<p>^ That ranking is the collective opinion of about 16,500 academics around the world…the focus is mainly on research reputation.</p>
<p>
Duke and NU have stronger graduate and professional programs than UCLA and Illinois in almost every field besides Engineering, Math, Chemistry (in the case of Duke), Biology (in the case of NU), and Physics. Duke/NU are stronger in the humanities than Caltech/MIT too.</p>
<p>“Duke and NU have stronger graduate and professional programs than UCLA and Illinois in almost every field besides Engineering, Math, Chemistry (in the case of Duke), Biology (in the case of NU), and Physics. Duke/NU are stronger in the humanities than Caltech/MIT too.”</p>
<p>I guess not everyone takes USNWR rankings too seriously.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Really? I’m afraid that’s wishful thinking from a Duke fanboy.</p>
<p>Here are the US News graduate program rankings in 6 core humanities and social sciences disciplines:</p>
<p>Economics: Northwestern #8, UCLA #14, Duke #19
English: Duke #10, UCLA #10, Northwestern #20
History: UCLA #9, Duke #14, Northwestern #14
Political Science: Duke #9, UCLA #11, Northwestern #21
Psychology: UCLA #3, Northwestern #17, Duke #23
Sociology: Northwestern #9, UCLA #9, Duke #14</p>
<p>UCLA: mean rank 9.3, median rank 9.5, highest 3, lowest 14
Duke: mean 15.2, median 14, highest 9, lowest 23
Northwestern: mean 14.2, median 15.5, highest 8, lowest 21</p>
<p>Among the three schools, UCLA has the highest rank or is tied for the highest in 4 of the 6 disciplines, and it is second (i.e., ahead of either Northwestern or Duke) in the other two. And these aren’t selectively chosen, mind you; these are US News’ core humanities/social sciences rankings (they also include criminology which I omit because many top schools don’t have separate criminology programs). Based on this, I’d say UCLA has a definite edge over both Northwestern and Duke in the humanities and social sciences.</p>
<p>Other fields? Well, in the sciences you conveniently listed almost every discipline as an exception to your general claim, but you omitted Earth Science—not a particular strength of UCLA at #17, but better than #39 Northwestern and #45 Duke. Oh, and Computer Science: UCLA #14, Duke #27, Northwestern #35.</p>
<p>Elsewhere: Here are The Philosophical Gourmet graduate program rankings in Philosophy: UCLA #11, Duke #24, Northwestern #31.</p>
<p>Based on this sampling, I’d say UCLA pretty consistently has stronger grad programs in core academic disciplines than both Duke and Northwestern.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And we know what the result of compiling the collective subjective opinion of academics amounts to in the US version. </p>
<p>At least, the surveyors at the THE had the integrity to mention that the survey was based on NOTHING but the subjective opinions of the academics, and not pretend there was any scientific about the exercise. </p>
<p>The saddest part is that there are people who are trying to dissect that irrelevant drivel to demonstrate that the results are either bogus or accurate.</p>
<p>Lol, people here trying to justify their own subjective lists with other subjective lists out there that only support their own list.</p>
<p>How many people actually choose Berkeley over Princeton when they are admitted to both? How many choose UCLA over Duke?
Not too many according to data from Parchment.
90% of students chose Princeton over Berkeley and 70% of students chose Duke over UCLA.</p>
<p>University of California Berkley and UCLA, University of Chicago, UVA and University of Maryland, Columbia University. (In no special order. They’re all excellent.)</p>
<p>
For graduate school too?</p>
<p>Probably not, and that is the whole point of arguing the irrelevance of the international rankings that focus primarily on research and graduate schools. </p>
<p>Fwiw, for transfers, 100 percent of student prefer Berkeley over Princeton.</p>
<p>bclintonk,</p>
<p>Based on the methodology, it doesn’t seem like a ranking of “overall prestige”. It’s based on a survey that asked people in academia which 15 schools they think are the the strongest universities **in their specific fields **. Then the totals are based on number of times the schools appear on those responses.</p>
<p>I was a chemE and EnvE major. If I became one of those guys in academia, my response to the survey would look something like this:
ChemE
Stanford, UCSB, UIUC, Wisconsin, Delaware, etc.
EnvE
GA Tech, Stanford, MIT, Washington, Michigan, etc.</p>
<p>That’s very different from asking me which schools I think are most prestigious. In that case, plenty of schools would be ahead all those schools except Stanford/MIT.</p>
<p>Not in Europe Sam Lee. Also not in academe. In academe, Cal is on par with Princeton and Yale. In Europe (the Times rating is European in origin), schools like Cal, Columbia, Michigan and UCLA have very strong reputations relatively speaking.</p>
<p>Sam, come on now. We all know Stanford isn’t tops in ChemE. It’s good, but it still sucks balls to MIT & Berkeley. UIUC wouldn’t be in my top 5.</p>
<p>My school is interesting because it goes from the 8 Ivies, MIT, Stanford, Illinois, Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, Duke, and Virginia. Our school beleives that besides Stanford every school West of the Mississippi is a bad school (However the WUSTL is starting to catch on). I just find it VERY interesting.</p>
<p>Come on UCB. Stanford is almost ranked among the top 5 in ChemE. MIT, Cal, Minnesota, UT-Austin, Stanford, Caltech and Wisconsin were the top programs for ChemE as far as the rankings are concerned. I am no expert in the field of course, but that’s what the rankings I have seen seem to suggest.</p>
<p>UCB,
Those were some of my 15 schools per the survey, not top-5. </p>
<p>Alexandre,
The respondents from the US, not Europe, were the plurality.</p>
<p>Alexandre,
As for the reputation for Cal, UCLA, and Michigan in Europe, I have no basis to agree or disgree with your claim. All I know is for undergrad admission, Cal is easier than Yale and Princeton by a good margin. The average SAT admit is 2136 (probably another 20-30 point drop for those that enrolled); it’s definitely no Yale/Princeton level. UCLA/Michigan would be further back in selectivity, which I’d think, correlates closely to prestige, at least among the international high school counselors and seniors.</p>
<p>[Student</a> Profile | UC Berkeley Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.berkeley.edu/studentprofile]Student”>Student Profile - Office of Undergraduate Admissions)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>and the above has NOTHING to do with the reputation ranking. Again, nothing as in nada or as in zilch. This is about the perception of the value of academic research. </p>
<p>It does not matter where it originates or who composes the list of respondents … they only answer four basic questions about they perceived as the plausible perception of a subjective reputation. In other words, after picking one or two favorites, they simply click wildly on the list of choices offered or … read last year ranking for guidance. </p>
<p>Of course, there must be a few who try to answer that type of mental masturbation questionaire, but are facing with the difficulty of ranking their own school, let alone schools that are in different continents. </p>
<p>Nothing but an exercise for navelgazers.</p>
<p>Sam, your argument is essentially schools can be prestigious among 18 year olds even though they aren’t particularly academically distinguished in anything…</p>
<p>Hey guys I would really appreciate your input and would be willing to comment on any of your concerns.
<a href=“Michigan vs. UF - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums”>Michigan vs. UF - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums;
<p>UCB,</p>
<p>I believe Alexandre was talking about laymen in Europe; are they particularly academically distinguished? At least the 18-yo applying for US colleges actually look up college guides and go through the application process. What do the laymen in Europe know about US shools? While we are at it, why do we even care about what a minority of Europeans think. Most of the Europeans probably know only about the universities in their own countries; most probably don’t know anything about US schools, except Harvard. This whole “global” brand is pretty meaningless.</p>