What do people think?

The data is from the ARWU website.

To put it in perspective:
Mac is 91;
UBC Is 36
McGill is 65
Toronto is 27
Queens and UWO are 201-300 (rofl)

A bunch of other ones were in the 100+ range, but I’m lazy


But the bigger issue is that death spiral were caught in right now, down down down down...

I'm more interested in knowing what you think.

Does this mean Mac is one of the top 100 universities in the world?
Personally, I think that's kind of amazing!! How many universities are there in the world? I think top 100 is pretty good.
I didn't think we would be anywhere near the top 100.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

Does this mean Mac is one of the top 100 universities in the world?
Personally, I think that's kind of amazing!! How many universities are there in the world? I think top 100 is pretty good.
I didn't think we would be anywhere near the top 100.

plz go

the ranking is partly based on research papers put out. which gets the most attention usually.

It does not look at really important factors. Sure there may be a faculty to student ratio category, or some stupid stats like that, but that's not that great either.

a real study would look at the quality of education. like, contributions BY Mac grads.
Rankings based on research papers is more important for grad students. not undergraduates.

tl;dr you shouldn't care about these stupid stats.

Originally Posted by FireDragoonX

plz go

the ranking is partly based on research papers put out. which gets the most attention usually.

It does not look at really important factors. Sure there may be a faculty to student ratio category, or some stupid stats like that, but that's not that great either.

a real study would look at the quality of education. like, contributions BY Mac grads.
Rankings based on research papers is more important for grad students. not undergraduates.

tl;dr you shouldn't care about these stupid stats.

I'm not an undergraduate anymore, I'm a grad student. So it sounds like I should care about these stats

I don't know if I find these all that accurate.

UofT: 27 (#1 in Canada)
UBC: 29 = #2
McGill: 65 = #3

U of Alberta: 125 = #5/6, tied with the University of Montreal
Dalhousie: 206 = #7-18, tied with 11 other schools.... etc
Queen's: 246
SFU: 252
U Calgary: 262
Western: 268
Guelph: 285
York: btw 400-500
= all approximate since these are all tied schools

http://www.arwu.org/Americas2009.jsp

If you look at Mac nationally, we're fourth overall.

I think the problem is (at least in part) that they have up to twenty-way ties...that seems...kind of weird. And yes, York isn't necessarily one of the best schools in Canada, but it is certainly not THE worst...

It states that Dal, Laval, Queens, Western, Guelph, UCalgary, Ottawa, Saskatchewan, UVic, Waterloo, Manitoba (since they are all tied) have the same ranking nationally...

Uh, no, they don't.

I think the spiral may be contributed to by the debt that our school is in. It makes it harder to get up to date technology and can decrease the quality of your research.

I've also heard that McMaster Engineering is ranked 8th in Canada. I only heard about this recently and I personally expected it to be a little higher. Of course maybe not in the top 4 or 5, but I thought we might be at the 6th or 7th.

Yeah. I don't know much about Eng, but considering it's one of the flagships, we should be doing better in it. Better being a relative term.

But what does prestige or stuff like that matter in Canada anyway? As long as you have a decent average, you can pretty much go anywhere in Canada (compared to something like the US, with $20k/yr for undergrad).

ya, i don't pay much attention to these rankings. As you will notice, most of the schools highly ranked on this list are american. The ranking is mainly based on research, which Mac doesnt do much of (compared to schools internationally), so our rankings will be low.

As far as engineering goes: We learn a lot more here compared to our UK and US counterparts. I have one cousin in U of Birmingham (UK school) and one at New York University. The one in NYU is doing a lot of things in her sophmore year (2nd year) as I am doing in my first (ie programming, semester two physics), and the one UK seems to have had similar classes to me in his first year

Basically all you need to know is Mac is kickass.

Originally Posted by FireDragoonX

plz go

the ranking is partly based on research papers put out. which gets the most attention usually.

It does not look at really important factors. Sure there may be a faculty to student ratio category, or some stupid stats like that, but that's not that great either.

a real study would look at the quality of education. like, contributions BY Mac grads.
Rankings based on research papers is more important for grad students. not undergraduates.

tl;dr you shouldn't care about these stupid stats.

You're so smart

yea mac! i'd take vsepr theory over insulin anyday!

Originally Posted by FireDragoonX

a real study would look at the quality of education. like, contributions BY Mac grads.

Actually there is no way you can define a generally acceptable or direct definition of "quality of education". Even upto the level of Ontario Undegraduate Student Alliance(OUSA) which is a student lobbying organization there is no distinct definition for that and they tend to stay clear of that word these days because when talking to government officials and asked "What is QofA" there appears to be no "correct" answer. I guess "student success" would be a better option?

Secondly by "contributions" by Mac graduates you meant in the workforce? And if so how does one tabulate that?

What I did find surprising was that Social Sciences are moving up the ranking charts at a fast rate; I would love to know which departments in my faculty are the driving force behind this rise. The conception on campus is that SocSci is heavily underfunded and admin doesn't think much of it(as shown by the recent Poli Sci CLA controversy)

p.s: You are correct about the research bit though: http://www.arwu.org/ARWUMethodology2009.j sp around 60% of the methodology is based on research! It's also confusing that "Quality of Education"= Nobel Prizes! :S :S

Originally Posted by lmasud

The ranking is mainly based on research, which Mac doesnt do much of (compared to schools internationally), so our rankings will be low.

McMaster is known primarily for its research. McMaster is a leader in research, and internationally the school and its brand is famous for being a leader in medical research.

There is no way you could say that Mac doesn't do much research.... some would argue we do too much research.