2012 World University Rankings

Furthermore, prestigious universities with powerful alumni networks provide informational advantages, and alumni probably favor fellow alumni in business and recruitment. (That reminds me, maybe I should start reconnecting with college mates to look for a job...)

I don't think the above is cynical - I think it's just realistic.

The reason I like lots of different rankings using lots of different criteria and weighting is that the tend to dilute the impact of any one single ranking.

The reality is that people pay a lot of attention to rankings. Right now, US News and World Report does have an outsized impact on how people think of universities. And as a lot of people know, not a single public university shows up on their rankings.

For instance, UC schools tend to have very well regarded faculty and graduate programs. The undergraduate programs are good too, but these schools admit large numbers of in-state students. The downside is that admissions standards are lower as a result, the upside is that far more low income students get a crack at an education at a true research university.

US News rewards private research universities with very small undergraduate student bodies for the resulting "eliteness" of undergraduate admissions, which is actually ok. But does Berkeley or UCLA get any credit for enrolling more low income students than the entire ivy league each? No, not a bit, but they do get dinged for the impact on their numbers, which is how a university that is in the top 5 for almost every department still ends up outside the top 2.

Then you have the Washington Monthly rankings, which perhaps over-emphasize this (along with graduate programs in engineering and science) and are stacked with top public research universities - though it doesn't get anywhere close to the US News kind of attention. Honestly, it is a little silly to see Harvard ranked so low. But it underscores how different a conclusion you can reach with very reasonable measurements.

And then you have international rankings like this one, or the USNRC which tend to emphasize scholarship and research, and so forth.

I guess I'd say I'd prefer to see no numerical rankings, but if we have to have them, I'd like so many that it becomes clear that numerical rankings may be measuring very different things and that no single list has an outsized impact on the way people perceive universities.

At best I suppose you could think of it as a kind of pat on the back for universities which do a good job generally. Give them a bit of kudos and publicity etc. That doesn't really do that much for the top-tier schools, but it might give some under-appreciated schools welcome attention.

Whether this ranking is more relevant to researchers or students you'd have to look at the methodology but they are very closely related anyway.

The reason people hate rankings is most people(Bit above 50%)are below average intelligence or go to a below average university hence they hate it when it's pointed out to them.

Even smart people still suffer for thinking they are more intelligent than they are hence they too do not like being rated.

In summary, the truth is yes you are better off going to a higher rated university if external factors are equal. But most people can't handle the truth so it's up to you what you believe.

However, my university's ranking is pulled up a lot because it's medical and languages schools are amongst the best in the world. In computer science (the subject I did) it is decent but definitely not as highly ranked. But I still benefit from the "brand" my university has

Lower ranking by the Grandes Écoles is likely to the the relatively poor showing of France in basic research.

I also consider the level of education given at grandes ecoles to be pretty poor, especially in the prestigious ones. Once accepted in one, you are pretty much guaranteed to get the diploma, and in many of them, you can get out by cheating or studying a couple of hours before the exams. I doubt this changed since I was a student there 10 years ago.

In economical terms, GE are much more about signal than human capital.

And how would you measure that? You could base it on the entrance qualifications but I don't think that's a great idea as I know of courses by institutions in that list that are very difficult to get into but then the course itself is pretty shoddy - although the general reputation for the university and course in question is very good.

There are various collections of by-department rankings.

http://www.arwu.org/ -- this one can list by Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science, and Economics.

Both research and undergrad teaching are required in the ranking. Honestly though, IISc is the best indian institution and will barely crack the top 100 research institutes in the world.

Great, but how many of the undergrad students are American-born, how many of the grad-students, and how many post-docs and faculty?

In my experience of American academia, most of the undergrads and the older professors are American, but as full-time academic positions have dried up, more and more of the grad-students, post-docs and faculty are foreigners. The reason is simple: it has stopped being a good career move for a young American to aspire to work in academia, whereas even with the slim odds we have nowadays, it remains an excellent career move for someone from, say, India or China. After all, even if you don't get a faculty position in America, your American training will let you walk right into one "back home".

Actually, teaching is 30% of the score.

You are free to dislike a metric that does not (or not 100%) correlate with what you find important, but that does not make it a meaningless metric.

Also, different lists weight things different. On AWRU outside of CS, your school is in the middle of the top 100, providing more cadence to the not awful theory--just a bad fit for the Times criteria.