The Times Higher Education University Ranking and it sucks

At work, the new university ranking of the Times Higher Education was brought up. Since the UK schools rank very high and many US schools do not, it became the talk of the day in the office.

Before spitting out my 2cents, here's the disclosure: neither of my alma mater (college and grad school) are ranked well. Maybe that's why I don't like it.

First, let's see the methodology:
50% is in subjective surveys:
Peer review/survey: 40%; employer survey: 10%

50% is in "objective" numbers:
Faculty/student ratio: 20%; Citation/Faculty ration: 20%
International Faculty: 5%; International Student: 5%

I'd like to comment on two of the six measures.
The first is the "citation/faculty" ratio. It measures the importance of research by quantify the number of publication per faculty member being cited by other researchers. The citation is used instead of publications to eliminate junk papers nobody is reading/using.

In short, this number measures the quality of the faculty in research.

The second is the "peer review/survey", in which a certain group of people (Times does say much about what this group is) ranks a school's reputation. Since it counts 40%, this score basically determines the ranking.

Now let's see some examples.

First, if ranked only by "citation/faculty", which measures research quality:
The top 21 schools (98-100) include 16 US, 2 Canadian, 2 Switzerland, & 1 Israel schools. The US schools include Harvard, Stanford, MIT, a bunch of the rest Ivy League schools as well as Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, and Minnesota.

Not bad.

The top UK schools in this category are UCL (90, 37th) and Cambridge (89, 39th), which are the 37th & 39th, respectively. Most of the UK schools are ranked lower than 100th by this measure.

Other worth mentioning schools are: Peking (35 &188th) from China and Monash (42 & 176th) from Australia.

Now let's how the peer survey says:

Harvard (100 & 1-23rd), Peking (100 & 1-23rd), JHU (98 & 28-32nd), Monash (98 & 28-32nd), Minnesota (74 & 106th).

So, the "peer" believes Peking is as good as Harvard; JHU is as good as Monash while worse than Peking; Minnesota sucks.

The final ranking is dominated by the peer survey score:
Harvard (100 & 1st), JHU (94 & 13th),

Minnesota (67 & 105th),

Peking (78 & 52nd), Monash (80 & 45th).

All I'm trying to say is that if the "peer" ranks Harvard's reputation is the same as Peking, while JHU is a little less, it's a group of idiots who knows nothing about college education.

What's wrong with our Universities?

In the event of all these things happening, I'm sad about the education you may get from these two top public Universities.

Max Karson is a student at University of Colorado at Boulder. He expressed his sympathy to the gunman of VT. He was doing that during a class discussion.

What do you think would happen to him?

Well he was arrested and suspended by CU and charged with "interference with faculty, staff and students of an education institution."

I'm speechless. CU-Boulder WAS considered as one of the best public schools in the nation. Not after today. After today's incident, it is the least possible place I would send my kids to. I'd rather do home school.

For the administrators who suspended Max, they need to go back to school themselves to learn what is the meaning of a university.

For the students who reported Max. I'm just sorry that you got really bad education. On the other hand, if even your stupid school taught you to think this way, you are already an idiot to agree with them.

As for the lone gunman of VT, he certainly should receive as much as sympathy as any other victims. He is a victim himself. He is a very sick man who needed help. Well, although his English teacher spotted the problem, her action did little help.

Separate a loner from the class would make the whole thing worse!