What do people make off this? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article4910798.ece Any point in trying to list the world's top universities or not? Appears to suffer from a heavy English speaking bias, but perhaps that is to be expected based on the importance placed on research.
I think things like this are pointless. In order to know if a university is any good or not, you have to attend it and/or work at it. And no one can attend or work at more than a few. And even then, your experience will be limited. Some places are better than others, obviously, but you can get a better education at a mediocre university by kicking your own ass than you can by sleepwalking through Harvard on Daddy's money and legacy
Indian Institute of Technology is listed at no. 174. From what I understand about that particular institution, 174 is waaaaay too low.
Ultimately I think it is very difficult to rate universities on a scale like this. Given the huge scale of some unis there can be large variances between faculties or departments. Additionally it is heavily weighted in favour of science due to the importance placed on research citations. Hence the LSE cannot break the top 50 while Imperial can make it into the top 10. I think it is just a nice thing for students and academics to see their own university up there.
It is interesting that Vanderbilt gets the rap of being an academic school in the college football world and Michigan doesn't, while Michigan is ranked #18 (above Brown and Dartmouth) and Vandy is ranked #101.
I think what it shows though is how future employees could see your university. Having the University of Amsterdam ranked higher than any German uni is nice, when going back to Germany students with a Dutch degree do get like 20% more money than german students with a similair German degree at certain subjects (like business).
That has a lot to do with Michigan's graduate and professional schools, which are huge, well-funded. The university is also older than Vandy, and much bigger than the ivies. Given the parameters of this survey, it's going to win out even if the other places might offer more and better opportunities for undergraduates (not saying they do, since I, like everyone else on the planet, don't know)
Good universities in Florida? (not FIU or Miami) iam thinking on going to University of South Carolina...
Huge bias towards research. Fair enough, ANU (Australia's leading entry) is a Group of Eight university in Australia, but an undergraduate degree from there is less well regarded than one from UMELB or USYD.
I'm sorry, Berkeley 36th? Behind Michigan, Carnegie Mellon and BROWN? Seriously, BROWN? Is that a joke? Brown's considered a bit of a joke by many serious academics. Berkeley's arguably the finest research institution in the world and it finishes 36th? Wow. I could make a very serious argument that Berkeley's the finest university in the US - it has a highly ranked graduate program in almost every discipline and has more Nobel Laureates than any other educational institution in the world. Any list that ranks Brown in the top 50 is a bad joke. For ********'s sake, they ranked UCLA higher than Berkeley. How is that possible unless you're only going on the basis of how attractive the student body is? UCLA is where you go if you can't get into Berkeley!
Why? The University of Spoiled Children has no research facilities to speak of from what I recall. I'm surprised it made the list at all. Its where you send rich kids for a good time. (Unless you want to do film - they have a great film school.) Its not; its just expensive.
The point of university isn't to create a high crust of elite such as Nobel Laureates that the rest of the university never gets to see in the daylight. It is to give knowledge and intellectual wisdom to everyone that comes through the university's doors, both undergraduate and graduate, so that they can take what they learned in school and apply it to the real world. What's the point of having a highly ranked professor on staff for example if he never teaches a single class? University should not be about the teachers, it should be about the students whom the teachers serve. Anyway, I agree with Dr. Wankler: Although let me put in a joke: Q: How do you get a Carolina graduate off your front porch? A: Pay him for the pizza.
Yeah, that's what Berkeley is - a shack with semi-retarded mouth breathers and 20 mansions of Nobel Laureates who're never seen on campus except to pick up their checks. Why do you think Berkeley has some of the best graduate programs in chemistry and physics? Its because the best minds in the world are doing the research that attracts young students who're the best at what they do in their fields. You have a real weird hang-up about elite universities, just like your awful rant about how a University of South Carolina education is better than one acquired at Harvard. Which, I should reiterate, is hugely stupid.
In academic terms, they're dirt poor. Even their athletics programs have little to no money and no facilities and that's been hindering their football recruiting (the main reason they left the Big East for the ACC 4 years ago = $$$).
It's not just Berkeley. It's every university I've ever heard about or been to. And based on personal experience, apparently Berkeley doesn't teach their students that when they get paid for doing a job, they're supposed to do the job instead of just running off with the money. Education is not dependent on the institution, it's dependent on the individual. A smart person growing up with no money graduating from South Carolina is better than a legacy kid graduating from Harvard. I'll always believe that. Dear God, we just had a poor black kid from Chicago with no parents and no money become President that was one of the very few that got into an Ivy school on merit, and you still act as if the country should bow down to the elite who got to where they were because of high birth.
You happen to be wrong. I know it for a fact. I've personally taken classes with Berkeley professors who are the top people in their fields in the world. They even let me take those classes even though I wasn't in that discipline. And yes, those professors do teach. You're right, they're not going to teach Chem 101. But who cares? You don't need Einstein teaching Chem 101. He may no better at it than me (and I barely know chemistry). However, when it comes time to do ground-breaking research, Einstein can do it. But almost no one else can. That's not true. I don't care what you believe. I also don't care if you believe gravity doesn't exist. Its just fundamentally false. Your education is actually MOST impacted by the students around you. If you go to school with idiots, you're almost never going to get as much out of your education as you could have elsewhere. And again, the vast, VAST majority of Harvard graduates aren't legacies. And, frankly, I'll take the B student at Harvard over the B student at South Carolina. Every. Day. Of. The. Week. What high birth, you cretin? The institutions you're so jealous of admit nearly all their candidates on merit. Obama is the very proof of that!! This isn't the freaking 60s when the Ivies significantly changed. You think I went to Berkeley because my parents are wealthy? ********. You think my classmates went because they were guaranteed spots? ******** again. You're just ignorant. That's all there is to it. You've created a world where the elites have some sort of birthright into the top schools, so you can discount their achievement. That all those who go top schools just do it because they somehow got in on the sly. I'm frankly surprised you're not a Palin supporters, given how much she hates those librul elites. The truth is, even as a legacy, its INSANELY difficult to get accepted into Harvard Law. Just look at the statistics of their average class. Its remarkable. And, ironically, you know what usually sets those statistics back? Minority admissions. Even as a legacy to be admitted to Harvard Law is incredibly difficult. Because if Harvard Law stuffed their classes full of legacies, the average numbers would look much, much worse than they do. Hell, despite not admitting legacies and having a difficult time allowing minority admissions due to a California proposition, Harvard's class statistics still beat Berkeley's. Which means that if Harvard's admitting legacies, they must be ********ing smart. And your "belief" doesn't change that.
Nicephoras, didn't know you went to Cal-Berkeley? Honestly, I'm not surprised. You are one of the smartest posters on BS and I know it doesn't mean squat, but I'm impressed. I'm old fashion because I still believe rewarding and acknowledging intelligence and hard work, particularly at outstanding universities. I think too many people view UC-Berkeley as just some radical, fringe, lefty school and forget how it is frickin' amazing academically. I only ask about USC and UCLA because they are 2 of my online grad school options, more specifically USC. I know I'm not smart enough for Berkeley, but I just want to get in the best univ. possible with the program that is great for me. Being an at-home parent, makes online programs very attractive to me, at the same time I have been quite apprehensive about cyber schools, i.e. Univ. of Phoenix, Walden Univ., or Capella Univ., etc.
This is the case at neither Chicago nor Columbia, and they're two of those elite institutions you hate so much.
Brown isn't THAT bad, but it's true that it's probably one of the most overrated institutions in America. Then again, the same can be said for half the Ivy League.