The University of Dublin is considered to be one of the best University’s in the world. One can be forgiven for thinking that this claim may contain a small insinuation of bias, but the opinion is readily expressed elsewhere. A simple search into the archives and one will discover that Trinity’s School of Business has recently been honoured as the 21st finest in the world. Moreover, Political Science has been awarded a place in the Higher Education Group of Excellence. These recent allocates can be combined with the much highlighted fact that Trinity has cemented its place in the world’s top fifty universities, sitting at an impressive 43rd. The three aforementioned are only a small example of the available rankings; one can easily discover an abundance of facts and figures about every aspect of a university from research quality to how good the food is. At this point I am going to ask the question at the centre of this article, given the mass literature available, are university rankings reliable and more importantly are they of any significant use?
The body that awarded Trinity the position of 43rd best in the world is the QS World University Rankings. They state that their purpose in providing a definite guide to the vast majority of universities in the world is informed by the time we live in. The age of globalisation is present and multinational corporations search ruthlessly for the most talented individuals to enhance their companies. Universities provide a great number of these talented individuals and hence their search is centred here. Corporations and other bodies, such as Government, hunt through various faculties, locating and investigating for fresh pools of talent. University Rankings and League Tables are here to aid their search. A comprehensive investigation and conclusion on an individual university, based on research quality, graduate prospects, teaching quality and International outlook, can provide a valuable insight into that institution, especially when judged and compared with similar investigations of other world universities. Thus universities that score highly under this criterion will attract the attention of potential employers. However, this system is not all one sided, it is apparent a cyclic state of affairs is occurring; highly ranked universities are attracting the attention of multi-national corporations, thus increasing the level of graduate prospects, which in turn attracts potential undergraduate students. In light of this system, universities invest highly to ensure that their institution is best equipped to deal with an influx of students and can provide the academic excellence they are seeking.
However, this situation has lead to the downfall of University Rankings. The cyclic scenario described previously, has resulted in undergraduate candidates and parents alike to become obsessed with the status of a university. The closer to the top of the list, the better it will be to attend. However, rankings can be easily interpreted wrongly and their accuracy has been called into question. Rankings have a strong bias towards traditional and long-established universities in developing countries, indeed universities in South America and Africa rarely feature in World rankings. Thus the attractiveness of these institutions on the mentioned continents is unlikely to increase, thus increasing the gulf between universities in the developed world and the developing world. Furthermore, the criteria utilised to assess universities is misleading. Ellen Hazelkom, a leading figure in the Higher Education Research Unit, states the quality of research is one of the key criterions of assessment, but most rankings only perpetuate a single definition of quality, at a time when third level educational institutions are diversifying. She also suggests that disciplines, such as Engineering, that do not publish vast numbers of citations will find it harder to score highly in league tables. The failure to investigate a university on broader grounds can lead to a ranking system, failing to take account that a university can promote excellence in many different aspects. As a result, a university with a poor ranking will not become attractive, not only to potential employers and undergraduates, but also to PhD student and partner universities.
Thus, when claiming that you attend the 43rd best university in the world, be careful, and take a moment to ponder what does this really mean?
