Oddbean

@Xeraser 🇮🇹 (moved to @xeraser@varishangout.n... @Pensive Weeb @BroDrillard @owl. @Remi @Octopi Springfren 1903 No, the rankings are read from the Times Higher Education - https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2024/world-ranking#!/length/50/sort_by/scores_overall/sort_order/asc/cols/scores I'm criticizing the original source, not the punditry.

Universities are not ranked by the quality and knowledge of graduates. They are ranked by research output, how high various academics rank each other, what employers think of them, and how "internationally diverse" faculty and students are. It's a big circle jerk.

@BroDrillard @Pensive Weeb @owl. @Remi @Xeraser 🇮🇹 (moved to @xeraser@varishangout.n... @Octopi Springfren 1903 Right, but as far as that goes, I could *similarly* criticize these rankings for their poor assessment of research, academic standing, and annoyingly even diversity Again, Purdue has zero worthwhile Mathematicians remaining - the last one recently retired. It's famous for shunting a tenured professor's salary to zero *and* chasing off one of the few black professors it had. Meanwhile, UC Boulder and RPI's professors put out decent research routinely and do not similarly have these issues. Harvard, Yale and Princeton are famous for producing garbage students - I often see employers refuse to hire students from those institutes. The research might be reasonably good, but their reputation in industry is questionable. The rankings are poor even if you assume the things you're saying. The only thing I can imagine causing these rankings to be so skewed is bribery.