Education

Who’s afraid of college rankings?

TU Delft dropped from number 42 to 52 in the World Reputation Rankings survey conducted by Times Higher Education. Are authorities concerned?

In 2013, Forbes magazine wrote that “college reputations have been hijacked by rankings”. As competition among universities gets fierce, rankings have become a go-to for potential students and even investors when it comes to choosing universities. UK-based Times Higher Education (THE) conducts a reputation rankings survey each year, which takes into account a university’s reputation among researchers and academics around the world. In recently released results for 2014, TU Delft dropped to a slot between 50-60. The exact rank and score is withheld by THE, but TU is listed at 52. Meanwhile, in their overall university rankings, TU Delft is at number 71 (up from 2013).

Why the decrease in reputation rankings then? “We received responses from over 10,000 academics from 142 countries, and they provided us with many tens of thousands of data points, but they do not give qualitative answers to our survey questions. All we can say is that fewer scholars this year named TU Delft as being the very best in the world, in both teaching and research, based on the respondent’s direct experience and disciplinary knowledge,” said Phil Baty, editor Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Scores for colleges ranked after 50 have been withheld as “the data differentials become too narrow.”

Given that the margins are so small, university authorities are not worried either. Anka Mulder, Vice President, Executive Board, says even the current score is impressive and not something to be concerned about. “There have been no major faculty changes. It’s not always clear why we score better in some years than in other years. I do know that the differences between for example place 40 and 50 are very small. All things considered, the reputation of our university remains very good. Last year we were number 42, the year before we also ranked 51-60. TU Delft has a fantastic reputation worldwide and that is what matters most.” The top 100 represents just around 0.5% of the world’s higher education institutions and being on that list is no small feat.

What are rankings?
College rankings are surveys conducted among faculty, researchers and students around the world to create comprehensive lists of top universities and colleges. While the two big international lists are THE and QS World University Rankings, most countries also have college rankings of national schools, often conducted by education maga-zines. Institutions are ranked in terms of faculty, publications, citations, contribution to industry, patents, facilities and a number of other factors. According to THE, among technical universities in the world, Delft ranks at number 19. QS, which not only releases overall university results, but also calculates rankings in areas of research, ranked Delft at 86 in the overall 2014-15 survey. The university fared better in certain subject categories. Chemical engineering at TU ranked 8 and civil and structural engineering at 14.

While chemical engineering has consistently been in top slots, the numbers have jumped up and down. Faculty Chairman Michiel T. Kreutzer said small fluctuations in numbers are not important. “We’re scientists so we’re used to dealing with numbers and uncertainty. It’s like when you measure photons from a device from one experiment to the next, the numbers fluctuate. You can only study a trend over a longer period of time,” he said.

Investors, students and concerned parties
A survey conducted by Art&Science in 2013 found that two thirds of college bound students in the US reported being swayed by rankings. For research partnerships with institutions and investors too, a university’s global footing is important. “There are many rankings nowadays and they hold information that is useful for us, for example to see where we can improve our performance. We also need a good academic reputation in order to attract funding, and ranking positions play a role in this. Finally, I know that prospective students and staff look at rankings as well, which is another reason why we take these rankings seriously,” said Mulder.

The Larger European Picture
There are around 35 European colleges in THE’s top 100 with six Dutch universities among them and the University of Maastricht coming in at 101. The QS rankings too have 6 Dutch universities among the top 100 and according to their website, the Netherlands ‘boasts 13 globally ranked universities’. “For us that’s more important. We were recently at a job fair in the US and while there are always jokes doing the rounds about ranking such and such, all the representatives of Dutch universities were really proud to point out that this country the size of one US state has so many world class universities to speak of,” said Kreutzer. According to Baty, the engagement with the rankings from Europe has increased “dramatically” in recent years. He attributes this to the increasing competition for international students.

“One of the more recent developments is that competition among universities is growing. For example, a number of Asian universities have improved their positions in the rankings. That means that we have to work hard to keep a position in the top 100: constantly improve the quality of education and research, reach out to talent worldwide, work on our international profile,” added Mulder.

Do students really care?
In 2012-2013 a report by Nuffic stated that over 90,000 international students were enrolled in the Netherlands. In 2014, over 1,189 new international students joined TU Delft. Of these, there were 108 students from Greece, 87 from Italy, 218 from India and 184 from China. Dichao Wang, a Chinese student doing his master’s in architecture, says for him the university’s ranking was an attracting factor. “Though it wasn’t only the comprehensive university ranking that I was looking at. I also looked at the faculty, famous architects from the university and the course.” PhD candidate Holly Robbins acknowledges that back home in the US rankings are highly regarded when it comes to master’s and bachelor’s courses. However, at the PhD level there are other considerations. “At this stage you look for a professor you want to work with, the kind of research you want to do and so, for me, rankings were not something I subscribed to,” said Robbins.

Currently, most bachelor’s courses at TU Delft are in Dutch and global rankings thus become irrelevant for local students. “For most of us it’s a pretty straight forward. There are 2-3 technical universities offering the courses we want and they’re all high quality. So we look at the course, distance from home, rankings are not really part of the discussion,” said Dutch student Frans Liqui Lung. Liqui Lung is doing his bachelor’s in Applied Earth Sciences and is the secretary of student association Mijnbouwkundige Vereeniging.

The Criticism
As important as rankings seem to be, they have also come under criticism globally for oversimplifying categories of education and not providing the kind of qualitative information parents and students actually need before applying. According to Mulder, the most important criticism often made is that ranking such as QS and THE are mostly about research and hardly take education into account. “It is exactly that, which is most important to prospective students. And in the end, real quality matters more than rankings,” she added. 

Editor Redactie

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