The QS Subject Rankings

QS has produced rankings of universities by subject. These seem to be quite popular, probably because the methodology and weighting varies from one subject to another so that almost everybody can score well in something.

Outside the top forty or fifty in each subject, however, they should not be taken too seriously. They depend on only two or three criteria in varying combinations, the academic survey, the employer survey and citations per paper.

So, citations per paper contribute 50% of the weighting for biology and earth sciences but nothing for English and 10% for philosophy and sociology. A high score for biology could be the result of a large number of citations, indicating -- perhaps -- a substantial research impact. A high score for English (language and literature) is largely due to the survey of academic opinion, a rather dubious instrument.

Anyway, MIT is first for these subjects:

Linguistics
Computer Science
Chemical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Economics and Econometrics
Physics and Astronomy 
Mathematics
Chemistry
Materials Science

Harvard for these:

Modern Languages
Medicine
Psychology
Pharmacy and Pharmacology
Earth and Marine Sciences
Politics and International Studies
Law
Sociology
Education

Oxford for these:

Philosophy
Geography
History

Stanford for these:

Environmental Sciences
Statistics and Operational Research
Communication and Media Studies

and Cambridge for:

English Literature and Language.


















As we get to the lower reaches of these rankings, the number of responses to the surveys or the  number of citations gets amaller so that trivial changes in the number of citations will lead .