<p>Let me join your talk for one post :)</p>
<p>Education in Russia is one of it’s main strengths, actually. All the subjects like Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geometry, Geography etc. are taught on the yearly basis ever since their equivalent of our Middle School. For example, students start learning Calculus in the 9th grade.</p>
<p>To graduate school, each student must pass the Unified National Exam (literal translation), which consists of many individual exams, each focused on one subject. All of the above mentioned subjects are covered, including others like foreign languages, literature, history, etc…</p>
<p>In addition to that, if you’re going to a place like MSU, each department has it’s own exams you need to pass (which are insanely hard, or so I heard). Needless to say, entering freshmen already have a solid base. There is no Calculus sequence, no Physics sequence – it’s all taken care of. Differential equations your freshman year!</p>
<p>Point: Education in Russia is still going strong. Regardless of economy and politics (which is likely the only thing you are exposed to anyway).</p>
<p>====================</p>
<p>Now, education system is still pretty different in Russia. How would a world ranking take all of this into account and compare all of the world’s universities? I have no idea. However, I do know that there are international olympiads that countries participate in.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>International Mathematics Olympiad. Completely dominated by China. Who comes second? Russia. In the last 5 years, it placed higher than USA.</p></li>
<li><p>International Collegiate Programming Contest. Russia completely dominates the charts on this one. Look at the recent contests. In the top 10, you’d always see 4-5 Russian universities there.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Look at ICPC 2009 results:</p>
<pre><code>(1)St. Petersburg State University of IT Mechanics and Optics, Russia
(2)Tsinghua University, China
(3)St. Petersburg State University, Russia
(4)Saratov State University, Russia
</code></pre>
<p>Last time USA placed first? 1997 (very few people, even schools, had computers at that time in Russia). No explanation needed.</p>
<p>Fun fact: not a single Russian university is ranked in computer science.</p>
<ol>
<li>International Physics / Chemistry Olympiads. Well, these ones are dominated by China again. However, Russia is still ahead of USA on these ones. Especially in Chemistry. By ‘ahead’ I mean more gold medals and students with individual highest scores.</li>
</ol>
<p>Point: Russian students are performing better than American students in academic competitions.</p>
<p>====================</p>
<p>Now, I think the point that Brahmin wanted to make is – no matter how big of a dump Russia is, in your personal opinion, you can’t honestly consider its education to be so pathetic that it’s top university is not even comparable to UC Riverside… Seriously, how ridiculous is that? And comments along the lines of “Moscow State is garbage” are either made by a ■■■■■, somebody lying for a personal benefit, or simply by someone who doesn’t have a slightest clue what Moscow State is. No offense.</p>