“Like every British ranking I’ve seen, the THE has an “international” component (bonus points for either the percentage of student body or faculty from different countries) which seems to boost up the British schools more than the American and continental ones.”
Excellent point PurpleTitan. This is obviously very self-serving on part of those British rankings, but I suppose their core constituents are mainly British, so it makes sense. Over 50% of undergraduate students at LSE are international, and over 25% at Imperial, UCL, Cambridge and Oxford. Very hard for US universities to compete. 10% is considered a very high international student rate in the US.
“If you want just a straight research ranking (which is really what the THE is with bonus points for international composition), I would just look at ARWU.”
While I agree, the ARWU is not without its eccentricities. It too seems to have a regional preference, in their case, the AsiaPac region (UCLA #12, UCSD #14, UDub #15 and UCSF #18). Since ARWU is a Chinese ranking, that would also make sense.
“The French do not do well in research rankings because their elite institutions tend to be small and specialized.”
Again, excellent point. Schools like Marie Currie, Science Po, Ecole Normale Superieure and Ecole Polytechnique etc… are all amazing, but very specialized. Which is why I think global rankings make no sense whatsoever. Take Ecole Nationale Superieure. It enrols only 3,000 students (only 10% of which are undergrads), and yet, it has produced a dozen Nobel Laureates and 10 Fields Medalists! We are talking purely alums here. That’s insane. No US university has produced more than 3 Fields medalists.