A few days ago, the law schools of Harvard University and Yale University announced almost simultaneously: to withdraw from the US News ranking.
This matter is quite interesting.
is now very popular. When Chinese students want to study abroad, they must first check the rankings and try to go to the top-ranked schools. We organize the department to recruit selected students from and also look at the rankings. The top 100 college graduates in the world are eligible to take the selected students exam. Many companies also need to look at the rankings for recruitment. University rankings are everywhere.
University rankings were popular in the 1980s. At that time, the magazine "American News and World Report" was almost out of reach, so I tried to publish the university rankings. Unexpectedly, it became very popular and saved the magazine. This ranking is the US News ranking.
Every country has its own university rankings. The world's reputation is the world's university rankings recognized by everyone, mainly: the US News rankings in the United States, the QS rankings in the United Kingdom, the THE rankings in the THE rankings, and the soft science university rankings in China.
On the one hand, everyone recognized the university rankings, and on the other hand, there are many criticisms about the rankings. Let's give a few examples. In Asia, Japan has won the most Nobel Prizes and Fields Medal. The university of Tokyo has trained 10 Nobel Prizes winners, and 16 Prime Ministers. However, how is the University of Tokyo ranking in US News2023? Ranked 81st. Tsinghua University , Peking University , National University of Singapore , Nanyang Technological University , Hong Kong University and Hong Kong Chinese University are all ranked first in the University of Tokyo. Tsinghua University ranked 23rd. One year, Tsinghua published a message saying that he had passed the expert review and had become a world-class university, and was ridiculed by the public. If the University of Tokyo, which ranks behind Tsinghua University, is a world-class university, no one would object.
US News jokes are not just this one. In a certain year, Qufu Normal University ranked higher than Peking University in mathematics rankings.
The rankings of other universities are also similar. For a long time, Renmin University was not as high as Suzhou University on the soft science rankings.
These are extreme examples, and some are not obvious. I once heard teachers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison complain that the University of Wisconsin is a public university and many indicators, such as internationalization, are naturally inferior to private universities. Although Madison has won 25 Nobel Prizes, it ranks very low and only ranked 63rd on the 2023 list.
However, although everyone has a lot of opinions, few universities have come out to resist. More universities cooperate. The Internet once ridiculed that a third-rate university graduate became a Chinese leader of a world ranking company. When she went to the university, she was the president and vice president responsible for receiving it. Ranking is the lifeline of a university, and rankings are choking on the neck of a university. There are also warriors. In May 2022, Renmin University, Nanjing University and Lanzhou University in my country announced that they would no longer participate in the world university rankings. While supporting the three universities, there are also many sarcastic words. This means that these three universities are not ranked well in the rankings and if they don’t do it themselves, they will quit the competition.
But this time it is different. Yale Law School has produced two US presidents, many senior government officials and justices, and have been at the top of the list for 30 years. Harvard Law School also has a long history and is well-known, and can rank among the top 5 in the law school in the United States. These two kings declared their withdrawal from the university rankings, which is a severe challenge to the university rankings. Of course, for dissatisfied universities, it can be said to have set a good example. The other two giants, Stanford Law School and , the law school of the University of Pennsylvania , are also evaluating whether to withdraw from the university rankings.
Yale and Harvard Law School oppose the rankings? The two law school deans said that withdrawing from the ranking is a very cautious decision, and many ranking standards on the rankings do not match the school's development purpose and mission.The two law schools hope to diversify so that students from all social backgrounds have fair access and funding opportunities, cultivate real legal professionals, and encourage students to continue their studies or enter some public service industries with low income but very beneficial income. However, the scoring standards in the rankings encourage schools to recruit high-scoring students, encourage students to have high employment rates, and encourage students to obtain high salary income.
They believe that if the university ranking standards are one-size-fits-all, shoddy, and driven by commercial interests, it will be seriously misleading for both universities and students.
Regarding the university rankings, I estimate that there will be more and more debates in the future. There are many universities in the world, and each school should have its own characteristics, level of school management and mission, but the ranking list uses a single and a few indicators to measure it, and universities will lose their uniqueness. In addition, indicators are all eager for quick success and instant benefits, and education should be a way to make one's own way without saying anything, but it should be a century of cultivation. This is a long process, and the rankings violate the essence of education.
All sages have been lonely since ancient times. In my opinion, universities should abandon rankings.
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