<p>Wow, that is so ignorant . . . . You really think economics has been discredited? That would be big news at Stanford, which has nearly as much of an investment in economics as it does in engineering and computer science.</p>
<p>There are three major international university rankings with some degree of integrity. Only one of them looks at humanities at all, and none takes into account professional schools other than medicine (which hurts both Stanford and Chicago about equally). They are very much focused on STEM and social sciences. Two of them are British and – surprise! – rate British universities higher than the third, which comes out of China.</p>
<p>Anyway, the QS ranking has Stanford at #7 and Chicago at #9 (with MIT #1, Harvard #2, Yale #8, and Caltech and Princeton tied at #10, and the four top UK universities at 3-6).</p>
<p>The Times of London ranking has Stanford tied with Oxford for #2 and Chicago at #10 (with Caltech #1, Harvard- MIT-Princeton ##4-6, Berkeley #9, and Yale #11, for reference).</p>
<p>The Shanghai Jiao Tong University ARWU ranking, which has no humanities component whatsoever, has Stanford at #2 and Chicago at #9 (Harvard #1, Berkeley #3, MIT #4, Caltech #6, Princeton #7, Columbia #8, and Yale #11).</p>
<p>The actual scoring difference between Stanford and Chicago in the two British rankings is negligible, less than 4%. There is a bigger difference in the Chinese scoring system, which has Stanford at only 72% of Harvard’s top score.</p>
<p>And then of course there is USNWR, whose international ranking has Chicago #8 (behind only Harvard, MIT, and Yale among American universities) and Stanford #15.</p>
<p>The point is not that any of these rankings is actually meaningful in and of itself. It’s just that when people all over the world – including USNWR – look at American universities and try to rank them on some rational basis, Chicago is more or less always in the same league as the other top American universities. It is always somewhat behind Harvard and MIT, and its position varies with respect to the others (as does Harvard’s and MIT’s – there is no consensus best). Basically, in these rankings Chicago looks more or less like Yale or Princeton. That’s hardly “not in the same league” as Stanford.</p>