Then the question is, why do universities rank so differently on different lists? Which of these dazzling rankings is more reliable and valuable?
To answer these questions, we must first understand the evaluation criteria and sources of the major rankings.
At present, there are four recognized authoritative rankings, namely USNEWS World University Ranking, QS World University Ranking, Times Higher Education World University Ranking and ARWU academic ranking of world universities.
1, ranking by USNEWS university.
USNEWS is American news &; world
The abbreviation of Report, American News and World Report in Chinese, was once a news magazine as famous as Time and Newsweek, and now it focuses on providing higher education information for students. USNEWS publishes the ranking of American high schools from 1983, and updates it once a year from 1985. There are four main categories of rankings: National Comprehensive University Rankings (National
University ranking), college of arts and sciences ranking, graduate ranking.
School ranking) and the best high school. There are also professional rankings, such as business-related majors, science and engineering majors and so on.
USNEWS has authority and influence on the ranking of American universities. It mainly evaluates seven indicators such as undergraduate teaching reputation, retention rate, teacher resources, student quality, financial strength, graduation rate and alumni donation.
Undergraduate teaching reputation (25%): the academic achievements given by principals, admissions directors, scholars and high school principals/teachers of peer schools range from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest.
Retention rate (20%): It consists of freshman retention rate (20%) and six-year graduation rate (80%). The retention rate of freshmen refers to the proportion of freshmen who are still studying in the second year, which represents what proportion of freshmen the school can keep until the second year; The six-year graduation rate represents how many students the school can retain until graduation. The higher the retention rate, the better the school can provide education leading to success.
Teacher resources (20%): teacher-student ratio (5%), small classes with less than 20 students (30%), large classes with more than 50 students (10%), teachers' salary (35%), teachers with the highest academic qualifications in this field (15%) and full-time teachers (5%).
Student quality (15%): including SAT/ACT scores (50%), top 10% high school graduates (40%), and the proportion of students who accepted the invitation after admission (10%).
Financial strength (10%): measures the average expenditure of the school on each student, including teaching, scientific research, student service and other related educational experiences.
Graduation rate (5%): Since 2005, the United States
The news estimates the expected graduation rate of a university every year. If the actual graduation rate of the school at that time exceeded this estimated value, then the school could get a higher score on this indicator. This indicator shows the efforts made by the school for the graduation rate of students.
Alumni donation (5%): Only the donations of undergraduate graduates and alumni to our school are counted. This indicator reflects students' satisfaction with the school to some extent.
In 20 14, USNEWS launched the world university ranking, covering 49 countries and many professional fields. Mainly refers to 10 indicators, including world academic reputation (12.5%), regional academic reputation (12.5%), paper publication (12.5%), literature citation quality (10%) and literature.
As these reference indicators are published directly on official website of USNEWS, it gives some schools an opportunity to improve their rankings by rapidly increasing the values in some aspects. The most famous example is Northeastern University.
University), the school ranked 162 in us news 1996 ranking. At that time, the new principal thought that the top ranking was beneficial to the school, so he set up a special research group to analyze the mathematical principle behind the USNEWS ranking, and then promoted the ranking by recruiting more teachers to reduce the teacher-student ratio, increasing the proportion of international students, and increasing the financial income through full tuition fees. Therefore, by 20 13, Northeastern University jumped to 19, and advanced by more than 100, becoming the fastest-rising school in the history of American university rankings. (Recommended reading "How American Universities Play Power Games to Win the USNEWS Ranking") What's more, it also improves the ranking by forging students' SAT/ACT scores, which also makes the USNEWS ranking criticized.
2.QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings (QS World University
Rankings) is produced and published by QS Company in the UK, covering global comprehensive university and discipline rankings, as well as three regional lists with different standards in Asia, Latin America and BRICS countries.
The QS World University Ranking refers to six indicators, including:
Academic mutual evaluation (40%): from the investigation of the research level of the school by scholars/peers.
Teacher-student ratio (20%): The teacher-student ratio reflects the teaching resources and quality of the school.
Teachers' quotations (20%): directly reflect the research level of teachers.
Employer evaluation (10%): the evaluation of school graduates by employers.
The proportion of international students (5%) and international teachers (5%) examines the degree of diversification and internationalization of the school.
It can be seen that the evaluation of academic peers is the focus of QS evaluation of universities. However, the high index weight of internationalization often leads to the strange phenomenon that the five disciplines of A school are higher than those of B school, but the overall ranking is lower than that of B school, which has been criticized by many academic circles. In addition, QS focuses half of its reputation assessment and collection methods on Europe, which is often criticized.
3. Times Higher Education World University Rankings
Times Higher Education World University
Ranking) is THE world university ranking produced by Times Higher Education, usually abbreviated as The.
Since 2004, Times Higher Education has been cooperating with QS to publish the world rankings once a year. However, from 20 10, Times Higher Education parted ways with QS and began to cooperate with Thomson Reuters Group to launch a new world university ranking, in which data collection was completed by Thomson Reuters Group.
The ranking method of Times Higher Education is mainly based on QS ranking. The six indicators in the original QS ranking were expanded, subdivided into thirteen secondary indicators, and their respective proportions were adjusted.
Teaching and students (30%): This indicator mainly examines the teaching quality of a school, including teaching reputation 15%, teacher-student ratio of 4.5%, doctor-bachelor degree awarding ratio of 2.25%, subject category of 6%, and per capita school income of teachers of 2.25%.
Research (30%): This indicator mainly examines the overall R&D strength of the school, including academic reputation survey (18%), research funding (6%) and the number of papers published by each teacher (6%).
Paper citation (30%): This indicator mainly examines the influence of schools in the research field.
Degree of internationalization (7.5%): the proportion of international teachers (2.5%), international students (2.5%) and international cooperative research (2.5%).
Economic activity and innovation (2.5%): This indicator mainly examines the relationship between school research and business circles.
The ranking of The Times has been criticized for its high citation rate, which is considered to be unfavorable to universities that do not use English as the main teaching language, because English, as an international language, is more easily concerned and naturally more easily cited.
4. academic ranking of world universities
Academic ranking of world universities (world academic ranking)
The University (ARWU for short) is jointly developed by the World-class University Research Center of Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Institute of Higher Education. It was first published on the Internet in 2003 and has been updated every year since then. This ranking focuses on academic research, and the evaluation basis mainly comes from six indicators:
Quality of education: The number of alumni who won the Nobel Prize and Fields Prize is equal (10%).
Quality of teachers: the same number of teachers who have won the Nobel Prize or Fields Prize (20%), and the number of scientists who have been cited most frequently in various academic fields (20%).
Scientific research achievements: the number of papers published in the journal Nature and Science (20%), and the number of papers included in the science citation index and social science citation index (20%).
Per capita academic performance: the average score of the above indicators (10%)
ARWU relies too much on international awards, emphasizing science, engineering and research, rather than humanities and teaching quality. If you want to choose a humanities university, there is not much reference value.
After reading the analysis of these rankings, are you more clear about choosing a school? In fact, these seemingly objective rankings actually hide many subjective consciousness and artificial factors, and the story of Northeastern University is the best example. In addition, these comprehensive rankings are not suitable for all options. If you want to study financial engineering, financial mathematics and other majors, some professional rankings such as Quantnet will be more valuable. And if you want to develop in academia in the future, then professional ranking is more important than comprehensive ranking, because everyone in the industry knows that professional ranking is very important and represents the level of students' grades. For example, the comprehensive ranking of the University of California, San Francisco can't be found in the top four ***248 schools ranked by USNews, but its medical ranking is usually in the top few, and medical college graduates are definitely not worried about employment.