The World's Best Universities (PHOTOS, POLL)

This week, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) published its 2009 list of the best 500 universities. The annual ranking, which is in its seventh year, began at Shanghai Jiao Tong University as an attempt to measure the performance of Chinese post-secondary education relative to the rest of the world. But according to The Economist, it's since become "the most widely used annual ranking of the world's research universities."

Which isn't to say the ARWU methodology is without its critics. One researcher reported that the results "cannot be reproduced," and others have pointed out that the criteria used to determine the ranking, which include counting how many Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals have been won, as well as the number of articles published in Nature and Science, by staff and graduates, skew the results toward science and math.

The ARWU compiles an overall ranking, but it also breaks out each university's performance in five subject fields (math, physics, chemistry, computer science, and economics/business) as well as in five broader fields (natural sciences and math, engineering/technology and computer sciences, life and agriculture sciences, clinical medicine and pharmacy, and social sciences).

Here are the top eleven universities in the world, according to the overall ranking. Which university is world's best? Vote for your favorite below:

#11 Yale University

New Haven, CT


For the sixth year in a row, Yale placed 11th in the ARWU. In the individual subjects, Yale was ranked tenth in economics, 15th in math, 20th in chemistry, 31st in computer science, and 40th in physics.

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Comments

[StockMarkets]

No more bailouts. No more too big to fail. more effort needs to be done to make work. Instead, unemployment keeps climbing as well as the deficit. Tax cuts and toehr stupid gimmicks aren't the answer.

hat tip to http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com

[selenasade]

What does it really mean to be the top university? Isn't is all smoke and mirrors?

[Peter007]

Another list, another advertisement... best places to live?, Best restaurants?. A college or University is determined to be good based partially upon its rejection rate. The more applicants, the more rejections, the better the school.

[FloresdelaHoz]

The fact that they are almost all American universities is reassuring that we can get ourselves out of this economic blackhole as a much stronger 21st power.

[changeself]

among many different smarts,

smart in fitting and thriving in the status quo is one thing the students of these elite schools have in common.

the best indicator of that smart is their pedigree, their family background.

that's all, folks.

move on to some real subject that matters to the business of the people.

[wagadog]

All in English speaking countries...very odd.

What about the Sorbonne, Universite de Paris, Heidelberg, CERN...oh they only ranked on the basis of publications in Nature and Science, and Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (since Nobel Prizes don't cover Mathematics). Why the Fields Medal and not the Paris Prize?

In any case, if you're going to rank universities entirely on research output, then you'd have to also include the national laboratories and research institutes, as well as FFRDCs. After all, the only time you'd take these particular rankings into account would be in the selection of where, as a graduate student or postdoc in the sciences, you're going to do your graduate research -- where access to specialized laboratories and equipment is available. Lets see how well these college teachers stack up when they have to compete with the big boys, hmmm?

[Pharmachick]

I know how this ranking works and it is assessed across ALL disciplines. So, can anyone tell me why they are reporting certain Math and Science disciplines in the "twenties" for all these "top 11" schools and yet on this entire list, there is not one mention of the relative rankings of any Liberal Art (surely Columbia does well there) nor a natural science, Law, Medical nor Business course????

The Chinese university that ranks these schools MOST DEFINITELY takes note of those courses (as well as publications, Nobels and Fields, student rankings, peer rankings etc) to compile the rankings and award top 10 .....ahem, 11 ... status.

For those of you wondering why a "Top 11" ......FANCY if Yale had not made a "top" list ... it sounds silly, but a MASSIVE endowment, alumni in high places, hubris and backlash notwithsta­nding..... methinks there would have been fallout if, for possibly the 1st time EVER, YALE had not made a "Top" list ... hence the current "top 11". LOL

[Libertarian85086]

Isn't Bush a graduate of Yale and Harvard? What exactly did he learn there that could not be taught in high school?

[MsFoos]

How to hold your liquor, which reportedly, he flunked

[antaeus]

Which university produced the mathematicians, economists, and physicists who wrecked the economy?

[Eriq]

GREAT question!!!!!

[Kimballlcorson]

Largely Harvard by a long shot, then Yale, MIT and Princeton and Penn, probably about in that order. It certainly was not Chicago, Oxford or Cambridge or Podunk U.

[wagadog]

Umm... Milton Friedman was at Chicago.

In fact, they're naming an economics research institute after him.

[DannyEV]

i wouldn't trumpet Chicago's school of economics. It's long been a hotbed of supplysiders and other such nonsense.

[DannyEV]

so...ALL the best universities in the world are English speaking....isn't that interesting?

[KIVPossum]

Not All, just the top 19. After that there is a mix.

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2009/results

[Bill Marshall]

Why does this slide show stop at #11? Seems an odd number -- did HuffPost just want to make sure that Yale got in there? Cornell, UCLA, and UCSD are the next three schools on the list and all are photogenic campuses.

[ManUTd1989]

Don't mention UCSD, I have to be back there Monday for class and i'm trying to enjoy my weekend.

and...UCSD is not what i would call "photogenic". it looks like a Cold-War bunker complex.

[Bill Marshall]

True enough about the bunkers at UCSD, but a good shot of Niki de Saint Phalle's Sun God or an aerial photo showing the school's proximity to Black's Beach would at least provide some relief from all the ivy-covered halls in the other slides here.

[Kimballlcorson]

Should have taken it to 12. 11 is a prime number and looks odd.

[classicalmusicman]

I live right near Harvard and am involved in its community, though I never went there. Harvard may indeed be overrated, and I've heard various stories about that, and about how some students can get through while doing little work. The element that elevates it is not so much its faculty, about which I'm not commenting, but its student body. Harvard, quite simply, can get the best students in the world to come there. It's those students who make the place. They are an incredible bunch of overachievers. And they just keep coming, a lot on a free ride.

[marbou]

About 10 years ago, Bill Gates was asked on one of the major US networks which university produces the best graduates for Microsoft. His answer was Waterloo University. The following week, the CBC interviewed Bill Gates and asked him the same question. Bill Gates refused to answer and when the interviewer pointed that Gates had said that Waterloo University was the best just one week before, Bill Gates said " The Immigration Department has warned me that if I gave that answer again, Waterloo University graduates would no longer get green cards to work in the US". This says it all about the American chauvinistic attitude. This survey is another example of what Canadians call TBS. (Typical American Bullsh*t)

[akw]

"The annual ranking, which is in its seventh year, began at Shanghai Jiao Tong University as an attempt to measure the performance of Chinese post-secondary education relative to the rest of the world. But according to The Economist, it's since become "the most widely used annual ranking of the world's research universities."

How and why are you attacking Americans for something that the Chinese are doing?

[ejay579]

Community colleges and state colleges are great, especially if that is all you get. But running down those listed neither lowers their stature nor raises the stature of community colleges and state colleges. The myth that Ivies are elitist is true to the extent the likes of Shrub gained admission with minimal qualifications. But it should no way detracts from the fact that many, if not most, of those admitted come from modest means. The greatest disservice that a parent can do to a child is to try and dissuade them from applying to an Ivy or other prestigious school based on affordability. The truth of the matter is that any student who can get admitted can afford to attend. These institutions have blind admissions and figure out the grants after the fact. Many are now so heavily endowed that no admitted student has to take out a private loan. Those who assert otherwise either have been out of the loop too long or are intentionally ignorant, not unlike the reichwingers who rail against education in general.

[akw]

"The annual ranking, which is in its seventh year, began at Shanghai Jiao Tong University as an attempt to measure the performance of Chinese post-secondary education relative to the rest of the world. But according to The Economist, it's since become "the most widely used annual ranking of the world's research universities."

How and why are you attacking Americans for something that the Chinese are doing?

[akw]

Oops, forgive me........I responded to your post accidentally.

[drjasonmd]

Am I to understand that only universities in English-speaking countries made the top ten, or is this like the World Series?

Not really a ranking of the world, just the world as we define it.