Why is UVA's ranking high domestically but lower than competing universities internationally?

Colleges & Universities University of Virginia
1

Disclaimer: I understand that rankings are not the end all to discussions and are extremely variable and subject and often do not reflect the quality of an institution, but regardless, this really surprised me.

US News ranks UVA as the #3 public university (#25 overall), ahead of UNC (30), Michigan (28), Texas (56), etc.

However, Times Higher Education and QS world University rankings rank UVA as #113 (56th in the US) and #173 globally respectively. That itself is hard to measure considering it’s a global ranking base, but the following are the rankings of equivalent schools in the QS rankings, which are often considered one of the best:

Michigan- 21, UNC- 80, Texas-67, UCLA-33, UVA-173.

There’s a huge gap in international perception between UVA and its peers…is there any specific reason for this? Is UVA not well regarded in, say, India or China? This is surprising considering its great national reputation and history.

2

What is the methodology for the two global rankings? Do their formulas put more emphasis on graduate students? Our grad student population is smaller compared to many of our peers.

I caution everyone about putting stock in any ranking system without reviewing the methodology.

3

QS World University Rankings shows the following methodology:

https://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings/methodology

Academic reputation (40%)
Employer reputation (10%)
Faculty/Student Ratio (20%)
Citations per faculty (20%)
International faculty ratio/International student ratio (5% each)

I am guessing Times is also similar. Maybe size has something to do with it.

4
  1. Many other flagship university campuses are twice the size as UVa, and therefore have more graduates and professors attracting attention.
  2. Many other universities have much larger graduate enrollments than UVa, particularly among engineering and science programs. Those other universities have typically attracted larger amounts of research dollars, which help to generate prominence in a field.
  3. Many other universities have had large numbers of international students for many decades, while they were mainly common at UVa in the last 25 years. When I attended UVa 35 years ago, I don't remember ever meeting an international student. I can remember only meeting one student who was from west of the Mississippi, and she came to UVa because her dad was a UVa grad.
  4. In past years, international students had tended to concentrate in certain areas. For example, students from Asian countries used to concentrate in California (such as Berkeley), while U. Penn for example attracted many students from western Europe. Now there is more dispersal of international students.
  5. In any case, international reputation among graduate programs does not necessarily translate into quality in undergraduate teaching. in some cases, there is an inverse relationship, in which the professors only care about research, and the undergrads are taught by grad students who are not fluent in English.
5

Take all rankings with a boulder of salt:

Michigan State 149
Dartmouth 169
UVA 173
Vandy 212
ND 216
Gtown 227
Tufts 243

Only time UVA (currently ranked #1) worries about MSU (#2) is when we meet them in the NCAA tournament bracket. They just have our number. Hopefully this year we wouldn’t run into the Spartans until the Final Four.

6

@VA2001 - When it comes to rankings you need to take into account the methodology. It is also important to remember that different rankings will rank overall and some will rank only undergraduate.When you’re looking at a school like UVA, you will get conflicting positions because of that important distinction.

Why is UVA nationally at #25 in US News but in the 50’s for the WSJ ranking? The WSJ ranking is undergraduate and US News includes graduate schools. This will apply to a lot of the ranking arguments, particularly where Berkeley and UCLA are concerned. The graduate schools lift UVA in the domestic US News rankings. UVA’s law school is in the top 10, business school is top 15, and medical school in the top 25. Nationally, when you look at the peer institution comparison, most school’s have an over inflated view of themselves and will overstate their peer’s or choose zero peer’s (Columbia, UCLA and Berkeley). You need to look at mutual selections to get a sense of what US schools think of each other. In UVA’s case, they selected a lot of the top college’s but it was not mutual. This may also just be a “private vs public” thing. Private’s generally don’t like to peer-select public’s.

https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/peers-network

Globally, when you think of UVA, do you think of top programs in engineering, physics, mathematics, computer science for either undergraduate or graduate school that attract international students? It’s the lack of strength in these area’s in particular that hurts their global ranking. UVA will have excellent programs in these disciplines but nothing comparable to, just in the US, school’s like Stanford, CalTech, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Ivy’s, etc., and for public’s in the US, University of Michigan, UCLA, Berkeley, etc. When you think of top national programs in communications, journalism, philosophy, fine arts, theater, etc. do you think of UVA. No, you think of NYU, Northwestern, USC, Ivy’s, etc., and again, public’s like UCLA and Berkeley.

7

A lot of these global rankings are ultimately based more on research and publications. The size of the institution is a factor. UVA has not been a relative powerhouse in STEM graduate study and research. Schools that are lower ranked in USNews undergraduate education, like Texas, Washington, Illinois, and Wisconsin are larger and focus more in this area and research, and consequently rank higher in these types of rankings.

Very few universities are strong across the board (undergraduate, graduate professional, research, graduate science, graduate humanities). You might cite Stanford and Harvard as being in this category (although even Harvard might struggle in engineering). Among publics, Berkeley is sometimes mentioned, but I would honestly question their undergraduate commitment. The rest have to choose where to focus. UVA has focused more on undergraduate education than the typical flagship public university and has excellent schools of law and graduate business.

Anyway, prospective students should focus more on their area of study. Dartmouth, for instance, is also not ranked very high, but they provide excellent undergraduate education. You could say the same of William and Mary.

As someone else pointed out, some of these rankings, like the Times, I believe, include criteria like percentage of international students. I think this is arguable at best and probably introduces some bias in the outcomes (e.g. it helps Oxford and Cambridge for instance rank higher).

8

I can assure you that UVA is not underrated in China and India. I’m from China and EAing UVA.