An Analysis of UC Berkeley’s rankings in the latest THE - QS World University Rankings 2008
THE - QS World University Rankings 2008
2005 Rankings:
- Harvard University, United States
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
- University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom
- Stanford University, United States
- University of California, Berkeley, United States
2008/2007 Rankings:
2008/2007 Rankings
1/1 HARVARD University United States
2/2= YALE University United States
3/2= University of CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom
4/2= University of OXFORD United Kingdom
5/7= CALIFORNIA Institute of Technology (Calt… United States
6/5 IMPERIAL College London United Kingdom
7/9 UCL (University College London) United Kingdom
8/7= University of CHICAGO United States
9/10 MASSACHUSETTS Institute of Technology (M… United States
10/11 COLUMBIA University United States
11/14 University of PENNSYLVANIA United States
12/6 PRINCETON University United States
13=/13 DUKE University United States
13=/15 JOHNS HOPKINS University United States
15/20= CORNELL University United States
16/16 AUSTRALIAN National University Australia
17/19 STANFORD University United States
18/38= University of MICHIGAN United States
19/17 University of TOKYO Japan
20/12 MCGILL University Canada
21/20= CARNEGIE MELLON University United States
22/24 KING’S College London United Kingdom
23/23 University of EDINBURGH United Kingdom
24/42 ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of T… Switzerland
25/25 KYOTO University Japan
26/18 University of HONG KONG Hong Kong
27/32 BROWN University United States
28/26 École Normale Supérieure, PARIS France
29/30 University of MANCHESTER United Kingdom
30=/33= National University of SINGAPORE (NUS) Singapore
30=/41 University of CALIFORNIA, Los Angeles (U… United States
32/37 University of BRISTOL United Kingdom
33/29 NORTHWESTERN University United States
34=/28 ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE France
34=/33= University of BRITISH COLUMBIA Canada
36/22 University of California, BERKELEY United States
Naturally, as an international student studying in Berkeley and as a citizen of a country which is obsessed with rankings (Malaysia, where the main newspaper publishes such rankings), I ask the question:
“What in the world is going on?“
“Did Berkeley actually drop in rankings?”
Firstly, UC Berkeley definitely did not go backwards in the last few years. On the contrary, the ranking methodology used by THE-QS went “forward” or rather it “progressed.”
Let’s take a good look at the Rankings by Subject found on the same web page (based on responses to Academic Peer Review only):
1HARVARD University United States (100.0)
2University of California, BERKELEY United States (93.1)
3University of OXFORD United Kingdom (91.3)
4University of CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom (89.1)
5YALE University United States (86.2)
1 HARVARD University United States (100.0)
2 University of CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom (87.1)
3 JOHNS HOPKINS University United States (84.7)
4 University of California, BERKELEY United States (83.7)
5 University of OXFORD United Kingdom (81.4)
1 MASSACHUSETTS Institute of Technology (M… United States (100.0)
2 University of California, BERKELEY United States (99.5)
3 University of CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom (98.3)
4 HARVARD University United States (96.1)
5 University of OXFORD United Kingdom (92.3)
1 HARVARD University United States (100.0)
2 University of California, BERKELEY United States (91.6)
3 STANFORD University United States (82.6)
4 LONDON School of Economics and Political… United Kingdom (82.1)
5 University of CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom (81.8)
1 MASSACHUSETTS Institute of Technology (M… United States (100.0)
2 University of California, BERKELEY United States (93.9)
3 STANFORD University United States (85.3)
4 CALIFORNIA Institute of Technology (Calt… United States (81.6)
5 University of CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom (76.2)
As we can see, Berkeley is Top 2 in the world in every Subject except for Life Sciences and Biomedicine, where it is ranked fourth. How come this does not translate to high rankings in the overall rankings?
Hence to gain a deeper understanding let’s examine the methodology of the overall rankings applied by THE-QS:
So it can be seen that Berkeley has performed extremely well in the Academic Peer Review but it only consists of 40% of the total grade. Thus it can be concluded that Berkeley’s performance in the remaining 60% was not so stellar.
The following statements are of my own view and no in-depth analyses were made to produce the following statements. However the statements are the result of a few simple yet logical observations:
- Employer reviews tend to be geographically biased. An employer in some part of the world might favor places like Harvard because it is internationally well-known in general, but might rank other places which is just as good lower just because they are not familiar with the names of those universities.
- Berkeley is a public university with much more students than any other private university. Based on this, faculty student ratio suffers. Furthermore, Berkeley is facing budget cuts this year which decreases funding for the recruitment of new faculty members. America’s economy is in a bad shape, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is not increasing funding to UC campuses. Furthermore, Berkeley’s endowment is still small (US 1.3 billion) compared to places like Stanford (US 17 billion).
- For Citations per Faculty, I don’t see how Berkeley can do badly in this category, until I saw the words “international faculty.” So to gain marks in this category, Berkeley has to employ more international professors who can churn out research papers, which is of course not the case always. Berkeley professors are mostly American.
- Berkeley has tripled its international student enrollment this year, but it remains as a very small proportion of about 3% compared to the total number of incoming students. Compared to many other international universities which admit international students by the droves until it reaches to high proportions, Berkeley is still an American institution at large. The name University of California, Berkeley also implies that most of the places go to the top students in California.
- The last criteria is also biased toward universities with high international student proportion.
It is not hard to see why Berkeley performed badly in the remaining 60% of the grade. But that by no means makes it any worse. Actually, it doesn’t really matter at all. THE-QS rankings is an international ranking and hence it tends to put in a lot of emphasis on the international component, but that does not determine the success of a university per se. Just because a university is internationally focused does not mean that it is better than another university who is “less international.”
Conclusion:
Don’t let the rankings deceive you. Many rankings say this and that, so do not take it at face value and do your own research. Berkeley’s engineering department as on the same footing as Stanford and MIT, and is a very well-recognized.
If you are a Malaysian or anyone else reading this, by all means apply to Berkeley. It’s an awesome place for academic study and exploration. Do not let such rankings affect your decision to apply to Berkeley, thinking that at the rank of 36 Berkeley is a “rubbish” school. It is not. I have been here for a while and I must say that this is a great school.
Cheers. Be wise!
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this is awesome…
you didn’t just follow the result simply but thought critically and commented on it.
and I agree!
this is awesome…
that’s a great analysis rather than just simply following the result given!
LOL
serious now…
this article will be referred by me to other people when they start saying that Berkeley’s ranking went down!
yeah it’s a simple analysis of how unreliable rankings are. it’s cool that i actually took time off to write it out. i guess i cannot stop when I find something that really interests me, in this case it is writing this out haha
the ranking of UCL and Imperial as being better than that of MIT Stanford Princeton and Cornell is pretty absurd by itself. throws the credibility of this ranking into the trash. And ANU better than Stanford? Oh gimme a break.
moral of the story: look at rankings with a lens of caution.
that’s true…
guess you’re really interested in writing something that you are sure that you’re right and passionate in defending for.
exactly! I was like how did those universities got all the way on top there.
Hold up… Imperial, at least is on the same level with the universities mentioned above. I won’t comment on UCL so much,as I won’t claim to know much about it, but Imperial definitely is on the level. A bit biasness towards US unis, Ernie? UK universities aren’t inferior you know, especially when they face less funding
yup as usual… biased toward the US
one point though. it’s so so much easier to enter imperial compared to the other US universities, say mit and stanford. i do not believe that imperial is better than mit, though.
Well it depends though, it is a lot easier for Malaysians to enter Imperial then say MIT and Stanford, I admit….Although I can toss up the point that sooo many more Malaysians apply for Imperial compared to the other 2, so that quantity prevails. But anyhow, when you look at it overall, as in internationally is it really that much harder? After all, Imperial has near 20k students and I’m assuming so does Stanford? And a lot of Americans do get into these places soo…..Is it that much harder from an international perspective? And anyhow, while I guess MIT is probably slightly better than Imperial, Imperial is definitely on the same standing if not above Berkerly and Stanford
everyone can have his/her opinion.
imperial is nowhere near Stanford.
one need only look at the financial endowment of each school. imperial has about 100 million in endowment while Stanford has 17.2 BILLION. it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that more money equates to better research opportunities, better faculty, better facilities etc etc.
’nuff said.
i kinda think it should be looked at, how much imperial has dome divided by 100 million compared to what stanford hass done divided by 17.2 billion.it’s not the quantity but the quality after all. or not as ernie said, berkerly will be way suckier than stanford as it’s a state school with lil money. and obviously it isnt way suckier than stanford
Hey Ern Sheong!
I couldn’t agree more! I am probably in the same situation as you as I am studying in Illinois. Although we are not ranked highly in certain international or national rankings, I must say that Illinois, like Berkeley, is a great school. In fact, it might be as good if not better than Stanford, MIT and etc. For instance, Illinois invented devices from the MRI, LED, plasma TV, transistors, to you tube, the web browser and not to mention superfluidity.. And that’s just a small percentage of the inventions from Illinois that revolutionized the world. I am sure Berkeley would have it’s fair share as well. Truth be told, since I came here, I have gained a lot more respect for good public universities like yours and mine and have lost a certain amount of admiration for top private schools. Public schools provide the most all-rounded experience and is a great place to learn and grow. What say you to joining the US education fair next year and promote out universities !
Btw, I hope you’re doing fine there ! I am dying from the crazy work load !!
Hey Liang Hoong!
Can’t agree more with that. Berkeley is a place full of tremendous opportunity and energy. I am sure that many other public universities including UIUC are really fantastic too. The boundaries are really self-defined. Go Bears!
Hmmm I don’t think that I would be back next summer to promote at the fair, but I will certainly ask my Malaysian mates here to help out at the fair, since some of them will surely be going back. in the future hopefully i will be able to do the promoting myself
lovin’ every moment of it,
ES
(aarrrrgh, CS midterm in an hour!!!!)
The admissions rate for MIT/Stanford is <10% in recent years (~4% for international students) whereas the admissions rate for the top 2 UK universities (Oxbridge) is over 30%.
And the reason that UC Berkeley is not miles and miles away from Stanford is due to the fact that universities do not spend 100% of their endowment. Typically a university has about 15% return on their investment in a given year, 6% of which is spent and the remainder ensure that endowment does not decrease due to inflation. This is different from government funding (in the case of UC Berkeley), of which a large amount is spent rather than saved. Hence, a comparison of the endowment of UC Berkeley to Stanford has no meaning, as opposed to a comparison between the endowment of Imperial College to Stanford.
Also another factor to consider is that the rankings may be skewed/biased due to the fact that a London board is doing the evaluations, and no matter how objective/neutral the rankings claim to be, this is almost never the case.
Berkeley has Berkelium and Californium, , Stanford has Stanfordnium?