Top "world brands" in higher ed-THE Rankings

[barrons]

<p>You know who they are.</p>

<p>[American</a> and British Institutions Dominate a ‘Reputational’ Ranking of Universities - The Global Ticker - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/blogs/global/american-and-british-institutions-dominate-a-reputational-ranking-of-universities/32495?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en]American”>http://chronicle.com/blogs/global/american-and-british-institutions-dominate-a-reputational-ranking-of-universities/32495?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en)</p>

[rjkofnovi]

<p><a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/reputation-rankings.html[/url]”>http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/reputation-rankings.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[beyphy]

<p>For the lazy, here’s the top 40:</p>

<p>

Institution Country

1. Harvard University U.S.
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology U.S.
3. University of Cambridge U.K.
4. Stanford University U.S.
5. University of California, Berkeley U.S.
6. University of Oxford U.K.
7. Princeton University U.S.
8. University of Tokyo Japan
9. University of California, Los Angeles U.S.
10. Yale University U.S.
11. California Institute of Technology U.S.
12. University of Michigan U.S.
13. Imperial College London U.K.
14. University of Chicago U.S.
15. Columbia University U.S.
16. Cornell University U.S.
17. University of Toronto Canada
18. Johns Hopkins U.S.
19. University of Pennsylvania U.S.
20. Kyoto University Japan
21. University College London U.K.
22. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Switzerland
23. University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign U.S.
24. National University of Singapore Singapore
25. University of British Columbia Canada
26. McGill University Canada
27. University of Wisconsin-Madison U.S.
28. University of Washington U.S.
29. London School of Economics U.K.
30. Tsinghua University China
31. University of California, San Francisco U.S.
32. University of Texas, Austin U.S.
33. Duke University U.S.
34. New York University U.S.
35. Northwestern University U.S.
36. University of California, San Diego U.S.
37. Carnegie Mellon U.S.
38. Peking University China
39. The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
40. University of Massachusetts U.S.

</p>

<p>It’s also nice to see the Gap between UCLA (+2) and Berkeley (-1) closing from, if memory serves, 7 spots last year (4 to 11) to 4 spots this year. (5 to 9)</p>

<p>notable absences from the top 40 (Virginia, UNC, and USC.)</p>

[Sam_Lee]

<p>I wouldn’t call it “world blands”. The ranking was:

based on the perceptions of some 17,500 academics worldwide who were asked which institutions are best regarded in their field.

It depends on which fields they chose. Regardless, it’s largely irrelevant to undergrads. Business/industry recruiting, med/law school placement rates, prestigious scholarship awards, academic/career advising or resources…don’t seem to correlate with the rankings that well (outside of Stanford/Harvard). These are the things that are much more relevant to undergrads. The caliber of student body also doesn’t correlate with this ranking but it reflects the drawing power for the best high school seniors.</p>

[bclintonk]

<p>Also missing from the top 40: Dartmouth, Brown, WUSTL, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Emory.</p>

[phantasmagoric]

<p>Here’s the one from 2010-2011, if you wanted to compare:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/reputation-rankings.html[/url]”>http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/reputation-rankings.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I think the ranking is supposed to be interpreted in tiers, not so much in specific ranks.</p>

<p>Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Oxbridge
Princeton, Yale, Caltech, Tokyo, UCLA
Michigan, Chicago, Columbia…
…</p>

<p>but even then it’s not necessarily accurate - the first tier has more variety (in %) than the 2nd and 3rd tiers, etc.</p>

<p>

Dartmouth, Brown, WUSTL, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Emory.

</p>

<p>Interesting - except for the two Ivies, those are all the universities that IMO US News overrates in its ranking. I guess internationally, people agree.</p>

[UMTYMP_student]

<p>I think it’s easy to explain why Virginia, UNC, USC, Dartmouth, Brown, WUSTL, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, and Emory are missing from the top 40. None of them are really major research universities and a focus on undergraduate education doesn’t make you that prestigious among academics domestic or international.</p>

[rjkofnovi]

<p>I didn’t know that UVA, UNC, USC, and WUSTL weren’t major research universities.</p>

[bclintonk]

<p>^ I think UMTYMP student has it exactly right. I have long argued that the US News PA score is really a proxy for faculty strength as measured by scholarship, because that’s all the top administrators at colleges and universities know about their peer institutions. Now comes a THE ranking based purely on reputation among academics worldwide, and guess what—with some exceptions, it tracks US News PA scores pretty closely. Here are the U.S. universities that made the THE top 40:</p>

<p>University / THE rank / PA score:</p>

<p>Harvard / 1 / 4.9
MIT / 2 / 4.9
Stanford / 4 / 4.9
UC Berkeley / 5 / 4.7
Princeton / 7 / 4.9
UCLA / 9 / 4.2
Yale / 10 / 4.8
Caltech / 11/ 4.6
Michigan / 12 / 4.5
Chicago / 14 / 4.6
Columbia / 15 / 4.6
Cornell / 16 / 4.6
JHU / 18 / 4.6
Penn / 19 / 4.5
Illinois / 23 / 3.9
Wisconsin / 27 / 4.1
U Washington / 28 / 3.9
Texas / 32 / 4.1
Duke / 33 / 4.4
NYU / 34 / 3.8
Northwestern / 35 / 4.4
UCSD / 36 / 3.8
Carnegie Mellon / 37 / 4.2
UMass / 39 /3.2</p>

<p>There are a few anomalies. UCLA, NYU, and UMass rate much higher with global academics than with US university administrators. Maybe they’re getting a “location bonus” globally? Beyond that, I’ve got to think UMass is enjoying the benefit of some brand confusion with MIT. A couple of private schools, Duke and Northwestern, do much better in PA than in global academic reputation, and the public universities generally don’t do quite as well in PA as in THE reputational rank. In both cases I suspect this reflects adjustments that are being made to PA to account for undergraduate education; if that’s the case, then PA isn’t a perfect proxy for faculty strength (but then it’s not supposed to be). Instead, it’s more like perceived faculty strength, adjusted upward for smaller private schools to reflect imputed undergraduate educational excellence, and adjusted downward for large public institutions to reflect things like s/f ratios and larger classes.</p>

<p>Here are the PA scores of the US News top 25 universities that don’t make the THE top 40:</p>

<p>Brown (81-90) 4.4
Dartmouth 4.3
UVA 4.3
WUSTL (71-80) 4.1
Vanderbilt 4.1
Rice 4.0
Emory 4.0
Georgetown 4.0
USC 4.0
Notre Dame 3.9</p>

<p>So why do schools like Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, and U. Washington make THE’s top 40 while some very good private universities with comparable (or better) PA scores don’t? Just as UMTYMP student says, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas and U. Washington are research powerhouses, while schools like Vandy. Emory, Georgetown, and Notre Dame aren’t.</p>

[bclintonk]

<p>

@rjkofnovi

I didn’t know that UVA, UNC, USC, and WUSTL weren’t major research universities.

</p>

<p>In FY 2009, UNC, WUSTL, and USC ranked #19, #21, and #29 respectively among U.S. universities in research spending, with UNC and WUSTL each spending over $600 million and USC a little over $500 million. I’d count them as “major research universities.” UVA ranked #73, spending about $262 million—hardly a trivial sum, but it’s not up there with the big boys.</p>

<p>UNC ranked #46 by THE, not bad. USC ranked in the 61-70 range, WUSTL in the 71-80 range. I wonder if there might not be some global brand confusions between WUSTL and the University of Washington, ranked at #28 by THE—though UW is certainly a research powerhouse in its own right (#8 nationally at $778 million), UVA is nowhere to be seen in the THE rankings, which only go down as far as 100.</p>

[beyphy]

<p>

Interesting - except for the two Ivies, those are all the universities that IMO US News overrates in its ranking. I guess internationally, people agree.

</p>

<p>i wouldn’t exempt the two ivies. When was the last time you heard a Darmouth or Brown in the news? Or when you heard of one of their alumni doing something important? The universities only have 3 and 2 nobel prize winners respectively. And outside of US news, their rankings are pretty abysmal. (notice how on Brown’s wikipedia page, many of its rankings are missing. I wonder why…)</p>

[phantasmagoric]

<p>^ I knew someone would pick that out. The reason I excluded Dartmouth and Brown was that, if I were to rank US colleges, I’d put them in the top 15; the other private universities listed tend to make up the top 15-20 or so in US News, which I always thought was BS and should be replaced with the top public schools (I don’t consider Notre Dame > Michigan, or Vanderbilt > UCLA). But you’re right - when it comes to international recognition, Dartmouth and Brown shouldn’t be in the top 15.</p>

[seta]

<p>Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Oxbridge are the top 6 in the world, no doubt. which one should occupy the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th… spots are up to debate.</p>

[keabie18]

<p>I’m surprised that University of Toronto is higher than, and University of British Columbia is tied with McGill.</p>

[warblersrule]

<p>I would move UNC and Minnesota up (above U Mass at the very least) and Yale up slightly. Otherwise, I surprisingly have few complaints about the order of the American universities, which seems pretty accurate if you are only looking at overall strength and research reputations. </p>

<p>It is interesting that although Brown and Duke performed quite well in the recent NRC rankings (much better than in the old ones), they maintain a weaker research/academic reputation. If the NRC rankings are measuring actual improvement in programs at these universities, an improvement in their reputations abroad seems to lag. </p>

<p>I am not familiar with most universities in non-English speaking countries, so whether I agree with the placement of some American universities vis-a-vis others abroad (e.g. NUS over UT Austin), I can’t say. </p>

<p>

@bclintonk

There are a few anomalies. UCLA, NYU, and UMass rate much higher with global academics than with US university administrators. Maybe they’re getting a “location bonus” globally? Beyond that, I’ve got to think UMass is enjoying the benefit of some brand confusion with MIT. A couple of private schools, Duke and Northwestern, do much better in PA than in global academic reputation, and the public universities generally don’t do quite as well in PA as in THE reputational rank. In both cases I suspect this reflects adjustments that are being made to PA to account for undergraduate education; if that’s the case, then PA isn’t a perfect proxy for faculty strength (but then it’s not supposed to be). Instead, it’s more like perceived faculty strength, adjusted upward for smaller private schools to reflect imputed undergraduate educational excellence, and adjusted downward for large public institutions to reflect things like s/f ratios and larger classes.

That has been the crux of my criticism of PA for ages. It cannot make up its mind about what exactly it’s measuring and is therefore wildly inconsistent.</p>

<p>

@warblersrule

Now that I’m actually looking at those numbers, they strike me as decidedly off. It seems they’re trying to combine both research and undergraduate focus, resulting in a bastardized mix that reflects neither.</p>

<p>Berkeley scores higher than any of the other publics, and while it has a slight lead in selectivity, this is clearly a testament to its strong graduate programs. One could reasonably conclude that the measurement is therefore measuring pure academic heft, something supported by HYMPS also being at the top and Michigan’s reasonable rank as high but a few slots below Berkeley. So far, so good.</p>

<p>But! Things get odd when you start to look at the other publics. UCLA and Michigan are virtually interchangeable in selectivity, and with the notable exception of engineering, the two are neck and neck in most fields. The difference between the two in PA is a not inconsiderable 0.3 points, however (i.e. 0.9 points on the overall ranking). Similarly, you have UVA receiving the highest peer assessment in the South, despite both UNC Chapel Hill and UT Austin having noticeably stronger faculties. Some of the private universities also seem displaced relative to their academic heft – Hopkins receiving a higher PA score than Penn is one example, and Caltech’s score seems quite low. The high selectivity of Dartmouth trumps its lack of top-flight graduate programs for PA, yet the same does not hold true for WUStL. So many inconsistencies!

</p>

[phantasmagoric]

<p>

both research and undergraduate focus, resulting in a bastardized mix that reflects neither.

</p>

<p>It’s true that there are inconsistencies if you view the PA in such fine-grained terms. It also doesn’t make sense that the PA “reflects neither.” As has been shown, PA very much reflects research.</p>

[Canuckguy]

<p>

I’m surprised that University of Toronto is higher than, and University of British Columbia is tied with McGill.

</p>

<p>Not for those of us here in Canada. Toronto has always been a research powerhouse, and British Columbia is kind of a newcomer to this group.</p>

<p>Historically the top Canadian schools were McGill, Toronto, and Queen’s. Queen’s is the most undergrad focused of all the top Canadian schools. They have a strong but smallish graduate school so they do not rank highly on research prowess. They have excellent professional programs, however.</p>

<p>McGill and Queen’s have the strongest undergraduates in all of Canada. Our elites tend to send their offspring there if they stay home at all for college. I am always surprised one is so popular with foreign students while the other is not. It guess it “suffers” from the same fate as Brown and Dartmouth.</p>

[truth123]

<p>This ranking is an apples to oranges to comparison, since not all schools have engineering programs, which skew the rankings in favor of those that do.</p>

<p>Generally schools are ranked on the strength of their arts and sciences faculty. If you’re going to add engineering, why not add Law, Business, Social Work, Divinity, Dental, Nursing, whatever…?</p>

<p>In addition, unlike U.S.News, The Times does not fully disclose its ranking methodology, such as whom it is actually surveying. This is because what the magazine will not tell you is that it is merely surveying its own subscribers via email.</p>

[bruno123]

<p>

notable absences from the top 40 (Virginia, UNC, and USC.)

</p>

<p>Plus Georgetown, WUSTL, Rice, Vanderbilt, Brown, Dartmouth, Notre Dame and other USN&WR overrated schools that actually don’t have great international brand recognition.</p>

[UMTYMP_student]

<p>@truth123 Are there any other major universities on this list other than U Chicago that don’t have engineering programs? Even if we multiplied U Chicago’s score by 1.25 to account for the lack of engineering it would only move up to 12th. Should we adjust the scores of MIT and Caltech to adjust for their limited offerings as well?</p>

<p>There is a decent case to add B-schools although I think they are less related to the core missions of schools than engineering but law, dentistry, divinity, social work, and nursing schools are so country-specific it’s hard or impossible to make meaningful international comparisons. </p>

<p>Do you have any actual evidence that they simply emailed their subscribers instead of subcontracting Thompson Reuters to do the data collection?</p>