Best University in Australia? (1 Viewer)

[kudos2thee]

I was looking at the rankings of Australian Universities which are as follows:

2008 THES-QS Top World 200 Ranking Times Higher Education Supplement University Rankings

UNIVERSITY2008(2007)

ANU 16(16)
Uni of Sydney 37(31)
Uni of Melbourne 38(27)
UQ 43(33)
UNSW 45(44)
Monash U 47(43)
UWA 83(64)
Uni of Adelaide 106(62)
Macquarie U 182(168)
RMIT 206(200)
Uni of Wollongong 207(199)
QUT 212(195)


these results were found on Rankings of Australian Universities

Now if you look in the UAC guide, and compare the UAI's for Sydney, ANU and UNSW, you find that Sydney and UNSW have much higher UAI cutoffs than ANU, yet ANU is ranked better.

I know this is perhaps due to the fact that Canberra as a location is one of the most piss boring places in the world, and also that Sydney and UNSW are much more popular Universities, hence leading to their courses being of higher UAI cutoffs. ANU i suppose could be the best due to the fact that being in Canberra, all the politicians children go there?

However my question is, what makes ANU the highest ranking Uni in Australia?

 

[Graney]

UAI cutoffs are related to demand and supply and have nothing to do with how good the course is.

Without checking the link you posted, rankings are typically based on rubbish like research output and no. of international students the uni accepts, factors that have fuck all to do with the quality of education you actually receive in the class room.

It's not like any of them are really terrible, for most industries it doesn't matter where you get your b. basket weaving from. Go to open days and see what you like.

 

[Kalashnikov47]

well~~~ those rankings are mainly determined by the number of publications they make each year, and because the ANU is specialised in international and linguistic studies, they can publish one thing literally everyday (well, that is what i heard). I think the ranking really doesn't mean that much~~~ the ANU is certainly a good uni

 

[Graney]

A bunch of numbers and arbitrary rankings aren't the best way to decide what the most suitable uni for you is.

 

[jenecis]

Omg...international rankings are the WORST thing to judge unis by. Their criteria is weak, superficial at the most (they had to sort through thousands of uni's).

UAI's are also unreliable to judge a uni because they only reflect the demand of the course. Keep in mind that people are like sheep.

If you really want a substantial official comparison, I suggest the Hobsons Guide (for undergraduate university programs 2009 or something like that). It's recents, based on intensive studies/surveys and compares unis overall and in the courses that you are interested in, so you can decide the best uni FOR YOUR COURSE (which I think are the keywords). PUblished works are often more reliable than stuff you find on Google.

Also, it doesn't really matter what uni u choose to go to in the end, but how well u do in it. Although apparently, whilst employers treat unsw, usyd, macq and uts equally (as in, on the same standing), other universities have a stigma attatched to them. Apparently.

 

[gwenwiver]

The actual rankings and the 6 categories that make up the score can be found at the Times Higher Education site
Times Higher Education

If you go back to Rankings of Australian Universities and check out the forum at
StudyConnect.com Forum - Search Results there is an explanation of the rankings

"The ranking is based on the following:
1) 40% Academic Peer Review - Composite score drawn from online survey distributed to academics worldwide (which is divided into five subject areas). Results are compiled based on three years worth of responses totalling 6,354 in 2008. Respondents are not permitted to submit their ow institution or to respond more than once (their latest respose is counted).

2) 10% Employer Review - Score based on a global online survey distributed to employers. Results are again based on three years worth of "latest respose" dataresponses to employer survey. 2,339 responses in 2008.

3) 20% Faculty Student Ratio - Score based on student faculty ratio. An indication that the institution in question has sufficient staff to teach its students.

4) 20% Citations per Faculty - Score based on the number of citations - a reference to one academic publication in the text of another. The latest five complete years of data are used. The total citation count is factored against the number of faculty in order to take into account the size of the institution.

5) 5% International Faculty
6) 5% International Students

No. 5 & 6 - evaluations of the proportion of international students and international faculty serve as indicators of an institution's international attractiveness.

 

[gwenwiver]

If you are interested in what students thought of their uni maybe you could go to Rankings of Australian Universities and scroll down to see
Teaching Performance Rankings August 2005
This table shows the teaching standards published in the Australian newspaper. An explanation of the scaling method follows the table:

UniversityScore1 - University of Wollongong34.242 - Australian Maritime College30.793 - University of Melbourne29.934 - Swinburne University of Technology29.335 - University of Queensland28.736 - Australian National University26.957 - University of New England25.568 - University of Canberra24.259 - University of Ballarat24.0810 - University of Sydney23.93
The scaling method used in preparing this league table has five components:
1) CEQ (Course experience questionnaire) generic skills: 17.91% weighting
2) CEQ good teaching: 18.5%
3) CEQ overall satisfaction: 18.9%
4) Students in full-time employment after they graduate: 11.48%
5) Those that go on to full-time study: 10.29%
6) Drop-out or attrition rates: 10.65%
7) Student progress or pass rates: 12.26%

 

[AsyLum]

The main thing to remember is that most of these rankings take into account higher research elements, ie not undergrad.

So you'll most likely be looking at these rankings when/if you want to find a good place to do your PhD/Masters etc.

 

[jenecis]

The main thing to remember is that most of these rankings take into account higher research elements, ie not undergrad.

So you'll most likely be looking at these rankings when/if you want to find a good place to do your PhD/Masters etc.

Good point. Now that you've mentioned it, I've stumbled across guides where the rankings of the unis are different depending on whether you are taking an undergrad/postgrad/doctorate degree. So the above posted data is probably just a generalisation and should be taken with a grain of salt.