From the Straits Times of Singapore

Students at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have been dismayed by the poor performance in the THE World University Rankings. Apparently they are concerned about future job prospects. The university was ranked 174th, much less than it is used to. The apparent poor performance for citations (222nd) was at the root of the problem.

Su Guanning the President has written to the Straits Times

"The QS 2010 Ranking is today the most widely-used world university ranking.
Nanyang Technological University was placed 74th in the list and the National
University of Singapore 31st, both down by one position from last year. The
performance of both universities has been consistent over the last four years.

NTU started off as a practice-oriented, teaching university in 1991 and
is in fact the youngest university in the Top 100 ranked in the QS 2010.

The Times Higher Education 2010 rankings is entirely new. Its criteria
have yet to be accepted by many universities. A detailed analysis reveals it is
88 per cent computed from research-related indicators with unusual normalization
of data resulting in some bizarre results. In a joint article in Edmonton
Journal, Indira Samarasekera, the President and Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Alberta, and Carl Amrhein, the Provost and Vice-President
(Academic) of the same university, wrote that the Times ranking has very
peculiar outcomes that do not pass the “reasonableness test”. They advised the
public to take the “rankings with a truckload of salt”.

Malcolm Grant, President and Provost of University College London pointed out to The Guardian that research citations, if not intelligently applied, can lead to bizarre
results. He cited the example of Egypt’s Alexandria University being ranked
above Harvard and Stanford universities in research influence in the Times
Higher Education 2010. "