When choosing a university, many students weigh rankings alongside personal experiences and recommendations from peers. It is also important for students to consider factors like location, cost of living and language of instruction, as well as how the institution aligns with their academic and career goals. This is particularly true for international students, who are a significant income source for universities across the world and may be less familiar with the institutions they are considering or their reputations abroad.
Nevertheless, rankings remain an important source of information about higher education. They can help students, alumni, faculty and potential collaborators find and select the right institution for their needs and aspirations. Universities can also use rankings to promote their strengths and improve visibility. Rankings often feature universities from around the globe and rely on indicators such as research output, student-to-faculty ratio and alumni achievements. Some are based on peer review, while others take into account the impact and quality of research, and the number and quality of journals in which research is published.
However, the methodologies used for ranking universities are often opaque and not suitable for comparison or replication. Some of them are biased and prioritize short-term gains, such as boosting the rank by focusing on bibliometric indicators that reward universities with high publishing volumes. This can distort the priorities of universities and misrepresent the true value of scholarly work. It took decades for the negative effects of journal rankings to be acknowledged, and it is crucial to avoid subjecting educational systems to the same damaging effects.
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