THES World University Ranking - 2010

phuriku
Thu, 16 Sep 2010 04:54:06 +0000

We now have 3 major world rankings: Shanghai-Jiaotong, QS, and THE. Honestly, I’m getting tired of it.

In a closer analysis though, this ranking is quite a lot of BS. I was quite stunned to find that 30% of the total score is based on teaching. Dissecting this, we have:

Reputational Survey 15%
PhD awards per academic year 6%
Undergraduates admitted per academic year 4.5%
Income Per Academic Year 2.25%
PhD awards/Bachelor’s Awards 2.25%

This makes absolutely no sense. How do any of these criteria besides the reputational survey measure teaching performance? It just lets really small schools have a distinct advantage. (And now you know why Caltech is #2.)

Oh, and industry-income innovation 2.5%… how much your university gets from corporations to do research for them. What?!? Who do you think is going to benefit the most from that? Well, engineering schools, obviously, and no one but engineering schools. (Another reason why Caltech and MIT come in at #2 and #3.)

And international mix of staff and students:

Ratio of international to domestic staff 3%
Ratio of international to domestic students 2%

Please explain to me why this matters.

In any case, all of the criteria mentioned above should be deleted permanently. They are clearly useless.

In other news, it is quite interesting how far THE is taking this. They’ve put on quite a show. “We believe we have created the gold standard in international university performance comparisons.” And their methodology page? http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/analysis-methodology.html “Robust, transparent, and yours: The most exact and relevant world rankings yet devised.” I really hope THE stays unpopular or remains overwhelmed by Shanghai-Jaiotong, because these guys are just ridiculously pompous.