The Best University in the World
Update 8/9/2011 -- some comments added

For many people the most interesting thing about the QS rankings is the battle for the top place. The Shanghai rankings put Harvard in first place year after year and no doubt will do so for the next few decades. QS when it was in partnership with Times Higher Education also routinely put Harvard first. This is scarcely surprising since the research prowess of Cambridge has steadily declined in recent years. Still, Cambridge, Oxford and two London colleges did quite well mainly because they got high scores for international faculty and students and for the academic survey (not surprising since a disproportionate number of responses came from the UK, Australia and New Zealand) but not well enough to get over their not very distinguished research record.

Last year, however, Cambridge squeezed past Harvard. This was not because of the  academic and employer surveys. That remained at 100 for both places. What happened was that between 2009 and 2010 Cambridge's score for citations per faculty increased from 89 to 93. This would be a fine achievement if it represented a real improvement. Unfortunately, almost every university with scores above 60 for this indicator in 2009 went up by a similar margin in 2010 while universities with scores below 50 slumped. Evidently, there was a new method of converting raw scores. Perhaps a mathematician out there can help.

And this year?

Cambridge and Harvard are both at 100 for the academic and employer surveys just like last year. (Note that although Harvard does better than Cambridge in both surveys they get the same reported score of 100).


For the faculty student ratio Harvard narrowed the gap a little from 3 to 2.5 points. In citations per faculty Cambridge slipped a bit by 0.3 points. However, Cambridge pulled further ahead on international students and faculty.

Basically, from 2004 to 2009 Harvard reigned supreme because its obvious superiority in research was more than enough to offset the advantages Cambridge enjoyed with regard to internationalisation (small country and policies favouring international students), faculty student ratio (counting non-teaching research staff) and the academic survey (disproportionate responses from the UK and Commonwealth). But this year and last the change in the method of converting the raw scores for citations per faculty artificially boosted Cambridge's overall scores.

So, is Cambridge really the world's top university?

The THE-TR Rankings

The THE-TR World University Rankings will be published on October 6th.

There will be some changes. The weighting given to the citations indicator will be slightly reduced to 30% and internationalisation gets 7.5% instead of 5%.

There will be some tweaking of the citations indicator to avoid a repeat of the Alexandria and other anomalies. Let's hope it works.

In the research indicator there will be a reduction in the weighting given to the survey and public research income as a percentage of research income will be removed.

There will, unfortunately, be a slight increase in the percentage given of international students and a decline in that for international faculty.

Commentary on the 2011 QS World University Rankings

From India

"University of Cambridge retains its number one spot ahead of Harvard, according to the QS World University Rankings 2011, released today. Meanwhile, MIT jumps to the third position, ahead of Yale and Oxford.

While the US continues to dominate the world ranking scenario, taking 13 of top 20 and 70 of top 300 places, 14 of 19 Canadian universities have ranked lower than 2010. As far as Europe is concerned, Germany, one of the emerging European destinations in recent times, has no university making it to the top 50 despite its Excellence Initiative.

Asian institutions - particularly those from Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and China - have fared well at a discipline level in subject rankings produced by QS this year - this is particularly true in technical and hard science fields.

Despite the Indian government's efforts to bring about a radical change in the Indian higher education sector, no Indian university has made it to the top 200 this year. However, China has made it to the top 50 and Middle East in the top 200 for the first time.

According to Ben Sowter, QS head of research, "There has been no (relative) improvement from any Indian institution this year. The international higher education scene is alive with innovation and change, institutions are reforming, adapting and revolutionising. Migration amongst international students and faculty continues to grow with little sign of slowing. Universities can no longer do the same things they have always done and expect to maintain their position in a ranking or relative performance.""

Commentary on 2011 QS World University Rankings

 From Ireland 

SEÁN FLYNN, Education Editor

TCD AND UCD have continued to slide down the world university rankings in a trend which will concern Government, business and heads of colleges.

The latest QS rankings – published this morning – show a substantial drop in ranking for most Irish universities.

TCD drops down 13 places to 65; UCD is down 20 places from 114 to 134. NUI Galway suffers the most dramatic fall, down 66 places to 298. UCC bucked the trend, up marginally from 184 to 181.

The new international league table is a serious blow to the Irish university sector. Two years ago TCD was in the elite top 50 colleges, while UCD was in the top 100. Over the past two years both of Ireland’s leading colleges have lost significant ground.
The fall in Irish rankings was widely expected as the university sector has struggled to cope with a 6 per cent decline in employment and a funding crisis.

Commentary on the 2011 QS World University Rankings

From New Zealand

"In tough times, good news comes for Australian institutions in Eighth QS World University Rankings®

- Eighth annual QS World University Rankings® sees all of the Group of Eight featured in the top 300
- Australian National University (26) remains Australia’s best-performing university but falls by 6 places.
- Seventeen Australian institutions featured in the top 300
- Based on six indicators including surveys of over 33,000 global academics and 16,000 graduate employers, the largest of their kind ever conducted
- New in 2011: results published alongside comparative international tuition fee on www.topuniversities.com"

Commentary on the 2011 QS World University Rankings

 From Malaysia

"PETALING JAYA: Universiti Malaya (UM) is the only Malaysian institution that has made it to the top 200 of the QS World University Rankings 2011/12.
It moved up 40 places to 167 this year compared to 207 in 2010.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) have all slid down the rankings (see table).

UKM is ranked 279 this year compared to 263 in 2010; USM at 335 (309), UPM 358 (319) and UTM at between 401 and 450 (365).
...
For the first time, the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) and Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) were included in the rankings at 451-500 and 601+ respectively."

Commentary on the QS 2011 World University Rankings

From Dubai

"Dubai: UAE University (UAEU) has moved up 34 places to come 338th in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, which looked at more than 2,000 institutions to come up with a top 500 list.

UAEU officials said the university is working toward a top 100 spot. The university was also ranked 299th in the Life Sciences & Medicine subject category.The University of Cambridge was ranked as the top university in the world followed by Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Yale University, University of Oxford.
Saudi Arabia's King Saud University (KSU) came 200th and tops the list among Middle East institutions with King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) and King Abdul Aziz University (KAU) coming in second and fifth respectively. American University of Beirut came third and UAEU fourth."

QS Rankings Published

The rankings have now been published and can be accessed here.

The top 300 are included with total scores and tuition fees.

QS Rankings Update

Some highlights are provided by CNW


Highlights:

• Global:  University of Cambridge retains number one spot ahead of Harvard, while MIT jumps to third ahead of Yale and Oxford; 38 countries in top 300
• Government and private funding for technology-focussed research is eroding the dominance of traditional comprehensive universities. The average age of the top 100 institutions has dropped by seven years since 2010, reflecting the emergence of newer specialist institutions particularly in Asia
• US/Canada: US takes 13 of top 20 and 70 of top 300 places; McGill (17) and Toronto (23) both up, but 14 of 19 Canadian universities rank lower than 2010
• UK/Ireland: Oxford (5) and Imperial (6) leapfrog UCL (7), as four UK universities make the top 10; TCD (65) and UCD (134) both drop
• Continental Europe: ETH Zurich (18) leads ENS Paris (33), EPFL (35) and ParisTech (36); no German university in top 50 despite Excellence Initiative
• Asia: HKU (22) leads Tokyo (25), NUS (28) and Kyoto (32); India: IITB drops out of top 200; China: Tsinghua (47) joins Peking (46) in top 50
• Australia: Gap between ANU (26) and Melbourne (31) closes from 18 to five, ahead of Sydney (38); G8 all make top 100
• Middle East: King Saud University (200) makes top 200 for first time
• Latin America: USP (169) makes top 200 for first time; five universities in top 300 (Brazil, Chile and Argentina)

QS Rankings Update

The BBC reports on Scottish universities in the rankings.

The University of Glasgow has climbed 18 places in an international league table of higher education institutions.

Glasgow is now 59th in the QS World University Rankings, ahead of St Andrews which is in 97th place.
The University of Edinburgh is the highest ranked Scottish institution moving up two places to 20th position.
Principal of Glasgow, Professor Anton Muscatelli, said it had confirmed its position as one of the world's leading universities.

QS Rankings Update

The National reports that UAE University has risen from 372nd to 338th place.

QS Rankings 2011 Update

According to the Herald Sun, Cambridge has retained its place at the top of the QS rankings.


MELBOURNE is clawing its way up the ranks of the world's best universities, but Canberra is clinging on to top spot.
Australian National University is the nation's best tertiary institution, claiming 26th spot in the international league table.
But Melbourne University is hot on its heels - ranked 31st after jumping seven spots over the past year.
The UK's famed Cambridge University has claimed poll position, followed by Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University in the US.
Oxford University rounded out the top five, according to the QS World University Rankings, released yesterday.
Victoria's other top performers were Monash University, which jumped one spot to 60, and RMIT at 228.

QS Rankings Update

Although they have  not been released yet some news about the QS 2011 rankings is trickling out.

From Todayonline in Singapore

NTU [Nanyang Technological University] , NUS [National University of Singapore] climb the ladder in global university rankings 

 

NTU leaps 16 places to take 58th spot, while NUS moves up three notches to take 28th spot

The QS Rankings are Coming

QS will release their 2011 World University Rankings at 0101 GMT on Monday.They have already sent out fact files to the 600+ listed universities.

Things to look for.

Will Harvard regain it's position at the top from Cambridge? It might if QS revert to the previous method of converting the raw scores for the citations per faculty indicator.

Will spending cuts lead to a decline in the observed quality of British universities?

Will universities in China,Korea, Latin America and the Middle East repeat the successes they recorded in the Shanghai rankings?

Will Universiti Malaya return to the top 200? If it does will it be acknowledged as the number 1 Malaysian University?


Watch this space

Japanese Universities Send a Strong Request

A very interesting document from the top 11 Japanese research universities has appeared. They are unhappy with the citations indicator in last year's Times Higher Education -- Thomson Reuters World University Rankings.

"The purpose of analyzing academic research data, particularly publication and citation trends is to provide diverse objective information on universities and other academic institutions that can be used by researchers and institutions for various evaluations and the setting of objectives. The 2010 Thomson Reuters / THE World University Rankings, however, do not give sufficient consideration to the unique characteristics of universities in different countries or the differing research needs and demands from society based on country, culture and academic field. As a result, those rankings are likely to lead to an unbalanced misleading and misuse of the citation index.

RU11 strongly requests, therefore, that Thomson Reuters / THE endeavors to contribute to academic society by providing objective and impartial data, rather than imposing a simplistic and trivialized form of university assessment."

It is a tactical mistake to go on about uniqueness. This is an excuse that has been used too often by institutions whose flaws have been revealed by international rankings.

Still, they do have a point. They go on to show that when the position of Asian universities according to the citations indicator in the THE-TR rankings is compared with the citations per paper indicator in the 2010 QS Asian university rankings, citations per paper over an 11 year period from TR's Essential Science Indicators and citations per paper/citations per faculty in the 2010 QS World university rankings (I assume they mean citations per faculty here since the QS World University Rankings do not have a citations per paper indicator) leading Japanese universities do badly while Chinese, Korean and other Asian universities do very well.

They complain that the THE--TR rankings emphasise "home run papers" and research that produces immediate results and that regional modification (normalisation) discriminates against Japanese universities.

This no doubt is a large part of the story but I suspect that the distortions of the 2010 THE--TR indicator are also because differences in the practice of self citation and intra--university citation, because TR's methodology actually favors those who publish relatively few papers and because of its bias towards low--cited disciplines.

The document continues:

"1. The ranking of citations based on either citations per author (or faculty) or citations per paper represent two fundamentally different ways of thinking with regards to academic institutions: are the institutions to be viewed as an aggregation of their researchers, or as an aggregation of the papers they have produced?  We believe that the correct approach is to base the citations ranking on citations per faculty as has been the practice in the past.

2. We request a revision of the method used for regional modification. 

3. We request the disclosure of the raw numerical data used to calculate the citation impact score for the various research fields at each university."

I suspect that TR and THE would reply that their methodology identifies pockets of excellence (which for some reason cannot be found anywhere in the Japanese RU 11), that the RU 11 are just poor losers and that they are right and QS is wrong.

This question might be resolved by looking at other measures of citations such as those produced by HEEACT, Scimago and ARWU.

It could be that this complaint if was sent to TR was the reason for TR and THE announcing that they were changing the regional weighting process this year. If that turns out to be the case and TR is perceived as changing its methodology to suit powerful vested interests then we can expect many academic eyebrows to be raised.

If the RU 11 are still unhappy then THE and TR might see a repeat of the demise of the Asiaweek rankings brought on in part because of a mass abstention by Japanese and other universities.

The THE Citations Indicator

The Research Impact indicator in last year's Times Higher Education - Thomson Reuters World University Rankings led to much condemnation and not a little derision. Alexandria University was fourth in the world for research impact, with Bilkent, Turkey, Hong Kong Baptist University and several other relatively obscure institutions achieving remarkably high scores.

The villain here was Thomson Reuters' field and year normalisation system by which citations were compared with world benchmarks for field and year. This meant that a large number of citations within year of publication  to a paper classified as being in a low cited field could have a disproportionate  effect, which might be further enhanced if the university was in a region where citations were low.

Now THE have announced that this year there will be three changes. These are:

• raising the threshold for inclusion in the citations indicator from 50 publications per year to 200
• Extending the period for counting citations from five to six years
• Changing regional normalisation so that it takes account of subject variations within regions as well as the overall level  of citations.

Here are some things which Thomson Reuters apparently will not do:

• reducing the weighting given to citations
• not counting sell-citations, citations within institutions or citations within journals
• using a variety of indications to assess research impact, such as h-index, total citations, citations per paper
• using a variety of databases

So, everybody will have to wait until September to see what will happen.

Value for Money

Recently, the Higher Education Funding Council of England published data indicating the percentage of UK students at English universities with grades AAB at A level. Oxford and Cambridge were at the top with 99% and Wolverhampton, Staffordshire and Hertfordshire at the bottom with 2%.

Now Hertfordshire statisticians have produced graphs comparing performance on four British league tables with tuition fees. Hertfordshire offers best value for tuition money in its band. Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Derby and London Metropolitan do well in theirs. Liverpool John Moores, East London and Bedfordshire are among the worst.

It should be noted that at the moment the differences between tuition levels are relatively small so this table may not mean very much.

Perhaps They know Something You Don't

The Pew Research Center has issued a report showing that women are more likely than men to see the value of a college education. Men, says the report, are laggards. The implication is that women are more perceptive than men.

At a time when women surpass men by record numbers in college enrollment and completion, they also have a more positive view than men about the value higher education provides, according to a nationwide Pew Research Center survey. Half of all women who have graduated from a four-year college give the U.S. higher education system excellent or good marks for the value it provides given the money spent by students and their families; only 37% of male graduates agree. In addition, women who have graduated from college are more likely than men to say their education helped them to grow both personally and intellectually.

An article in Portfolio.com reviewing the report refers to another study from the Brookings Institute that finds that college is in fact an excellent investment .

Why then, are men apparently so uninformed about the benefits of higher education? The Pew report provides part of the answer when it discloses that men are much more likely than women to pay for college by themselves. A good investment, it seems, is even better when it is paid for by somebody else.

Also, let us compare the career prospects of men and women with average degrees in the humanities or social sciences. Even without affirmative action, men who are bored by diversity training, professional development, all sorts of sensitisation and other rituals of the feminised corporation and bureaucracy are unlike to get very far if anywhere.

And perhaps men are more likely to grow by themselves.

A Rising Crescent?

One advantage of the methodological stability of the Shanghai university rankings is that it is possible to identify long term changes even though the year by year changes may be quite small.

One trend that becomes apparent when comparing the 2003 and 2011 rankings is the increasing number of universities from predominantly Muslim countries.

In 2003 there was exactly one listed, Istanbul University.

This year there were six: King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, in the 201-300 band, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia, Tehran University and Istanbul University in the 301-400 band and Cairo University and Universiti Malaya in the 401-500.

In the next year or two King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, headed by a former president of the National University of Singapore, will probably join the list.

Another Twist in the Plot

The  relationship between Malaysian universities and international rankers would make a good soap opera, full of break-ups, reconciliations and recriminations.

It started in 2004  when the first THES - QS ranking put Universiti Malaya (UM) in the top 100 and Universiti Sains Malaysia in the top 200. There was jubilation at the UM campus with triumphant banners all over the place. Then it all came crashing down in 2005 when QS revealed that they had made a mistake by counting ethnic minorities as international students and faculty. There followed a "clarification of data" and UM was expelled from the top 100.

The  Malaysian opposition believed, or pretended to believe, that this was evidence of the unrelenting decline of the country's universities. The Vice-Chancellor of UM went off into the academic wilderness but still remained on QS's advisory board.

UM continued to pursue the holy grail of a top 200 ranking by the vigorous  pursuit of publications and citations. There was discontent among the faculty voiced in a letter to a local newspaper:

"The writer claimed that many have left UM and “many more are planning to leave, simply because of the expectations from the management”.

“UM is not what it used to be. The academic staff are highly demoralised and unhappy due to the management’s obsession and fixation with ISI publications, while research, consultancy, and contribution to the nation, such as training of PhD students are considered as secondary,” the letter said."

In 2007 the Malaysian government asked for plans from universities to be considered for APEX (Accelerated Program for Academic Excellence) status which would include a substantial degree of university autonomy. It boiled down to a fight between UM and USM, which was won by USM apparently because of its inspiring plans.

'"The selection committee evaluated each university's state of readiness, transformation plan and preparedness for change. The university that is granted apex status is theone that has the highest potential among Malaysian universities to be world-class, and as such, would be given additional assistance to compete with top-ranking global institutions,‘addedKhaled. "Apex is about accelerated change. It is not about business as usual –but business unusual""USM has been working on its own transformation plan –We started with the ‘Healthy Campus’concept, before moving on to the‘University in a garden’concept. We subsequently adopted the ‘Research University’concept."Tan Sri DatoProf DzulkifliAbdul RazakVice Chancellor, USMSelection Committee Chairman, Dr. MohamadZawawi, former Vice Chancellor of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak said the committee also paid special attention to the institutions’strategic intent and transformation plans. Visits were made to short-listed institutions where discussions were held with senior staff, academicians, students and staff associations to understand the prevailing campus’‘climate’and factors related to the proposed plans.With apex status, USM will be given the autonomy to have the best in terms of governance, resources and talent and is expected to move up in the World University Rankings with a target of top 200 in five years and in the top 100, if not 50, by 2020.'

Note that USM was expected to use its status to climb the international rankings. However, it is now refusing to have anything to do with the rankings, something that is understandable.

The issue of which university deserves APEX was reopened this morning when it was announced that Universiti Malaya  was in the top 500 of the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities.

This is unlikely to be a mistake like 2004. The Shanghai rankers have had methodological problems like what to do about merging or splitting universities but they do not change the basic methodology and they do not make serious mistakes. We are not going to hear next year about a clarification of data

UM's success is narrowly based. They have no Nobel prize winners, no highly cited researchers , only a handful of papers in Nature and Science but quite a lot of publications in ISI indexed journals. One might complain that there is too much emphasis on quantity but this is nevertheless a tangible achievement.

　

Press release from Shanghai

Here is the press release from Shanghai Jiao Tong University giving more details about this year's rankings.

Monday, August 15, 2011
Shanghai, People's Republic of China
The Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University released today the 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), marking its 9th consecutive year of measuring the performance of top universities worldwide.
Harvard University tops the 2011 list; other Top 10 universities are: Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Cambridge, Caltech, Princeton, Columbia, Chicago and Oxford. In Continental Europe, ETH Zurich (23rd) in Switzerland takes first place, followed by Paris-Sud (40th) and Pierre and Marie Curie (41st) in France. The best ranked universities in Asia are University of Tokyo (21st) and Kyoto University (24th) in Japan.
Three universities are ranked among Top 100 for the first time in the history of ARWU: University of Geneva (73rd), University of Queensland (88th) and University of Frankfurt (100th). As a result, the number of Top 100 universities in Switzerland, Australia and Germany increases to 4, 4 and 6 respectively.
Ten universities first enter into Top 500, among them University of Malaya in Malaysia and University of Zagreb in Croatia enable their home countries to be represented, together with other 40 countries, in the 2011 ARWU list.
Progress of universities in Middle East countries is remarkable. King Saud University in Saudi Arabia first appears in Top 300; King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals in Saudi Arabia, Istanbul University in Turkey and University of Teheran in Iran move up in Top 400 for the first time; Cairo University in Egypt is back to Top 500 after five years of staggering outside.
The number of Chinese universities in Top 500 increases to 35 in 2011, with National Taiwan University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Tsinghua University ranked among Top 200.
The Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University also released the 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities by Broad Subject Fields (ARWU-FIELD) and 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities by Subject Field (ARWU-SUBJECT).Top 100 universities in five broad subject fields and in five selected subject fields are listed, where the best five universities are:
Natural Sciences and Mathematics – Harvard, Berkeley, Princeton, Caltech and Cambridge
Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences – MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, UIUC and Georgia Tech
Life and Agriculture Sciences – Harvard, MIT, UC San Francisco, Cambridge and Washington (Seattle)
Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy – Harvard, UC San Francisco, Washington (Seattle), Johns Hopkins and Columbia
Social Sciences – Harvard, Chicago, MIT, Berkeley and Columbia
Mathematics – Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford and Cambridge
Physics – MIT, Harvard, Caltech,Princeton and Berkeley
Chemistry – Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, Cambridge and ETH Zurich
Computer Science – Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton and Harvard
Economics/Business – Harvard, Chicago, MIT, Berkeley and Columbia
The complete listsand detailed methodologies can be found at the Academic Ranking of World Universities website at http://www.ShanghaiRanking.com/.
Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU): Starting from 2003, ARWU has been presenting the world top 500 universities annually based on a set of objective indicators and third-party data. ARWU has been recognized as the precursor of global university rankings and the most trustworthy list. ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific, number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution. More than 1000 universities are actually ranked by ARWU every year and the best 500 are published.
Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CWCU): CWCU has been focusing on the study of world-class universities for many years, published the first Chinese-language book titled world-class universities and co-published the first English book titled world-class universities with European Centre for Higher Education of UNESCO. CWCU initiated the "International Conference on World-Class Universities" in 2005 and organizes the conference every second year, which attracts a large number of participants from all major countries. CWCU endeavors to build databases of major research universities in the world and clearinghouse of literature on world-class universities, and provide consultation for governments and universities.
Contact: Dr.Ying CHENG at ShanghaiRanking@gmail.com

Breaking News

The Shanghai rankings are out. Go here.

One interesting result is that Universiti Malaya is in the top 500 for the first time, mainly because of  a large number of publications.

America's Best Colleges

As the world waits anxiously for the publication of Princeton Review's Stone Cold Sober School Rankings (like everybody else I am praying the US Air Force Academy stays in the top ten), there are a few less important rankings like Shanghai's ARWU or the Forbes/CCAP (Center for College Affordabilty and Productivity) Rankings to study.

The latter, which have just been released, are designed for student consumers. The components are student satisfaction, post-graduate success, student debt, four-year graduation rate and competitive awards. They clearly fulfill a need that other rankings do not. It is possible that some of the indicators could be adopted for an international ranking. The top 10, a mix of Ivy League schools, small liberal arts colleges and service academies, are:

1.  Williams College
2.  Princeton
3.  US Military Academy
4.  Amherst College
5. Stanford
6.  Harvard
7.  Haverford College
8.  Chicago
9.  MIT
10. US Air Force Academy

The Missing Indicator

There is an interesting item in Times Higher Education. Apparently leading universities might be offering financial inducements in the form of scholarships to students with AAB at A level. For Americans that would be something like a 3.9 GPA.

Universities like to proclaim that they provide something to students that enables them to succeed in the post university world, training in critical thinking, soft skills or exposure to a diverse multicultural society for which massive tuition fees can be extracted from parents or government.  Whether they actually do is debatable. A book length study by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, Academically Adrift,  indicated that universities do little to teach students how to think.

Employers seem to have a rather different view of the matter. Many restrict themselves to recruiting from only the elite universities and are quite unconcerned with whether universities have established learning outcomes or whether they have created a safe space for diverse students. They simply wish to recruit the most intelligent students that they  can, with perhaps a bit of charm and likability for publicly visible positions.

Left to their own devices, universities would probably do their best to admit the most intelligent students available. The news that some are willing to pay for those with good A levels is a stark reminder that they are not being entirely honest in claiming that they provide an excellent education that is worth paying for. If that were the case, why not just put in a bit more effort and a few thousand pounds to turn an BBB or CCC student into an AAB. The answer is that while you might get a bit more out of a student by teaching reading and writing skills, basic numeracy and so on, recruiting from the top of the cognitive scale will bring much more to a university.

It is likely that calculating the average academic ability of students, or better still, their underlying intelligence might be an extremely valuable component in any international ranking system

Research Blogs has a table, derived from data from the Higher Education Funding Council of England,  of universities according to the percentage of UK students with AAB or better at A levels.

If it were possible to calculate equivalences between the standardised tests or qualifications in various countries with some sort of adjustment for national differences in education or literacy, then an global ranking of universities according to student quality would be quite feasible.


The second column in this table shows the position of the institution when ranked by size.

		Ranked by percentage	AAB+	UK %
1	3	University of Oxford	2568	99
2	4	University of Cambridge	2554	99
3	18	Imperial College London	1094	96
4	23	London School of Economics	686	93
5	2	University of Durham	2581	85
6	8	University of Bristol	2199	85
7	13	University College London	1648	82
8	9	University of Warwick	2068	81
9	7	University of Exeter	2368	74
10	15	University of Bath	1496	69
11	17	King's College	1238	68
12	57	Royal Veterinary College	195	60
13	86	Conservatoire for Dance & D	71	59
14	35	SOAS	353	57
15	5	University of Nottingham	2505	57
16	12	University of Southampton	1686	54
17	14	University of York	1538	53
18	1	University of Manchester	2776	51
19	11	University of Sheffield	1846	49
20	10	University of Birmingham	1883	48
21	6	University of Leeds	2376	47
22	16	University of Newcastle	1332	43
23	19	Loughborough University	1042	38
24	91	School of Pharmacy	59	37
25	21	Lancaster University	740	32
26	25	Royal Holloway, London	589	32
27	20	University of Liverpool	886	32
28	33	City University	414	31
29	26	University of Leicester	578	30
30	22	Queen Mary	702	29
31	24	University of Sussex	630	29
32	32	Aston University	429	25
33	27	University of East Anglia	538	25
34	93	Blackpool and the Fylde	52	24
35	30	University of Surrey	433	23
36	95	Blackburn College	51	22
37	29	University of Reading	455	19
38	58	Goldsmiths College	180	17
39	72	University of Chichester	114	13
40	37	Brunel University	325	12
41	84	University College Falmouth	78	11
42	31	University of the Arts London	430	11
43	28	University of Kent	480	10
44	76	University of Cumbria	105	10
45	89	Arts UC at Bournemouth	67	9
46	67	Bath Spa University	144	9
47	55	University of Essex	200	8
48	56	University of Teesside	197	8
49	43	Southampton Solent	254	8
50	69	University Creative Arts	136	8
51	48	University of Lincoln	232	8
52	68	University of Worcester	142	8
53	80	Liverpool Hope University	97	8
54	42	Coventry University	262	7
55	50	Bournemouth University	227	7
56	54	Oxford Brookes University	213	7
57	63	University of Bedfordshire	163	7
58	64	University of East London	157	7
59	79	Edge Hill University	97	7
60	51	University of Brighton	215	7
61	39	University of Northumbria	283	7
62	41	University of Plymouth	278	7
63	62	London South Bank	165	7
64	60	Birmingham City University	170	6
65	75	University of Northampton	110	6
66	36	Sheffield Hallam University	340	6
67	65	Anglia Ruskin University	156	6
68	34	Nottingham Trent University	357	6
69	49	University of Hull	228	6
70	78	Keele University	99	6
71	77	University of Chester	100	6
72	52	University of Huddersfield	214	6
73	40	Kingston University	280	6
74	44	University West of England	238	5
75	46	University of Westminster	235	5
76	70	University of Derby	133	5
77	92	University of Bolton	55	5
78	73	University of Bradford	112	5
79	87	Thames Valley University	68	5
80	38	Manchester Metropolitan	290	5
81	47	De Montfort University	232	5
82	45	London Metropolitan	237	5
83	53	Liverpool John Moores	213	5
84	71	Middlesex University	126	5
85	61	Central Lancashire	168	4
86	94	Roehampton University	51	4
87	83	University of Sunderland	79	4
88	90	University of Gloucestershire	65	4
89	59	University of Greenwich	178	3
90	66	University of Portsmouth	152	3
91	74	Leeds Metropolitan	111	3
92	88	University of Salford	67	3
93	85	University of Wolverhampton	76	2
94	82	University of Hertfordshire	85	2
95	81	Staffordshire University	91	2

Worth Reading

University World News has some new articles on rankings by Ellen Hazelkorn, Philip Altbach and Danny Byrne of QS. It also provides links to several older articles.