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> Along with UCL, these British universities represent 4 of the top 10 universities in the world. ... according to QS Global Surveys. A disreputable organiza

> Along with UCL, these British universities represent 4 of the top 10 universities in the world. ... according to QS Global Surveys. A disreputable organization who won't open their data and whose rankings are based at least 50% on reputation surveys (!!), of which only 2% or so are responded to. Is it worth mentioning that it's based in England? I'm not saying the US should have more institutions. I'm saying that it's highly unlikely that four of the top 10 institutions worldwide are British.

lordnacho 2y ago
But reputations are what they are, and you can't dispute that those four unis are top drawer by that "measure" if we can even call it that. Regardless of what you think of QS. I also think it's silly to have uni rankings, but the way to think about them is that they simply construct a ranking that shows what people expect based on reputation. If you don't have Harvard and Cambridge in your top tier, your ranking is wrong.
- SeanLuke 2y ago
  > But reputations are what they are, and you can't dispute that those four unis are top drawer by that "measure" if we can even call it that. But reputation is not a just measure of quality. It's mostly a measure of whether someone has heard of the institution at all, or knows anything about them. Similarly, US News has reputation survey based measures for its terrible rankings, and is roundly criticized for them, as they largely shut out better but newer but less well known institutions.
  - lordnacho 2y ago
    I don't disagree, that is basically what it is. I suspect the same thing goes for the corruption perceptions index. People conveniently drop the perceptions part, and they get their corruption reputation from last year's headline.
Shrezzing 2y ago
The UK has an age-based advantage in this metric. Oxford & Cambridge are nearly 1,000 years old. Once you take that into account, the stat becomes "of the top 8 universities (ex. Oxbridge), 2 are in the UK and 4 are in the USA". Imperial is very high quality institution, definitely the peer of Berkley/Yale. UCL normally isn't thrown into the top 10 though - it'd usually appear in the top 25.
- oblio 2y ago
  The oldest university in the world isn't from the UK, so that clearly can't be such a huge factor.
  - SeanLuke 2y ago
    Bologna cannot be faulted for not being able to capitalize on its age. Northern Italy went through an awful lot of tumultuous history between 1450 and now that England didn't experience: it was cut up into lots of little fiefdoms, dominated by several external powers, and generally kept under constantly changing iron thumbs.

lordnacho 2y ago

But reputations are what they are, and you can't dispute that those four unis are top drawer by that "measure" if we can even call it that. Regardless of what you think of QS. I also think it's silly to have uni rankings, but the way to think about them is that they simply construct a ranking that shows what people expect based on reputation. If you don't have Harvard and Cambridge in your top tier, your ranking is wrong.

SeanLuke 2y ago
> But reputations are what they are, and you can't dispute that those four unis are top drawer by that "measure" if we can even call it that. But reputation is not a just measure of quality. It's mostly a measure of whether someone has heard of the institution at all, or knows anything about them. Similarly, US News has reputation survey based measures for its terrible rankings, and is roundly criticized for them, as they largely shut out better but newer but less well known institutions.
- lordnacho 2y ago
  I don't disagree, that is basically what it is. I suspect the same thing goes for the corruption perceptions index. People conveniently drop the perceptions part, and they get their corruption reputation from last year's headline.

Shrezzing 2y ago

The UK has an age-based advantage in this metric. Oxford & Cambridge are nearly 1,000 years old. Once you take that into account, the stat becomes "of the top 8 universities (ex. Oxbridge), 2 are in the UK and 4 are in the USA". Imperial is very high quality institution, definitely the peer of Berkley/Yale. UCL normally isn't thrown into the top 10 though - it'd usually appear in the top 25.

oblio 2y ago
The oldest university in the world isn't from the UK, so that clearly can't be such a huge factor.
- SeanLuke 2y ago
  Bologna cannot be faulted for not being able to capitalize on its age. Northern Italy went through an awful lot of tumultuous history between 1450 and now that England didn't experience: it was cut up into lots of little fiefdoms, dominated by several external powers, and generally kept under constantly changing iron thumbs.