Why do the world university rankings differ so sharply?
The National University of Singapore (NUS), for example, was ranked 30th last year on the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings. The Nanyang Technological University (NTU), also in Singapore, was 73rd.
But they were not even in the top 100 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
NUS was among the top 101-151 on ARWU, which ranks only the top 100, and NTU far lower, among the 303-401.
That's because the yardsticks are different.
Look at the top 20 universities on the two lists, and differences emerge. In brackets are their ranks on the rival list.
| Rank | QS | ARWU |
| 1 | Harvard, USA (1) | Harvard, USA (1) |
| 2 | Cambridge, UK (4) | Stanford, USA (16) |
| 3 | Yale (11) | Berkeley, USA (40) |
| 4 | University College London, UK (21) | Cambridge, UK (2) |
| 5 | Oxford, UK (10) and Imperial College London, UK (26) | MIT, USA (9) |
| 6 | Caltech, USA (10) | |
| 7 | Chicago (12) | Columbia, USA (11) |
| 8 | Princeton (8) | Princeton, USA (8) |
| 9 | MIT (5) | Chicago, USA (7) |
| 10 | Caltech (6) | Oxford, UK (5) |
| 11 | Columbia (7) | Yale, USA (3) |
| 12 | University of Pennsylvania (15) | Cornell , USA (15) |
| 13 | Johns Hopkins (19) | UCLA (32) |
| 14 | Duke, USA | University of California, San Diego, USA (76) |
| 15 | Cornell, USA (12) | University of Pennsylvania (12) |
| 16 | Stanford, USA (2) | University of Washington, USA (80) |
| 17 | Australian National University (59) | Wisconsin – Madison, USA (61) |
| 18 | McGill, Canada (65) | University of California, San Francisco, USA |
| 19 | Michigan (22) | Johns Hopkins (13) |
| 20 | ETH Zurich, Switzerland (23) and Edinburgh, UK (53) | University of Tokyo, Japan (22) |
British universities like their counterparts in Singapore do notably better in the Times Higher Education-QS rankings. But the Times has now decided to come out with its own lists, leaving QS, which is also issuing separate Asian university rankings.
The QS rankings don't tally with ARWU because the criteria are different.
ARWU, as it says, is an academic ranking of world universities, based on whether their alumni and staff include Nobel Prize winners, how many of their staff are highly cited researchers, and whether they have appeared in prestigious journals such as Nature and Science.
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) rankings, on the other hand, are based on:
- Academic peer review of the professors – what other academics in their field think of them – accounting for 40 per cent of a university's overall score
- Employer review – what employers think of the university's graduates — accounting for 10 per cent
- Faculty student ratio (20 per cent)
- Citations per faculty – their research work (another 20 per cent)
- International faculty – 5 per cent
- International students – also 5 per cent.
Nearly one in five NUS and NTU undergraduates is an international student. NTU had 19 per cent (4,445) international students compared with 81 per cent (18,598) local students while NUS had 21 per cent (5,173) international students and 79 per cent (23,822) local students, according to the universities' own publications. That, with their international faculty, boosts their scores. Both are on the top 20 lists in these categories, as we shall see.
The NUS faculty is also ranked among the 20 best if you look at the academic peer review, beating even Columbia University, which has produced several Nobel laureates.
But the rankings also show NUS academics are more highly regarded than cited by others. NUS does better in academic peer review than in citations per faculty. This is also true of British universities. You won't find a single British university on the top 20 citations list though Cambridge is first in academic peer review and Oxford fifth. In brackets are the universities' overall rankings.
| Rank | Academic peer review | Citations per faculty in 2009 |
| 1 | Cambridge, UK (2) | Caltech , USA (10) |
| 2 | Harvard (1) | University of California, San Diego, USA (76) |
| 3 | Berkeley (39) | Stanford, USA (16) |
| 4 | Stanford (16) | University of Calgary, Canada (149) |
| 5. | Oxford , UK (5) | MIT, USA (9) |
| 6 | MIT (9) | Harvard, USA (1) |
| 7 | University of Tokyo, Japan (22) | Berkeley, USA (39) |
| 8 | Princeton (8) | Princeton, USA (8) |
| 9 | University of Toronto (29) | UCLA, USA (32) |
| 10 | Yale (3) | Dartmouth, USA (85) |
| 11 | UCLA (32) | University of Washington, USA (80) |
| 12 | University of British Columbia, Canada (40) | Johns Hopkins , USA (13) |
| 13 | Australian National University (17) | ETH Zurich, Switzerland (13) |
| 14 | Kyoto University, Japan (25) | |
| 15 | McGill, Canada (18) | University of California, Irvine (161) |
| 16 | Chicago (7) | Georgia Institute of Technology (86) |
| 17 | Peking University, China (52) | Minnesota, USA (105) |
| 18 | Cornell (15) | University of Pennsylvania, USA (12) |
| 19 | NUS, Singapore (30) | University of Zurich, Switzerland (92) |
| 20 | University of Melbourne, Australia (36) | Washington University in St Louis, USA (73) |
British universities do better in employer review and international students. The latter is also a strong point for Singapore universities. NUS and NTU are both in the top 20 for international students and international faculty. But, when it comes to employer review, NUS is 38th and NTU 91st. Here are all the three lists with overall rankings in brackets.
| Rank | Employer review | International faculty | International students |
| 1 | Cambridge, UK (2) | Caltech, USA (10) | London School of Economics , UK (67) |
| 2 | Oxford, UK (5) | United Arab Emirates University (374) | Northwestern, USA (32) |
| 3 | Harvard, USA (1) | King Fahd University, Saudi Arabia (266) | |
| 4 | London School of Economics (67) | Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (35) | RMIT, Australia(223) |
| 5 | Imperial College London, UK (4) | University of Otago, New Zealand(125) | |
| 6 | University of Melbourne, UK (36) | Ecole Polytechnique Lausanne, Switzerland (42) | School of Oriental and South Asian Studies, UK (234) |
| 7 | University of Warwick, UK(58th) | Curtin, UK(244) | Ecole Polytechnique Lausanne, Switzerland (42) |
| 8 | University of Manchester, UK (26) | NTU, Singapore(73) | Curtin, Australia (244) |
| 9 | Stanford, USA (16) | Tufts, USA (160) | Swinburne Institute of Technology, Australia (401-500) |
| 10 | MIT, USA (9) | University of Hong Kong (24) | Illinois Institute of Technology , UK(392) |
| 11 | Berkeley, USA (39) | Eth Zurich (20) | Imperial College London (5) |
| 12 | University College London, UK (4) | City University of Hong K ong (124) | Maastricht University, Netherlands (116) |
| 13 | Monash, Australia (30) | London School of Economics, UK (67) | Macquarie University, Australia (189) |
| 14 | Edinburgh, UK (20), Bristol, UK (34) and Ecole Polytechnique, France (36) | NUS, Singapore (30) | University of Geneva, Switzerland(72) |
| 15 | Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (229) | NUS, Singapore(30) | |
| 16 | Hong Kong Polytechnic University (195) | University of Southern Australia (295) | |
| 17 | Yale, USA (3) | University of Zurich, Switzerland (92) | NTU, Singapore (73) |
| 18 | University of New South Wales, Australia(47) | University of Queensland, Australia (41) | University College London, UK (4) |
| 19 | Michigan, USA (19) | University of Canterbury, New Zealand (188) | |
| 20 | University of Nottingham, UK (91) | University of Western Australia (84) | Heriot-watt University, UK (374) |
NUS was 14th in engineering and technology, 20th in life sciences and social sciences, 23rd in arts and humanities, and 27th in the natural sciences in the QS rankings last year.
NUS ranked 21st on ARWU for engineering and technology but did less well in other categories.
NTU was ranked between 71 and 100 for engineering and technology, below the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur, which finished between 51 and 100. ARWU awards specific ranks only to the top 50 in each area.
Here are the QS and ARWU top 20 lists for various disciplines.
Engineering and technology
| Rank | QS | ARWU |
| 1 | MIT, USA | MIT, USA |
| 2 | Berkeley, USA | Stanford, USA |
| 3 | Stanford, USA | Illinois – Urbana-Champaign, USA |
| 4 | Cambridge, UK | Berkeley, USA |
| 5 | Caltech, USA | Carnegie Mellon, USA |
| 6 | Imperial College London, UK and University of Tokyo, Japan | Michigan – Ann Arbor, USA |
| 7 | University of Texas at Austin, USA | |
| 8 | University of Toronto, Canada | Georgia Institute of Technology, USA |
| 9 | Carnegie Mellon, USA | University of California, San Diego, USA |
| 10 | ETH Zurich, Switzerland | Penn State – University Park, USA |
| 11 | Oxford, UK | University of Southern California, USA |
| 12 | Georgia Institute of Technology, USA | Caltech, USA |
| 13 | Tsinghua University, China | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| 14 | NUS, Singapore | University of Maryland, College Park, USA |
| 15 | Delft University of Technology, Netherlands | Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK |
| 16 | Kyoto University, Japan | |
| 17 | University of British Columbia, Canada | Purdue – West Lafayette, USA |
| 18 | UCLA, USA | Cornell, USA |
| 19 | Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan | University of Toronto, Canada |
| 20 | McGill, Canada | Tohoku University, Japan |
Natural sciences
| Rank | QS | ARWU |
| 1 | Cambridge, UK | Harvard, USA |
| 2 | MIT, USA | Berkeley, USA |
| 3 | Berkeley, USA | Princeton, USA |
| 4 | Harvard, USA | Cambridge, UK |
| 5 | Oxford, UK | Caltech, USA |
| 6 | Princeton, USA | Stanford, USA |
| 7 | Caltech, USA | MIT, USA |
| 8 | University of Tokyo, Japan | University of Tokyo, Japan |
| 9 | Stanford, USA | ETH Zurich, Switzerland |
| 10 | Imperial C ollege London, UK and Kyoto University, Japan | Columbia, USA and UCLA, USA |
| 11 | ||
| 12 | ETH Zurich, Switzerland | Oxford, UK |
| 13 | Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France | Cornell, USA |
| 14 | University of Toronto, Canada | Chicago, USA |
| 15 | Cornell, USA | University of Colorado at Boulder, USA |
| 16 | UCLA, USA | Kyoto University, Japan |
| 17 | Chicago, USA | Wisconsin – Madison |
| 18 | Yale, USA | University Paris-Sud 11, France |
| 19 | Peking University, China | University of California, San Diego, USA |
| 20 | University of British Columbia, Canada | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
Social sciences
| Rank | QS | ARWU |
| 1 | Harvard, USA | Harvard, USA |
| 2 | Berkeley, USA | Chicago, USA |
| 3 | Oxford, UK | Stanford, USA |
| 4 | Cambridge, UK | Columbia, USA |
| 5 | London School of Economics, UK | MIT, USA |
| 6 | Stanford, USA | Princeton, USA |
| 7 | Chicago, USA | Berkeley, USA |
| 8 | Yale, USA | Yale, USA |
| 9 | Princeton, USA | University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| 10 | Columbia, USA | New York University, USA |
| 11 | Australian National University | Michigan – Ann Arbor, USA |
| 12 | MIT, USA | Minnesota – Twin Cities, USA |
| 13 | University of British Columbia, Canada | UCLA, USA |
| 14 | UCLA, USA | Northwestern, USA |
| 15 | University of Toronto, Canada | Carnegie Mellon, USA |
| 16 | University of Tokyo, Japan | Cambridge, UK |
| 17 | McGill, Canada | Duke, USA, University of Maryland – College Park, USA and Oxford, UK |
| 18 | Cornell, Canada | |
| 19 | University of Melbourne, Australia | |
| 20 | NUS, Singapore | University of Texas at Austin, USA |
Arts and humanities. These are ranked only by QS. There's no separate list.
1. Harvard, USA
2. Oxford, UK
3. Cambridge, UK
4. Berkeley, USA
5. Yale, USA
6. Princeton, USA
7. Stanford, USA
8. Chicago, USA
9. UCLA, USA
10. Columbia, USA
11. University of Toronto, Canada
12. Australian National University
13. University of Tokyo, Japan
14. Cornell, USA and McGill, Canada
16. Peking University, China
17. University of Melbourne, Australia
18. New York University, USA
19. University of Sydney, Australia
20. Kyoto University, Japan
Sorry, I am leaving out the life sciences for now.
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