<p>National rankings (like USNews’ National Rankings) focus on non-academic measures like student-to-faculty ratios, admit rates, retention rates and alumni giving. USC does pretty well on this ranking because private schools can more easily meet the criteria. </p>
<p>International rankings (like Times Higher Education and ARWU) are much more academic focused. They focus more on research prestige, not exclusivity prestige. Therefore, it’s the big research universities that perform well. USC is not really considered a big research powerhouse. The 7 big research state universities, Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, Wisconsin, Washington, Illinois and Texas all perform MUCH better on international rankings than national rankings since international rankings are more academic focused. There’s actually not that big of a discrepency between the THE and ARWU rankings.</p>
<p>Here is a really good thread that explains this exact ranking really well. Read the whole thing.</p>
<p>[CC</a> - Top World Brands](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1303802-top-world-brands-higher-ed-rankings.html]CC”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1303802-top-world-brands-higher-ed-rankings.html)</p>