Ecstasy and Agony

Nice to find your Ph.D. alma 20th in a list of the top universities in the world — just about half the score of Harvard, at far less than half the price. Not as nice is finding the institution you work for listed in the 200-300 group.

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3 Comments

  1. Posted 1/13/2005 at 5:29 pm | Permalink

    I have to question those results. For example, UW-Madison is NOT the #18 school in the world—it’s barely in the top half of the Big Ten! I think there are some serious flaws there. And I say that with my Alma Mater looking decent, too.

  2. Posted 1/13/2005 at 10:40 pm | Permalink

    Rankings are dumb, anyway. (Though at least a few on our faculty would jump on you for maligning UW!)

    If you look over the criteria they used — highly cited scholars, nobel prize-winners, etc — it tends to favor the hard sciences, and in the US, the hard sciences with significant federal funding. This is probably the reason for both Wisconsin and Washington being found so high on the list.

  3. Posted 1/14/2005 at 10:17 am | Permalink

    well the methods are clear, and very inadequate. I love their explanation about why they rank social sciences low. so social science oriented schools are ranked low. it is classic. in short, that list isn’t worth much. i mean, just think of the disciplinary biases in the citation indexes… they are stuck in the 50’s. horrid stuff.

3 Trackbacks

  1. By matt at lightwind on 1/14/2005 at 9:03 am

    rankings
    Not that nice to find your alma mater for both degrees in the 200-300 group for Top 500 universities in the world. Worse is not finding the institution you work for on the list. At all. I have to agree…

  2. By Projectories on 1/15/2005 at 11:02 am

    Sweden’s Top Universities
    Sweden’s Top 10 Universities according to the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University 46 Karolinska Institutet…

  3. By Projectories on 1/15/2005 at 11:08 am

    Sweden’s Top Universities
    Sweden’s Top 10 Universities According to the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University 46 Karolinska Institutet…

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