i am pleased with your work. it was very helpful to me.but i need one clarification. i am indian and i wanna do my masters in canada in the field of civil engineering. but i have no idea about the good unis out there. so tell me what should i do to find such one..please help

Secondly, SJIT ranking is not a research ranking; it is a research prestige ranking. This explains their stability. It is heavily influenced by Nobel prizes and highly cited authors – i.e. “research stars”. We know that the top private universities have simply more money to hire the “stars”. The real question is to what extent the “stars” actually affect research (or teaching) that goes on at the university in 2008. I noticed the picture of Einstein in your next entry. He certainly brought a lot of prestige to Princeton. With all due respect, by the time he joined Princeton his real contribution to science was done and he also was certainly not the type to bring in a lot of grant money and encourage “the best talent” to work with him. It is correct that universities are complex organizations and it is unlikely that they substantially change over one year’s timebut this, I am afraid, is not the reason why we see the stability in this ranking. The true reason is that the ranking is tied down by history and money.

I completely share your concern that there are no public universities on the picture. Fortunately, no reason to despair! If we count citations, University of Michigan, UCLA, University of Washington are in the top 10. This is in my view a better indicator of CURRENT research. By that criterion, by the way, Princeton drops to 120. (See interesting calculations at http://rankingwatch.blogspot.com/)

PS. BTW, this is not a personal vendetta against Princeton. It is still my favorite among the giants.

I agree with what you said. I do think that the SJT rankings get – and should get – more attention than the THES ranking. That is…from the professional circles.

I still have the impression that students and media (unfortunately) pay more attention to the THES rankings. Media exposure (especially in the commonwealth) is higher on the THES rankings than on the SJT ranking. And – looking at the search terms that bring people to my blog – I think the general public is more aware of the THES rankings.

My ‘two cents theory’ is that one of the reasons for this difference in ‘popularity’ is exactly the fact that the THES is so inconsistent. I was not really excited to see the next SJT ranking. I didn’t expected any major changes, and I didn’t get them. I am more excited about the publication of the THES rankings. Simply because you never know what major absurd shifts will be in that league table… Unfortunately!