Newsstand: November 23, 2009
The Making of a Medley
The Daily Photoist: November 23, 2009
Transit City and Transit Cities
Along with ten other universities across the country, including Dalhousie, McMaster, and UBC, the University of Toronto has bowed out of participating in Maclean's annual university rankings survey. They cite Macleans' "misuse of data in establishing a spurious "ranking" table that is, at best, useless and, at worst, misleading to students wishing to make a thorough choice about the university they wish to attend." Strong words from U of T, which consistently ranks on top of the rankings but has been threatening this move for a while.
In an open letter co-signed by all eleven presidents, they identify two key faults with Maclean's system:
- That they group all of a university's programs together to determine their statistics, resulting in generalized numbers that are not helpful to students.
- That they rely too heavily on inaccurate student survey data (based both on low response rates and that they do not survey enough different types of university students) and reputational survey data (also with very low response rates).
For many students, the guide is crucial for choosing universities, and high school guidance offices give out the report like it's free mints. It'll be interesting to see if that changes next year.
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HOLY CRAP! That's a HUGE blow for Maclean's. The university issue is a cash cow for them. Don't know what they can do to recover.
I remember when I was in High School, that issue was like my bible. But really, schools like U of T have nothing to gain by participating - they can survive on reputation alone.
You're right, Mark, but some of the other co-signers that don't always score that great in the rankings (Alberta, Calgary, Lethbridge, etc.) have a lot to lose by potentially being excluded alltogether.
Good. I went to a university that habitually ranked low in the standings because of the way the ranking were calculated. The same handful of older universities always won out because they received a century of heavy funding from the government before all the cuts during recent decades. A new university will just never have the same material wealth, number of books in the library, etc, and I think many of those stats are pretty meaningless. Newer universities can have good qualities that don't really get counted in the survey. All universities have their own strengths, and ranking them all by one rigid criteria will always be unfair to someone.
All the accredited universities in Ontario meet the required standards and I think all will provide a decent education. Let's end this silly snobbery over which is "better" or "more prestigious" and let each person find the university that is a good match for them.
On a semi-related note, have a look at Toronto Life's rated high schools. I'm so surprised that they have even mentioned schools like Easter Commerce or Central Tech as the typical TL readership isn't even aware that there are people who don't live in North Toronto and who don't have the means to shop at HR or Pusateri's.
what i actually like is that japanese survey of global rankings for universities.
it is my only defense from my american relatives who think mcgill is the only university in canada.
http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005TOP500list.htm