Top 50 in the world

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Kizmet, Aug 16, 2019.

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  1. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  2. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    Click bait. The page consists of 51 slides that you click through, each one bringing you more advertising.

    The rankings are from QS. I've always been a bit skeptical about them since QS looks like it might have some conflict of interest. They are a British based company that specializes in recruiting east Asian students (willing to pay top-dollar) to western (often British) universities. And perhaps unsurprisingly, British and east Asian universities occupy a disproportionate number of the top spaces. The usual American suspects are there too, typically ones that attract lots of Asian students. My spider-sense tells me that it's marketing as much as anything.

    But apparently it works. I get the impression that wealthy parents in east Asia (not Japanese so much, mostly ethnic Chinese) push their kids mercilessly to get into "top" universities in the US or Europe, seeing them as golden doors to future success, power and wealth. To these families, it really does matter whether their child is accepted into #4 over #5 on some list, if only for bragging.
     
  3. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    In my own opinion this is true of all the ranking systems. Still, it's amusing as long as you don't take it too seriously.
     
  4. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

  5. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Yeah, but #8 in the world? It's hard to take that seriously.
     
  6. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    Does the name 'University of London' sound "top 10"? (Maybe, maybe not. Probably in some subjects in some respects.)

    Well, we know that the University of London is a multi-institution system (like the University of California). Perhaps the most prominent of the U of L colleges is University College London. (It's arguable.)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_College_London

    UCL at #8 doesn't seem all that outlandish to me. Given faculty, facilities, research, prominent graduates, awards won and so on, a case can be made.
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2019
  7. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

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