his or her own notion of what ranks where. Still, that's plausible enough. But then, things get a little wierder ...

6) Columbia ( okaay ... )
7) Penn ( uh, well, um ... )
8) Princeton (really?! after Columbia ... and PENN?!)
9) Duke ( whaaaaaaaaaa ... ? )
10) Johns Hopkins ( ok-ok ... this is some kind of hidden camera practical joke thing, right?)
11) Cornell (yeah-yeah, but what about ... )
12) Stanford (Oh, right. Of course, Stanford comes after Cornell, Hopkins, and Duke. Stanford definitely takes a back seat to Duke for ... well, what exactly? Lacrosse?)

computergeek173 · 06-17-2010, 10:03 AM

Totally agreeing with you tortoise. A lot of these end up using Harvard as a baseline for what reason exactly? Harvard has been #1 for every year of the ARWU simply based on prestige alone. I think it would be fair to say it's a little off. Natural sciences and liberal arts tend to be more heavily influential in these rankings than Engineering + Tech, as well, which makes great schools like Stanford (which in my opinion is quite possibly the strongest school in almost all areas of which I know). I don't know... Chicago before MIT? Columbia, Penn before Princeton? All of these plus Duke, JH, and Cornell before Stanford? yeah...

kyleand · 06-18-2010, 02:02 PM

The UK bias here is really sickening. Maybe me and the rest of the world are wrong as in how everyone aims to go to America for graduate school....

jixani · 06-18-2010, 08:17 PM

Everyone? Maybe everyone in a forum on American graduate schools, yes, but I know plenty of people that are neither interested in nor perceive American grad schools as superior to those of other countries.