<p>Despite all your quibbles governments around the world place significant weight on this and the other major int university rankings. And policies are based on it. So maybe the USA is not always all-knowing.</p>
<p>Barrons, the issue is one of the targeted audience. This site is predominantly attracting students and their parents who are seeking information about the transition from high school to tertiary education. Foreign governments, as you say, are paying attention to the reports produced by ARWU and, perhaps, the THE/THES reports because they have or had little comparative data, and pretty much operated with their heads buried in the sand, or stated simply, because they could not care less about the international reputation of their mostly national system of education. </p>
<p>Further, most foreign countries do NOT need the ranking system that made the USNews famous on our shores. Overseas, accessing the first stages of tertiary education does need the comparison tools leading to hundreds if not thousands of colleges a la USA. There is a handful of schools and they are offer either free access to everyone who passes the minimal tests (think Europe) or pass a hyper-competitive test that decides the destination (think Asia.) </p>
<p>In so many words, the reports produced by ARWU and THE are entirely irrelevant (and massively incomplete) to the focus of College Confidential, safe and except for the deeply buried graduate school forums. While the focus on research output could be interesting to some, it also speaks mostly to the same audience that lives in the quasi parallel world of peer reviewed research publishing. All in all, a small number of people who are hardly interested in what consumes the teenagers who flock to this site or their (helicoptering) parents. </p>
<p>But, it is understandable that the supporters of the academic factories that are keen on establishing their reputation via research and consider the education of undergraduates a necessary nuisance … find those misleading rankings attractive.</p>
<p>“Despite all your quibbles governments around the world place significant weight on this and the other major int university rankings. And policies are based on it. So maybe the USA is not always all-knowing.”</p>
<p>The opinions of people who really don’t know anything about these colleges, but base their opinions on “I heard of this so it must be good, I haven’t heard of this so it can’t be any good” aren’t worth considering in any way whatsoever.</p>
<p>ARWU puts almost no weight (if not outright not putting any) to undergraduate education and what could affect it, THE slightly more but not enough to be of anything more than marginal help to prospective undergraduates, and QS either.</p>
<p>I bet that an undergraduate-centric world ranking would look very different from the rankings we have today, especially if there is no reputation involved.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s because I’m from california, but if one polled every person in CA, I suspect more people would know about Michigan than Brown. Therefore Michigan is better than brown based on HIP.</p>
<p>The idea that there is some major separation between undergrad and grad quality is almost strictly a US concept. The ROW thinks in terms of good schools and not as good schools. And most are universities. LACs are virtually unknown and unwanted.
Pizza-do a little research and you will understand my point.</p>
<p>[‘British</a> universities face collapse into global mediocrity’: Warning over future of higher education as just 10 UK institutions make it into top 100 list | Mail Online](<a href=“'British universities face collapse into global mediocrity': Warning over future of higher education as just 10 UK institutions make it into top 100 list | Daily Mail Online”>'British universities face collapse into global mediocrity': Warning over future of higher education as just 10 UK institutions make it into top 100 list | Daily Mail Online)</p>
<p>Any reason the IIT’s are ranked low?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, I get that most top LAC’s in the US are unknown overseas. So what, though? Whether something is broadly known has nothing whatsoever to do with whether it’s high quality. Most people in this country “think” that Ohio State is better than Amherst because they’ve heard of Ohio State but have never heard of Amherst. No one with a brain would then conclude Ohio State is actually a better school. So I don’t see why I should care one bit about “reputation” gathered among people based only on hearsay and not based on real knowledge or experience.</p>
<p>There are many ways in which OSU is a “better” school. Want to study engineering or plant science or 100 other things–can’t do that at Amherst. No need for you to care. Much more important folks do care.</p>
<p>Obviously, none of this matters to life, liberty and the pursuit of educational happiness, or whatever one’s overriding values are. It’s just a ranking system; we know that. However, given that the job market has gone global and there are plenty of companies operating in the United States that are foreign-owned, it might be helpful for students to have attended a university that someone from Europe or Asia would have heard of. When H was interviewed for his current job, several interviewers were German. D was recently interviewed for an internship, based in DC, by folks from South America.</p>
<p>You’re right; that was a bad example on my part. Ohio State is better than Amherst to study X number of things. Nonetheless, my point still stands. Popular opinion, whether it’s that in the US or overseas, isn’t relevant to much of anything, since most people don’t know very much about colleges.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Indeed. Moreover, prestige is HUGE on the side of the oceans, so the higher-ranked the better.</p>
<p>
All other things being equal, maybe. But all other things aren’t often equal, and it would be foolish (in my opinion) to choose a university that is a poorer fit or that offers a weaker program just because more people overseas have heard of it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Then, are there a lot of colleges outside US where professors are so absorbed in their research that a discrepancy between undergrad and grad quality would appear?</p>
<p>Even in the mountains of Elbonia people would ask me where I go to school. When I said Lafayette they would say “Purdue” automatically and I would have to explain Lafayette LA vs (West) Lafayette IN…</p>
<p>Some schools have great international name recognition and some not so. Not so much rankings based but reputation based.</p>
<p>^ That’s funny, I would have assumed you meant Lafayette College in Easton, PA.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Senior, published academics collectively know a heck of a lot more about universities than the masses on CC.</p>
<p>I received the survey form to contribute to the rankings - it asked for your view on reputation of universities only within your own region (essentially continent). So it was not asking Elbonian professors to guess whether Michigan was better than Michigan State.</p>
<p>I think that there really exist colleges where there is a large discrepancy between graduate and undergraduate instructional quality, and that it exists both ways. It is a factor overlooked by many that are unfamiliar with higher education.</p>
<p>My professors would say that there are primarily-undergraduate, or even undergraduate-only, institutions that deserve a better position in the world rankings than their subpar research indicators would otherwise indicate. And that there are highly-rated institutions that comparatively teach undergrads poorly…</p>
<p>Reputation means a whole lot since in many cases the people making hiring decisions are using subjective measures like whether they like you or know you or went to the same school or if you attended a school they respect.</p>
<p>I watched a Colleague who graduated from Princeton advance like a rocket although we started at the same level. He was given some huge assignments and major responsibilities right off the bat. Everything he did was praised and I heard the boss refer to him to others as “my Princeton graduate” like he was a prize pig.</p>
<p>His advancement was so fast, it couldn’t have been based on much more than reputation. He was up and out of there before most people really got to know him.</p>
<p>The world is far more subjective and irrational than objective and rational.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Poppycock! </p>
<p>You might be confused with a different survey because THIS survey did exactly what you purport it did not do. Elbonian “experts” are asked to list 15 schools (and provided spelling help if needed) from outside their region and around the world.</p>
<p>To refresh your memory, check page 11 of the survey. And page 13 for good measure! </p>
<p>What do you think is meant by “Now, please think about institutions around the world … blah, blah”</p>
<p><a href=“http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/m/pdfs/GIP-ReputationSurvey.pdf[/url]”>http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/m/pdfs/GIP-ReputationSurvey.pdf</a></p>