US News and World Report's best global universities 2015

I tend to use QS as my reference:

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2015#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=

Has MIT rather than Harvard at no.1 and a broader spread of global institutions in the top 100.

The methodology for both is pretty questionable as it seems to be based primarily on volume of citations and that's tough to even out across subject areas and institution size. You could argue that the QS metrics for citations and reputation by subject area are more useful than trying to work out the "quality" of an English department bolted on to a leading hard-science university.

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the one where vampire weekend met

The ivy league shouldn't win anything.

b-but those ginormous endowments! and those nobel prize winners stashed like drugs under the floorboards! do they mean nothing?

Harvard has some freaky shit

hi haters

I am trying to remember if there was a reason why I made this poll run for so long or if it was an unthinking typo. Probably the latter.

Most striking thing about the current QS list for me is how much Switzerland and Singapore seem to punch above their weight. I never really know how you can 'rank' universities, though.

I don't really know how to vote. Cambridge might be the most beautiful city I've been in and the campus seemed lovely. Evan Ziporyn chairs the MIT music programme, though, so I'll probably vote for them.

voted UCLA but meant to vote berkeley. most of the other US options are actively engaged in busting their grad worker unions as we speak so that was instant DQ for me.

Colleges and universities are obnoxious.

Thank you, Baby Infowars.

At least ones that are selective and charge exorbitant sums for tuition. Education should be a public good.

I went to private high school, a private liberal arts college, and an ivy for grad school (relatively non-selective program) and I used to really care about things like where people went to school, to my eternal shame. These places inculcate a sense of elitism among their students and, in a million subtle ways, make them feel like they have an investment in inequality. They are the opposite of hotbeds for radicalism. (Not my grad program as much as my high school and college.)

Selectivity is a good thing (as someone who went to fairly unselective public institutions for my entire education)! Elitism is justified and necessary with regard to some things. Exorbitant fees not so much.

I was never an especially good student so this could be partly resentment but I think there is something really toxic about America's attitude toward "success."

"Valuing academic achievement" is not the toxic part imo.

I think it's weird when you have a bunch of 18 year olds who think they're superior to everyone else for any reason. I remember a lot of my peers from high school disparaging community college and stuff like that when we were around that age and they were destined for more "respectable" institutions. I also know people who were really damaged by feelings of inadequacy after attending academically competitive East Coast schools -- both public and private high schools around here.

I'm talking about a really specific milieu but I associate it with the cult of Ivies. Obviously I support the work that happens at leading research institutions.

"Damaged" is a weird/wrong word. Hurt fits better.

I think it's weird when you have a bunch of 18 year olds who think they're superior to everyone else for any reason.

Heh, this seems like one of the least weird things I can imagine, and it's not unique to the academically-inclined or the university-bound.

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Most striking thing about the current QS list for me is how much Switzerland and Singapore seem to punch above their weight. I never really know how you can 'rank' universities, though.

I think this is partly to do with concentration of resources. Switzerland has a dozen universities and iirc Singapore has six so there is a huge amount of investment going in to a limited pool. The top Swiss universities have an academic staff / student ratio of something like 2.5 and sky-high research budgets.

yeah whereas French unis and in particular Parisian unis are really spread out resource-wise. My uni (one of the Sore Bones) only has a handful of departments (philo, law, econ, history, basically) because when the Univ of Paris was split up in 1970, the old faculties were split up among the 13 new unis. so we don't have science or engineering departments, no medicine, and so relatively little grant money. we still crack the top 100 in some of these rankings but it's tough when the unis are so split up. Uni admins care a lot about this and there's constant maneuvering at the national level to reorganize the unis into units that can count in these rankings while still somehow maintaining the autonomy of the current unis. this seems impossible to me but a lot of time is wasted trying to figure it out. I don't think it matters for us b/c we have a strong "brand" (sore buns and all) but uni presidents have to do something I guess.

enjoy universities while they last, america :)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449418/right-wing-populism-next-target-american-higher-education