Qs World University Rankings: Uba #124

[thorsten]

bajo, I'm not sure how anything in your post is related to mine? I'm well aware that universities provide different subjects to study and that those might have different qualities of education, but even if you focus on just one subject the list is just not made for international comparisons.
My point is that the methodology used is locally biased and thus not suitable for these comparisons. I'm not judging UBA in any way, but I'm pretty sure that the job prospects with a degree from one of the ivy league universities gives you way better chances internationally than with a degree of many other universities that have an 'employee ranking' of close to 100% in the list (and I wouldn't say that they necessarily provide better education - it's just that they are recognizes globally as high quality institutions while many other universities, even though they might provide a similar quality level, are not well-known outside of their continent). If you focus on South America only however, UBA might have a way better standing in this regard.
Also, the time required to obtain a certain degree is a very bad indicator for the quality of a university. Imagine one opens a university and doesn't teach anything to the students, so they are basically on their own - it will likely take way more time for them to obtain a degree, but I wouldn't conclude that this university has a good quality...

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Well, the Doctor degree takes more time because they demand a lot more than American universities for a PHD.

 

[Noesdeayer]

It is always interesting to me to read about world university rankings. Although resident in B.A. since 1979,the only references to the UBA I have had have been thru graduates themselves as well as professionals actually teaching there.Most of these have not been too impressive.Naturally,it is not possible to make a qualified judgement from listening to anyone's personal point of view.Nonetheless,some of these opinions made to me by Argentine professionals themselves have made a mark on my memory.One of them has always been the heavy politization at the UBA,I recall newspaper advertisements for doctors which also stated "No de los anos de la flor de ceibo"Meaning. "No graduates from the heavily Peronista years approximately 1972-'75 when political indoctrination was especially strong. In the '80sI heard from one doctor at the Hospital de Clinicas San Martin that Argentine are good doctors (which they are) not due to the system but in spite of the system.Another one from El Hospital de Ninos told me,"Entra una vaca y sale medico"."A cow goes in and comes out a doctor".I agree with Thorsten that longer is not per se better,Especially when it comes to a doctoral thesis.The only personal experience I have had was a short course in Business Portuguese at the Universidade de Campinas in Brazil which was excellent.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

BA Herald, yesterday:



Wednesday, September 16, 2015
UBA ranked best university in Latin America
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Soars 74 places in the annual QS Ranking, pushing it 19 slots ahead of USP in Sao Paulo
The University of Buenos Aires (UBA) is the best university in the Spanish-speaking world, according to a new global ranking of tertiary institutions.
The UBA is ranked 124th worldwide out of the 891 institutions included in the study, 19 places ahead of its nearest regional rival — the University of Sao Paulo (USP) in Brazil, which was ranked 143rd.
The annual Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) rankings also showed a large improvement in the UBA’s position, which climbed 74 places from last year’s to arrive at the top spot for Latin American institutions.
“We pay special attention to these statistics because they can be used to determine how people see us from outside and how well we are positioned relative to other universities,” Alberto Barbieri, the chancellor of the UBA, said yesterday.
Barbieri also added that, alongside a separate study of university excellence published by Shanghai Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU) earlier in the year — which ranked the UBA third in Latin American behind first-placed USP and in the 151-200 range globally, the reports pointed to the international renown the university currently enjoys
“The marks obtained in the QS ranking, just like in the Shanghai ranking, show that our university continues to enjoy great international prestige,” he said.
QS also released the results of a regional study of Latin American universities earlier this year in May, which showed a discrepancy between the global and regional results for 2015.
In the region-specific list, the UBA ranked just 15th, far behind first placed University of Sao Paulo. However, this apparent contradiction was explained by different methodology. For 2015, the QS Ranking decided to tweak the methodology to include a more equal (and non-discriminatory) citation, one of the six criteria used in the methodology. Since the Latin American list for 2015 did not use the modified methodology used for the global 2015 list, it showed results skewed towards a now-outdated ranking system.
Consequently, universities heavy on research in the natural sciences previously favoured by the old ranking system tended to slip in the rankings, while many universities with research efforts more balanced between the social and natural sciences, like UBA, witnessed a significant improvement in their fortunes.
Across Argentina, the UBA at 124 placed highest, with the next-best performing university, Austral University which belongs to the Opus Dei congregation, a distant second at 309. Like the UBA, the third best-placed Argentine school, the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA) ranked far higher this year than in 2014, ranking over 50 places better than last year at 350 worldwide.
WEALTHY NATIONS DOMINANT
Overall, the report underlined the continued dominance of institutions from the wealthier global North. The top five places, bar one, went to universities from the United States, while the UBA as the highest Latin American university in the rankings was well outside of the top 100.
Further, the US had the most institutions in the top 200 with 49, ahead of the UK with 30, the Netherlands (12), Germany (11), Canada, Australia, and Japan (8) and China (7).
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), based in the United States, placed first overall, with Harvard (USA) and Cambridge (UK) placing second and third respectively. The University of Zurich (Switzerland), which placed ninth, was the only university in the top ten not based in the US or UK.
Of the top 50 universities according to the QS Rankings, only 16 were outside of the US and Europe. However, two universities from Singapore — the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Nanyang Technological University, (NTU) — were one of the biggest surprises on the list, ranking in the top 15 (12th and 13th respectively) for the first time.
METHODOLOGY
The QS Rankings list publishes a yearly ranking of “top universities” globally based on a plethora of criteria each with a chosen percentage weighting. Academic reputation (40 percent), employer reputation (10 percent), student-to-faculty ratio (20 percent), citations per faculty (20 percent) and the ratios of international faculty and international students (five percent each) are all analyzed.
However, the slight change in the citation criteria, as explained above, now sets QS Rankings apart from the other global university ranking systems, such as the Shanghai (ARWU), which was published earlier this year.
Continuing to favour a ranking system weighted in favour of the sciences, the Shanghai lists showed clear differences to the QS rankings data. For example, only one university (UBA) from Argentina ranked within the top 500 on the Shanghai lists, while in yesterday’s QS data there were three.
Like the QS system, though, the Shanghai data reflected the continuing dominance of the wealthier nations in worldwide university rankings, with over 140 universities from the United States alone ranking in the top 500.
Herald staff with online media

 

[Matt84]

The overall score really takes a hit because of the internationalness or lack of it of studenten and faculty.