A Disgrace in Every Sense of the Word

That is the opinion of the Gadfly, a blog run by four Harvard undergraduates, of the THES world rankings. Here is a quotation:

"The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) just released their global rankings, and it’s an utter scandal. Rife with errors of calculation, consistency and judgment, it is a testament not only to this ridiculous urge to rank everything but also to the carelessness with which important documents can be compiled."

The post concludes:

"One cannot help but think that the THES rankings are a British ploy to feel good about Oxford and Cambridge, the former of which is having a hard time pushing through financial reforms. Both are really universities who should be doing better, and are not. It may explain why Cambridge ups Harvard on the THES peer review, despite the fact that it lags behind Harvard under almost every other criteria, like citations per faculty, and citations per paper in specific disciplines."