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Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

blogs.wsj.com

1–10 of 73 posts

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#3
post #2

"Each school’s score is based on its number of publications and citations as well as its global and regional research reputation." Oh lord... one is easy to game, and the other is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Though, that formula for prestige has been in place for at least the last century in European and American universities.

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#4
post #2

"Each school’s score is based on its number of publications and citations as well as its global and regional research reputation." Oh lord... one is easy to game, and the other is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Exactly, so MIT has clearly been ...

Oh, wait, you mean you were implying that Tsinghua University was gaming the rankings ...

MIT students, in my experience, have been overrated for years.

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#5
post #2

"Each school’s score is based on its number of publications and citations as well as its global and regional research reputation." Oh lord... one is easy to game, and the other is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's how all those rankings are done. Some of them are even "worse" in that they only include english language publications, and result with US and UK taking pretty much every spot in the top 50, claiming the rest of europe is terrible.

(I'm not saying that US/UK do or don't have the best universities, I'm saying that system of ranking is terrible for so many reasons)

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#6
post #4
post #2

"Each school’s score is based on its number of publications and citations as well as its global and regional research reputation." Oh lord... one is easy to game, and the other is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Exactly, so MIT has clearly been ... Oh, wait, you mean you were implying that Tsinghua University was gaming the rankings ... MIT students, in my experience, have been overrated for years.

He is not claiming one or the other is gaming it, he is saying this is a terrible set of metrics to rank universities with

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#7
post #4
post #2

"Each school’s score is based on its number of publications and citations as well as its global and regional research reputation." Oh lord... one is easy to game, and the other is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Exactly, so MIT has clearly been ... Oh, wait, you mean you were implying that Tsinghua University was gaming the rankings ... MIT students, in my experience, have been overrated for years.

He is not claiming one or the other is gaming it, he is saying this is a terrible set of metrics to rank universities with

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#8
post #7
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, so MIT has clearly been ... Oh, wait, you mean you were implying that Tsinghua University was gaming the rankings ... MIT students, in my experience, have been overrated for years.

He is not claiming one or the other is gaming it, he is saying this is a terrible set of metrics to rank universities with

"Ok, they've outplayed us in our game. Lets call this game terrible and start a different one with new rules!"

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#9
post #5
post #2

"Each school’s score is based on its number of publications and citations as well as its global and regional research reputation." Oh lord... one is easy to game, and the other is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's how all those rankings are done. Some of them are even "worse" in that they only include english language publications, and result with US and UK taking pretty much every spot in the top 50, claiming the rest of europe is terrible. (I'm not saying that US/UK do or don't have the best universities, I'm saying that system of ranking is terrible for so many reasons)

The Professor I worked for in the early '90s told me that he'd been involved in some ranking exercise for one of the UK funding bodies where he was deeply unpopular as he wanted to work from objective measures and then come up with a ranking whereas the standard game was apparently to work out the rankings based on which departments everyone "knew" to be best and then designing the ranking scheme to get the "right" answer.

That kind of stuff, and the whole nonsense around the desperate scramble for publications really put me off of a career in academia.

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#10
post #2

"Each school’s score is based on its number of publications and citations as well as its global and regional research reputation." Oh lord... one is easy to game, and the other is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

University scores have always been somewhat useless, just look at the criteria they are based on. At least I feel like they are heavily favoring already prestigious universities making it hard for anybody to catch up.

But if you think about it without considering their past, why should MIT be better rated than Tsinghua?

As of now they both are doing amazing research and I don't think that MIT is gaming the scores any less than Tsinghua is.

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