The latest Shangai rankings can be found here.
These are the criteria used to determine the ranking.
As usual, American universities dominate the rankings taking eight of the top ten positions. (Cambridge and Oxford are the other two.) Most of the top schools are quite old so they are more likely to have had alumni who won Nobel Prizes and more likely to have had Nobel Laureates on staff. Many of the American universities are private and wealthy—they are able to attract the best scientists and the most funding for research.
My school, the University of Toronto (Toronto, Canada), comes in at #24 - far behind the top schools on the list.
It's important to note that the rankings have nothing to do with the quality of undergraduate education at these universities.
I'm happy to see that University of Chicago made the top ten. But I have very little idea of the quality of undergraduate eduction there. What is "per capita academic performance"?
ReplyDeleteAh, I see that it's just the prior scores, percentage-weighted, divided by the total faculty number. So nothing in this index is in any way related to teaching and solely depends on some measure of research performance.
ReplyDeleteStanford University came in second, I have a distant relative that teaches there.
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One should not forget that the vast majority of scientists come from those universities low in the ranking or nor even on that list. And may of these later join those ivy league universities contributing to their success.
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ReplyDeletei'm surprised Toronto is even 24! What is it really scoring? Just research accomplishment in the teachers etc. Thats very specific and unrelated to teaching abilities, oe even being the best in the subjects. Awards are a clue but not a conclusion. I think citations matter more as showing intellectual thought. Or effort. At least its not about the teenagers. There probably is no such thing as better universities after passing a threshold of competence and money. I would judge it by whether the kids them,selves later make contribution that matters. Nany serious problemns in universities today. Starting with no creationist departments and I mean that sincerely.
How the heck the University of Southern California is rated so high (58)? As far as physical science is concerned, it's a diploma mill.
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