London mag: Penn is world's 11th-best college

Penn was recently ranked the 11th-best university in the world, by the Times Higher Education, a London-based higher-education magazine, and Quacquarelli Symonds, a global career and education network. The new ranking represents a three-place improvement over last year.

The ranking is based on peer and employee review as well as data on the school's research output, teaching, and international orientation.

The survey ranked 200 schools in 32 countries.

Harvard University took the top slot, followed by Yale University. The California Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University also all ranked in the top 10.

"Rankings can only touch the surface in telling the story of a university, but it is nonetheless satisfying to see Penn listed among the world's truly exceptional institutions of higher education," Penn President Amy Gutmann said.

Penn received one of the highest scores in the citations per faculty category in the rankings, earning 99 out of 100 points. According to QS, citations are "the best understood and most widely accepted measure of research strength."

*This article was edited at 8:16 p.m. on Monday, October 13, 2008 to reflect that more than one school received scores of 100 in the citations per faculty category and to clarify that the category is an indicator of research strength.

Comments (10)

[QUOTE id="c415086e-c12c-416d-9545-b8169d7fde1c"]Ummmmmm . . . so this article completely erroneously states that "Only Harvard received a higher score in this category", but according to the THE, CalTech, MIT, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, University of Toronto, and UCSD all scored 100 points in that category. Way to not read the list. Great journalism![/QUOTE] Thanks a lot for this article... I've always just kind of winged it when it comes to citations.

Nice to see Penn @ 11th, but I question the validity of any rankings that have Boston University significantly higher than Dartmouth... Amen.

@ Richard: Your ignorance is appalling. Dartmouth is a research university and produces more research than U of Boston any day.

BU's higher ranking is likely a result of the fact that they produce research in the sciences and Darty doesn't.

[QUOTE id="3423c8b1-67bd-4023-9a3e-6fcce3f6e236"]Nice to see Penn @ 11th, but I question the validity of any rankings that have Boston University significantly higher than Dartmouth...[/QUOTE] My many peers who attended (or considered attending) Boston University would never have stood at chance at gaining admittance to Dartmouth. This raises the question of whether selectivity has any relation to the overall quality of a university. If it does, it's hard to take these rankings seriously.

[QUOTE id="3423c8b1-67bd-4023-9a3e-6fcce3f6e236"]Nice to see Penn @ 11th, but I question the validity of any rankings that have Boston University significantly higher than Dartmouth...[/QUOTE] Boston University is a great deal like Penn was when I was a student 35 years ago- a diverse school with outstanding graduate schools, a campus that is centrally located in a great city and the chance to study with outstanding scholars if you want to (e.g. Howard Zinn). I have two sons with graduate degrees from Boston University and I have no doubt their experinces were at least as good as anything they would have gotten at Dartmouth.

[QUOTE id="3423c8b1-67bd-4023-9a3e-6fcce3f6e236"]Nice to see Penn @ 11th, but I question the validity of any rankings that have Boston University significantly higher than Dartmouth...[/QUOTE] Boston U draws a very large number of international students--I'd guess it has more name recognition outside of the US than Dartmouth does.

Nice to see Penn @ 11th, but I question the validity of any rankings that have Boston University significantly higher than Dartmouth...

Ummmmmm . . . so this article completely erroneously states that "Only Harvard received a higher score in this category", but according to the THE, CalTech, MIT, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, University of Toronto, and UCSD all scored 100 points in that category. Way to not read the list. Great journalism!

Ooops, there is no link to THE (Times Higher Education) in this article. One of the blessings of journalism on the web is instantly being able to go to the original source. The link is: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/hybrid.asp?typeCode=243&pubCode;=1

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