3 ms·

I seriously hate these lists. Top 100 universities at doing what? There's no point being in the crappiest department of the "best" university.

by gdp 17y ago

Stasyan 17y ago
I agree. There are pretty good technical specialists coming out of Russia, China and India. I have not found a single university from ether country.
- gaius 17y ago
  IIT certainly should rank right up there.
jsf 17y ago
I agree with you if you use lists such as this one to pick the University in which you go to study or work. But I would think that as a Country, or a State they might serve as a (very) high-level indicator of how you are doing in education.
gaius 17y ago
Certainly not at brand recognition. Everyone's heard of Harvard, Yale and Cambridge, no-one's heard of UCL who didn't go there (and I say this as an alum).
- seldo 17y ago
  Well, I've heard of it, but then I went to Warwick, which is way down at #58 ;-)
  - gaius 17y ago
    I don't set much store by relying on the prestige of a university as a substitute for what the graduate's done with their career but still, it's annoying to get mistaken for the University of Central Lancashire!
radioactive21 17y ago
"Top 100 universities at doing what?" The list is endless, visit their websites, look up all the teachers and programs they have going. Now research those and you will see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Top university implies that these schools have a large hub of academic progress, it might not be in a tangible form but the stuff they do at those universities does make a difference. These schools get a lot of bad press because the big players of the world seem to come from them, but it does not diminish the contribution these higher education universities have added to the global community.
- unalone 17y ago
  There's a difference between saying "Hey, these places are really good!" and saying "Hey, this place ranks a little bit above this place!" I'm a firm believer in the malevolence of unnecessary statistics. The only point I've ever seen in college rankings is for people to gloat over people in other colleges. I can't imagine the benefit of knowing just how these colleges rank according to an arbitrary study.
prat 17y ago
There is another link that provides slightly more info than just the rank http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Rankings2009-Top200.html http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Rankings2009-Top200.ht... Like peer review score, employer score etc. But even then, I think this is more like a voting scheme to obtain scores rather than detailed assessment of each department/ research / paper published / nobel laureates produced/ entrepreneurs produced / innovation quotient etc.

I seriously hate these lists. Top 100 universities at doing what? There's no point being in the crappiest department of the "best" university.

by gdp 17y ago

I seriously hate these lists. Top 100 universities at doing what? There's no point being in the crappiest department of the "best" university.

Stasyan 17y ago

I agree. There are pretty good technical specialists coming out of Russia, China and India. I have not found a single university from ether country.

gaius 17y ago
IIT certainly should rank right up there.

jsf 17y ago

I agree with you if you use lists such as this one to pick the University in which you go to study or work. But I would think that as a Country, or a State they might serve as a (very) high-level indicator of how you are doing in education.

gaius 17y ago

Certainly not at brand recognition. Everyone's heard of Harvard, Yale and Cambridge, no-one's heard of UCL who didn't go there (and I say this as an alum).

seldo 17y ago
Well, I've heard of it, but then I went to Warwick, which is way down at #58 ;-)
- gaius 17y ago
  I don't set much store by relying on the prestige of a university as a substitute for what the graduate's done with their career but still, it's annoying to get mistaken for the University of Central Lancashire!

radioactive21 17y ago

"Top 100 universities at doing what?" The list is endless, visit their websites, look up all the teachers and programs they have going. Now research those and you will see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Top university implies that these schools have a large hub of academic progress, it might not be in a tangible form but the stuff they do at those universities does make a difference. These schools get a lot of bad press because the big players of the world seem to come from them, but it does not diminish the contribution these higher education universities have added to the global community.

unalone 17y ago
There's a difference between saying "Hey, these places are really good!" and saying "Hey, this place ranks a little bit above this place!" I'm a firm believer in the malevolence of unnecessary statistics. The only point I've ever seen in college rankings is for people to gloat over people in other colleges. I can't imagine the benefit of knowing just how these colleges rank according to an arbitrary study.

prat 17y ago

There is another link that provides slightly more info than just the rank http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Rankings2009-Top200.html http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Rankings2009-Top200.ht... Like peer review score, employer score etc. But even then, I think this is more like a voting scheme to obtain scores rather than detailed assessment of each department/ research / paper published / nobel laureates produced/ entrepreneurs produced / innovation quotient etc.