THE Rankings 2013-2014: By School Analysis

Here I try to summarize what is the situation for each of the top schools, in the order of HYPMS + CO + CCC + Berkeley, UCLA, Imperial College London:

 

1. Harvard: Overall THE's no. 2, on the back of being no. 1 in reputation and no. 8 in citations. By subject it is no. 1 in life sciences, no. 2 in humanities and pre-clinical/clinical/health, no. 4 in physical sciences and social sciences, no ranking in engineering/technology. Clearly a global top 5, very impressive with the lack of engineering/technology being the only regret.

 

2. Yale: Overall THE's no. 11, being no. 10 in reputation and only a score of 93.5 (out of top 10) in citations. By subject it is , no. 7 in humanities and in social sciences, no. 9 in life sciences, no. 10 in pre-clinical/clinical/health, no. 11 in physical sciences, no ranking in engineering/technology. Reputation in US seems to be overrated if one subscribes to THE's ranking methodology.

 

3. Princeton: Overall THE's no. 6, being no. 7 in reputation and no. 5 in citations. By subject it is , no. 2 in physical sciences, no. 5 in engineering/technology and social sciences, no. 7 in humanities, no. 8 in life sciences, no ranking in pre-clinical/clinical/health. Well-balanced at the level between Harvard and Yale, strong in engineering/technology that Harvard/Yale lacks; but no med school.

 

4. MIT: Overall THE's no. 5, being no. 2 in reputation and no. 1 in citations. By subject it is , no. 1 in engineering/technology, no. 2 in life sciences and social sciences, no. 3 in physical sciences, no ranking in humanities and pre-clinical/clinical/health. Clearly a global top 5 on the level of Harvard, only weak in what it does not offer (humanities, med school).

 

5. Stanford: Overall THE's no. 4, being no. 6 in reputation and no. 8 in citations. By subject it is , no. 1 in humanities and social sciences, no. 2 in engineering/technology, no. 5 in physical sciences, life sciences and pre-clinical/clinical/health. Fully-balanced global top 5, but hurt by mix. If it is top 5 in all categories (and no. 1 and 2 in half of them), the overall ranking of no. 4 seems low.

 

6. Cambridge: Overall THE's no. 7, being no. 3 in reputation and 95.7 (out of top 10) in citations. By subject it is , no. 3 in pre-clinical/clinical/health, no. 4 in humanities and life sciences, no. 6 in engineering/technology, no. 7 in physical sciences, no. 8 in social sciences. Another fully-balanced school ranking similar to Princeton.

 

7. Oxford: Overall THE's no. 3, being no. 4 in reputation and 95.4 (out of top 10) in citations. By subject it is ,   no. 1 in pre-clinical/clinical/health, no. 2 in social sciences, no. 3 in humanities and in life sciences, no. 7 in engineering/technology, no. 8 in physical sciences. Fully-balanced school ranking similar to Stanford. Yet I have to say I am surprised to find it so closed to Cambridge on engineering/technology and the sciences.

 

8. Caltech: Overall THE's no. 1, being no. 12 in reputation and no. 4 in citations. By subject it is , no. 1 in physical science, no. 4 in engineering/technology, no. 7 in life sciences and social sciences, s, no ranking in humanities, social sciences pre-clinical/clinical/health. THE's overall rankings really puzzled me here - this is clearly worse-performing and more specialized university vs. MIT. Just based on these rankings I personally would put it behind Cambridge and Princeton.

 

9. Chicago: Overall THE's no. 9, being no. 14 in reputation and a score of 98.0 (out of top 10) in citations. By subject it is , no. 5 in humanities and iin social sciences, no. 10 in physical sciences, no. 20 in life sciences, no. 29 in pre-clinical/clinical/health, no ranking in engineering/technology. It is hard to put Chicago really ahead of Yale as THE did. Seems to suggest the skewy factor embedded by the Citations criteria (that also pushes up Caltech).

 

10. Columbia: Overall THE's no. 13, being no. 13 in reputation and a score of 95.6 (out of top 10) in citations. By subject it is  no. 6 in pre-clinical/clinical/health, no. 10 in humanities, no. 13 in life sciences, no. 14 in physical sciences, no. 15 in social sciences, no. 30 in engineering/technology. It is the another US university that is ranked in all 6 subject categories - but likely behind Yale / Chicago.

 

11. Berkeley: Overall THE's no. 8, being no. 5 in reputation and no. 7 in citations. By subject it is no. 3 in engineering/technology, no. 5 in physical sciences, no. 6 in humanities and life sciences, no. 9 in social sciences and no. 21 in pre-clinical/clinical/health. It is in the league of Cambridge and Princeton and ahead of Yale / Chicago, and is fully-balanced in US after Stanford.

 

12. UCLA: Overall THE's no. 12, being no. 8 in reputation and a score of 95.6 (out of top 10) in citations. By subject it is  no. 8 in pre-clinical/clinical/health, no. 9 in humanities and physical sciences, no. 10 in social sciences and in engineering/technology, and no. 12 in life sciences. A very well-balanced top 10 school.

 

13. Imperial College London: Overall THE's no. 10, being no. 14 in reputation and a score of 90.0 (out of top 10) in citations. By subject it is  no. 4 in pre-clinical/clinical/health, no. 9 in engineering/technology, no. 10 in life sciences, no. 13 in physical sciences, and no rankings in humanities and social sciences. With 2 no rankings this does not feel like a top 10.

 

So, what does this THE's rankings show given the above perspectives?

Top-tier: Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford

Near-top: Cambridge, Princeton, Berkeley, Caltech

Next batch: Yale, UCLA, Chicago, Columbia, Imperial College London