The world’s best universities?

The Times Higher has published a list of what they claim to be “the world’s 400 best universities.” Yes it’s nice to find that I was educated at the world’s third best university. Still, you’ve got to be a fool to believe lists like these. They clearly don’t reflect student experiences, and they don’t reflect the experiences of professors. Instead it’s all about “reputation.” That is, THES went around and asked a bunch of famous profs which universities that were best. Not surprisingly, they listed the usual suspects …

But what good is a “reputation” if all your classes are taught by overworked PhD students? Or if, as a professor, your salary is low and you’re bullied by your superiors? As I keep repeating, there isn’t much difference in student experience at the, let’s say, top one thousand universities in the world. The classes, the lectures, the exams are pretty much the same. The only difference — and it’s very substantial — are the students different schools attract. Put it like this: at Harvard (#1) you’ll be just as likely to be bored stiff by useless lectures as at University of East Anglia (#357), but your classmates will be far smarter and more interesting.

And what is my old employer, the LSE in London, doing at place 59? They shouldn’t be on the list at all! It’s not a university! They have no humanities, no science, no technology, no med school …

What makes us NCTU professors particularly suspicious is that the world’s best university — our own — isn’t on the list at all whereas our neighbor and arch-nemesis, NTHU, clocks in at place 334. Sancta simplicitas!

Here is the complete list (you are not allowed to click if you plan to take it at all seriously)