Top 50 best universities in the world

jay gw

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The Institute of Higher Education,
China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University

- has published their list of the top 500 universities in the world. The big majority are American, followed by some in England and Japan.

1 Harvard Univ USA
2 Stanford Univ USA
3 Univ Cambridge UK
4 Univ California - Berkeley USA
5 Massachusetts Inst Tech (MIT) USA
6 California Inst Tech USA
7 Princeton Univ USA
8 Univ Oxford UK
9 Columbia Univ USA
10 Univ Chicago USA
11 Yale Univ USA
12 Cornell Univ USA
13 Univ California - San Diego USA
14 Tokyo Univ Japan
15 Univ Pennsylvania USA
16 Univ California - Los Angeles USA
17 Univ California - San Francisco USA
18 Univ Wisconsin - Madison USA
19 Univ Michigan - Ann Arbor USA
20 Univ Washington - Seattle USA
21 Kyoto Univ Japan
22 Johns Hopkins Univ USA
23 Imperial Coll London UK
24 Univ Toronto Canada
25 Univ Coll London UK
25 Univ Illinois - Urbana Champaign USA
27 Swiss Fed Inst Tech - Zurich Switzerland
28 Washington Univ - St. Louis USA
29 Rockefeller Univ USA
30 Northwestern Univ USA
31 Duke Univ USA
32 New York Univ USA
33 Univ Minnesota - Twin Cities USA
34 Univ Colorado - Boulder USA
35 Univ California - Santa Barbara USA
36 Univ British Columbia Canada
36 Univ Texas Southwestern Med Center USA
38 Vanderbilt Univ USA 35.1
39 Univ Utrecht Netherlands
40 Univ Texas - Austin USA
41 Univ Paris 06 France
42 Univ California - Davis USA
43 Pennsylvania State Univ - Univ Park USA
44 Rutgers State Univ - New Brunswick USA
45 Tech Univ Munich Germany
46 Karolinska Inst Stockholm Sweden
47 Univ Edinburgh UK
48 Univ Paris 11 France
49 Univ Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh USA
50 Univ Southern California USA

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/top500list.htm

Things I find odd: the highest ranking German university is only in the 40s, and the highest ranking French university is only 48th. Also, most of the top ranking American schools are in California.....?
 
Canada does well with our 4 top universities in the top 100 in the world! This includes both of the universities I attended:)

I'm a bit surprised Queen's isn't there but it may be too small. I see it is in the top 200.
 
That list is using factors that are no doubt important to many Chinese, but tell you little about the quality of schools that provide a good education in other fields, such as art, music, etc.
 
jay gw said:
Also, most of the top ranking American schools are in California.....?
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How are you defining "most"?

1-10 shows 8 USAian schools and 2 are in California
1-20 shows 17 USAian schools and 5 are in California
1-40 shows 30 USAian schools and 6 are in California.
 
If I am an 18-year-old hoping to learn a wide variety of subects while being exposed to diverse ideas, how does a ranking of colleges based on the number of recent graduates who received Nobel Prizes help me decide which institution to attend?
 
jay gw said:

...
4 Univ California - Berkeley USA
...
35 Univ California - Santa Barbara USA
...
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Alright! Both of my alma maters:
UCSB undergraduate
UCB graduate :)
 
how does a ranking of colleges based on the number of recent graduates who received Nobel Prizes help me decide which institution to attend?
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It tells me that the faculty are well chosen.

Nobel prize winner = knows more than you about their field and probably most everything else.
 
If response to the poll question, I've gotta say no. My university (Ryerson University) generally does not do well on most rating systems, thanks to it's small arts program and lack of time as an accredited university (10 years).

My own program (Graphic Communications Management) has had 100% placement for the last 14 years of it's existence. Graduates are consistenly paid more than grads from other schools. It's all about the qualities measured.
 
How does holding a Nobel prize in say, chemistry mean that one knows more about ballet, or law, or music, or computer science, or literature, or international economics than others do?

And how does having a Nobel prize winner on staff tell you anything about the rest of the faculty's abilities in their own areas?

One needs to do more research into how well a school serves *your* particular needs, not how well it suits a panel in China.
 
Dermanus said:
If response to the poll question, I've gotta say no. My university (Ryerson University) generally does not do well on most rating systems, thanks to it's small arts program and lack of time as an accredited university (10 years).

My own program (Graphic Communications Management) has had 100% placement for the last 14 years of it's existence. Graduates are consistenly paid more than grads from other schools. It's all about the qualities measured.
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Ryerson is also hurt because of its history as a "polytecnical institute". I think many academics still think of it as an applied community college for media and communications.

BTW, hello neighbour!
 
Ladewig said:
If I am an 18-year-old hoping to learn a wide variety of subects while being exposed to diverse ideas, how does a ranking of colleges based on the number of recent graduates who received Nobel Prizes help me decide which institution to attend?
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Where does it say that the study is based on the number of Nobel Prize winners per school? Usually these types of rankings are based on net research amounts per college, along with other factors such as how many PhD graduates there are per year, etc.
 
I think university rankings mean little. Implicit in university rankings (from the perspective of prospective students) is the assumption that all students are the same, which isn't true. Different things are better for different people.

And this especially goes if you're talking about Nobel Prize winners. If you're talking about the research done at the university or being able to work on a doctoral thesis with people with special knowledge then I think having more Nobel Prize winners may be a positive, otherwise it's a non-factor at best and maybe even a negative. As far as teaching goes, having mastery of the course content is enough to be an effective teacher and you don't have to be a Nobel Prize winner to have mastery of 99% of what is taught in the classroom. (Note that I'm not saying that having mastery of the course content alone makes you an effective teacher...being able to communicate well is another important and often overlooked factor.)
 
Wisconsin rated higher than Michigan?!?

That alone should invalidate the entire list!!!
 
I don't find most ranking systems very persuasive, but this one in particular comes up with some unexpected results. U Hawaii must be making some great strides to have kicked UVa's butt so resoundingly.
 
jay gw said:
It tells me that the faculty are well chosen.

Nobel prize winner = knows more than you about their field and probably most everything else.
Click to expand...

I see that JayGW is doing his usual hit-and-run trolling.

If the other faculty are dummies compared to this apochryphal 29 year old Nobel prize winner who knows more about their fields than they do, why would anyone go there to study with them?
 
wow 44!

I can't believe were 44! And I think we've given up having a decent football team, though we are reminded every season that we won the first intercollegiate football game....

I have to agree with the previous poster -- rankings don't hold too much weight, depending on what type of education you hope to get. While a University having 4-5 Nobel Prize winners may draw money (aka prestige) into the University coffers, there is no guarantee that I will benefit from that academically.
 
clk said:
Where does it say that the study is based on the number of Nobel Prize winners per school? Usually these types of rankings are based on net research amounts per college, along with other factors such as how many PhD graduates there are per year, etc.
Click to expand...

If you click on the link that provided, you will see that on the left side of the screen there is a link to the methodology. The study was based on six factors with one of them being:

Alumni. The total number of the alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals. Alumni are defined as those who obtain bachelor, Master's or doctoral degrees from the institution. Different weights are set according to the periods of obtaining degrees. The weight is 100% for alumni obtaining degrees in 1991-2000, 90% for alumni obtaining degrees in 1981-1990, 80% for alumni obtaining degrees in 1971-1980, and so on, and finally 10% for alumni obtaining degrees in 1901-1910. If a person obtains more than one degrees from an institution, the institution is considered once only.
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The Alumni - Nobel Prize score and the Faculty - Nobel Prize score (along with the other factors) are divided by the total number of full-time faculty in order to account for different-sized institutions.
 
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