Vocaboly.com

[thc]

Asian society places enormous value on the credentials and
accomplishments of their teachers. Based on that premise, academics at
Shanghai Jiao Tong University spent two years researching the world's
top 500 universities, looking at the academic credentials and overall
quality of each institution's faculty. Points were awarded for Nobel
Prize winners in physics, chemistry, medicine and economics on staff.
Points were given for faculty who had peer review articles published
in Nature and Science, or were "highly cited" in other academic
research. And points were given for the number and percentage of full
time faculty. When they tallied the results, they produced their list
of the world's top 500 colleges and universities, showing the score
each college received in each category. They also breakout the top 100
for Asia, Europe and the Americas.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/headlines/news/article_03_12_31_en.html

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm

Unlike US News, SJTU ranking did not weigh the opinions of college
presidents, or look at admissions yield, freshman retention or
graduation rate. Unlike Princeton Review, researchers did not survey
students on campus. The ranking is based solely on the proven and
publishing credentials of each school's faculty, something Asian
families value more than class size or whether the buildings have been
refurbished recently. I particularly like the fact that some
underrated "gems" in this country – Rutgers and Pitt, for example,
come out better than some of the more "prestigious" colleges. This is
not a perfect system, the Indian technology institutes, for example,
don't do that well, because their professors, while producing top
caliber graduates, don't ever publish. Also, it does not rate how
often fulltime actually faculty teach.

[KSG]

cthcarter@aol.com (thc) wrote in message news:<b4809df5.0403080525.7e9b20d9@posting.google.com>...

[Hank Murphy]

There are a few oddities in this list.

UCSF is a very good medical school. I'm not sure I would rank it ahead of
Johns Hopkins, to list the most obvious big name. I'm not sure that a
ranking of 11th in the US and 13th in the world is appropriate. If the list
were restricted to medical schools, much more justifiable. However, I
wonder if there is too much apples-vs.-oranges in this list.

I think there's a refreshing West Coast bias, too. )

So...interesting. But not definitive IMHO.

Hank Murphy
speaking only for myself

[Yeechang Lee]

Hank Murphy <hmurphy@earthlink.net> wrote:

[KSG]

"Hank Murphy" <hmurphy@earthlink.newt> wrote in message news:<7de3c.3346$Cm3.1154@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...

[Moca]

80% of the ranking criteria are based on absolute numbers - number of
citations, number of Nobel Prize winners, etc. This ranking is more a
ranking of size than of quality. Large mediocre schools rank higher
than small good schools.

I can't think of many decisions for which which this sort of ranking
would be useful.

BTW, this isn't sour grapes - I am a graduate of one of the
highest-ranking schools in this list.

[Hank Murphy]

KSG wrote in message ...

[KSG]

"Hank Murphy" <hmurphy@earthlink.newt> wrote in message news:<P1z3c.12685$%06.12363@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>...

[KSG]

Moca <moca@nospam.invalid> wrote in message news:<duj4qsxcygd.fsf@eris.io.com>...

[thc]

It seems to me the specific ranking numbers are irrelevant. Who cares
if one is 15 and one is 25? What is important is the information
revealed. This survey is based on the academic credentials, CV and
publications of the faculty. US News gives other information - average
SAT, freshman retention, graduation rate, etc. As one poster above
said, just because a school is well ranked and has a good reputation,
that doesn't mean it will be a good fit or deliver the goods for every
student. For my purposes, what I found interesting was the difference
between US News and the Chinese ranking regarding Case Western, GaTech
and UGA. Case Western and GaTech are equally ranked on US News - in
the Chinese system Case Western is almost the same - #38, while GT
drops between 25 and 45 places - to 60-80. Now look at the UGA data vs
GT. In US News GT is first tier, UGA second tier. By reputation
Georgia Tech is the academic jewel - but UGA out classes GT in EVERY
faculty category the Chinese academics measured. Add the fact that
Princeton Review's student survey has ranked GT in the top 3 or 4 for
"worst professors" the last two years, and you might have
corroboration and a trend.
Along the same lines William and Mary, one of the most respected
public colleges in the United States does awful on the Chinese
ranking. Consider that the W&M students have come up with several
proposals to sacrifice and pool their student fees to pay professors
more, to keep them from being lured away by private schools, and it
occurs to me that the Chinese ranking may be the canary in the mine.