Talk:QS World University Rankings

Ties
Are MIT and Yale (4 and 5) and Singapore and Tokyo (19 and 20) tied? Why do they not show up as tied in the table? If noone justifies of fixes it, I will --DFRussia 04:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Berkeley?
I find this list hard to take seriously if UC Berkeley is missing. (I'm a CMU student, and have no affiliation with Berkeley). It's also quite suspect that 4 British universities are in the top 10. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jhhays (talk • contribs) 21:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I am pretty sure this article in properly cited, and is not original research. There is nothing to "take seriously" here, if your University does not appear where you want it to appear, then discuss that with THES-QS or your University. Berkley was in the top 20 for the last 3 or 4 years, and I was suprised to see it drop out of the top 20, too. However, that is the rating, not anything related to wikipedia. --DFRussia (talk) 06:41, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

They changed the criteria as critics felt would be less pro-British last year and a lot of schools shifted around considerably. It might end up that it helped British schools more than hurt them even though the changes were suggested by their critics.--69.123.112.18 (talk) 04:41, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Ranking by field
Alot of people seem to be concerned when they read this article about not seeing some common Unis in the top 20. I was thinking, should we maybe include the top 10 (or 15 or 20) for the specific fields (subject ratings) THES-QS rates? (Arts & Humanities, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Technology) --DFRussia (talk) 06:53, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

'Controversy that 4 British universities are in the top ten'?
I took a look at the link for the evidence for this complaint, it doenst appear to be from an official site (such as a newspaper), looks alot more like a bitter American student who is upset that other English speaking countries have high ranking universities. If we are going to be linknig to evidence, can we please make sure that its not written by an unnamed author on a free hosting website? Otherwise i could jsut go and write a complaint that so many American or Eastern Uni's are represented and then link it here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.36.97.115 (talk) 16:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I've removed that and a few other un-sourced or statements without NPOV. Artlondon (talk) 08:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is biased...
From UK Resorting to Biased Ranking to Woo International Students?

We first note that 4 out of the top 10 universities are from UK. While positions of many other universities (several prestigious ones included) fluctuated over the years, Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial’s positions are always improving. This year, Imperial College suddenly rose to Number 5 in the world, ahead of prestigious US universities like MIT, Berkeley and Caltech.

From Brief: Stanford ranking falls from 6th to 19th?

The THES rankings have been controversial since day 1 due to their biased methodology. Now, they definitely managed to kill themselves with this year's no sense edition. With all due respect to whomever needs to be respected, any ranking that places Australian National University and London's Imperial College above Stanford these days only smells one thing: pure crap.

From NEW THES RANKING IS SHIT

How can it rank McGill ahead of Stanford, Berkeley, and UPenn, to name a few, when it doesn't even have enough funding to get itself out of debt, and has little selectivity in comparison to the universities previously mentioned???

From Berkeen's Blog

THES-QS has finally come up with changes that ensure their final loss of credibility. Look at where Stanford is and who come above it. Not even the people in the latter universities believe their place is better than Stanford. Perhaps the ensuing giggles will finally force THES-QS to get serious and stop peddling propaganda.

From University Ranking Watch

In relation to population, number of universities, output of research, quality of research or almost anything else the UK appears overrepresented in relation to the USA. The citations per faculty section is now as biased towards the UK as the “peer review”. With a forty % weighting given to the "peer review", in which in 2006 UK respondents alone were 71% of those from the US and 20 % towards a citations count in, which UK items alone are 61 % of those from the USA, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this is a blatant exercise in academic gerrymandering.

You can do the search yourself...

Spookee 14:01, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * forum posts, blog posts and tripod.com aren't good sources for any fact based article. You're careless reversion of all my edits - without discussion - in one go is the only problem here. Artlondon 22:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I second that. Blog and forum posts are not credible. If you have a personal issue with the rating, then find quality sources to cover what you say. Artlondon provides some good sources, so don't delete his info without justification --DFRussia 04:35, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I actually left the Controversy, I did remove a few statements not referenced and quite biased. I changed the order of the article to make it more logical and readable. Artlondon 17:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * None of the sources are particularly reliable. A Tripod page, some blogs, an editorial FROM A UNIVERSITY PAPER; all of these things are opinion pieces and all of them are inherently biased and not a third party, such as an independent newspaper. --69.123.112.18 (talk) 04:31, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, even if some of those sites aren't the most credible, I believe if it's stating facts (i.e., truths), it's worth looking at. After all, aren't we searching for the truth of the best international ranking? There is no reason to inflate or discredit a ranking just because it ranked your school higher or lower than you would like it. Just give the facts and let it have it's proper credibility. Whsie (talk) 07:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * It is a phenomenon of our times. This is just one dodgy businessman making a lot of noise, but the media, always desperate for content and low on knowledge of the facts, will gobble it up and turn it into headlines. Any rational criticism leads to more smoke screens and accusations of sour grapes, and anyway, all publicity is good publicity for an outlet like this one.137.205.183.109 (talk) 09:20, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

League tables -> Institutional Marketing -> International students recruitment -> Revenues -> Economy
Excellent sources provided by sevenneed!

Here is another article

From Global Higher Education Editorial

"A colleague in the UK noted that as one might expect from the home of one of the more notorious world rankings, and a higher education system obsessed with reputation, ‘league tables’ are much discussed in the UK. ... Many people working in higher education are deeply sceptical and cynical about the value of such league tables, about their value, purpose and especially methodology. For the majority of UK universities that do not appear in the tables and are probably never likely to appear, the tables are of very little significance. However, for the main research-led universities they are a source of growing interest. These are the universities that see themselves as competing on the world stage. Whilst they will often criticise the methodologies in detail, they will still study the results very carefully and will certainly use good results for publicity and marketing. ... However, it is reported that most UK students pay little attention to the international tables, but universities are aware that rankings can have a significant impact on recruitment of international students."

Once again, good work by Sevenneed! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spookee (talk • contribs) 09:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * once again, someone's blog isn't a source for an article. That is also the only edit Sevenned has made to WP; umm. Artlondon (talk) 09:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

User 'Artlondon' trying to suppress information!
You must STOP your nonsense Artlondon. 'Sevenneed' cited two articles (one from a peer-reviewed journal and another from the vice-president of an education institute in US. If you revert such quality edits in an attempt to suppress information again, I'll report you to Wiki Manangement for vandalism! Spookee (talk) 09:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * WP:DICK Artlondon (talk) 14:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry. I strongly disagree. The "peer-reviewed" journal is hosted by Wordpress, which doesn't give a strong indication of high quality nor professionalism. And it is very easy for an American educational institute to be biased about rankings they may feel do not make them look good.
 * On the Shangai rankings, I find in hard to believe schools like Brown are 56th and Emory are 95th, both American schools, and it leads me to think this isn't really about US v UK v the rest of the world, but really Science (Shangai) v Humanites (THES)
 * Also, final point, I think someone's been deleting comments from this page.--69.123.112.18 (talk) 04:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Suppression of information by Artlondon?
What's Artlondon trying to do?

Why is he so much against the two articles (one from a peer-reviewed journal and another from the vice-president of an education institute in the US)??

Is it because he doesn't like the THES league tables being criticized? Is he trying to suppress relevant information to achieve certain goals?

No reasons are given so far...

--Sevenneed (talk) 17:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Edits
The opening paragraph is uncited and also NPOV. These criticisms are discussed in detail further on in the article. The NPOV improvements that have been made by others previously are being constantly reversed. Discuss your additions here please!78.105.147.255 (talk) 19:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I second this motion. The anon editor who keeps throwing the stuff in the lead seems pretty relentless. I propose a lock for unregistered until he/she gets bored and leaves --DFRussia (talk) 01:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I've placed a warning on his talk page, although I doubt that will have much effect. 98.216.10.61 from New Jersey (a timewasting student from Stanford it seems)has a persistent record of vandalising multiple university pages.Matt641 (talk) 14:04, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Looking further into this article there is yet more vandalism which I have corrected. It seems a lock on this article is necessary. Just in case all you editors out there didn't know: University rankings are what they are, wiki edits won't change that.


 * The criticism against THES has been placed in a section and has used cited, verifiable sources. It belongs there and not in the opening paragraph. It is dubious as to whether it belongs there in the first place - AWRU doesn't have a list of its criticisms on its page, of which there are many. And for arguments sake, THES happens to be just as good as the rest because it looks at academic reputation by peer review (which is the gold standard for determining academic reputation, not however many Fields medals you might have) and is thus not as natural sciences biased as the others. Yes it is badly flawed as it is English country biased, but it is what it is. So disgruntled US students, stop fiddling with the facts please. It Matt641 (talk) 14:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what it is about this opening paragraph, and the urge to repeat what is already said in the appropriate section! Recycling of citations to say the same thing is hardly useful. Matt641 (talk) 15:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Is somebody going to request the lock? I have never requested one before, so I am not completely sure of the procedure. I will go look around. --DFRussia (talk) 04:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I requested a lock but its been denied. Looks like we're just going to have to keep reverting the edits. Matt641 (talk) 21:48, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Just to start, I have never touched the THES page before(so don't even claim that I'm a "disgruntled US student"), but I must challenge the statement above me. Yes, peer review is considered a "golden standard" as you said, but the issue is that the ranking as it is right now is too flawed. For one, I don't think I need to go into the way and pool the ranking is done and uses. But even that aside, unless there is a way to truly master how a peer review system should be done, we just don't know if a person can be subjective enough to make that judgment. For example, I may be from Cornell or Columbia, but I may already have some sort of strange bias against Princeton or MIT. In other words, this ranking would be perfect (since as you said, reputation is the golden standard) if we're living in a perfect world where every person is unbiased, the pool is diversely mixed, and the way is somehow perfect, but clearly, the current THES is nowhere near that mark. In matter of fact, THES does't even have one of those 3 main areas handled. Moreover, the ARWU is at least based on hard facts and raw data. i.e., it doesn't have the subjectivity issue. So that is why, thus far, the ARWU is claimed to be more credible (despite its obvious flaws). As a side note, even the UK's own Economist cites the ARWU in several articles that relates to universities. I think the credibility in THES is obvious (at least relative to ARWU) and that is why I believe the criticism area is ok as long as it's stating facts.Whsie (talk) 07:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Use of Nobel Prizes as measure of excellence and ranking of small institutions
I was interested to see that Andrew Oswald suggested that the number of Nobel Prizes awarded to members of an institution is a useful measure of its degree of excellence. Prizes are awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace, with an associated prize in Economics. Peace is not an academic discipline. Literature could be an academic discipline but the prize in practice goes to a novelist, poet, dramatist, etc, not to a scholar (Mommsen being very much the exception). Of course some winners are university-educated but many are not and even fewer are university academics. So the prizes are effectively awarded to scientists and (if it's counted as a Nobel) an economist. This is another example of university rankings being in somes ways divided between those that emphasise the sciences and those that emphasise that arts and humanities. The fact that in the last 20 years Stanford has won three times as many Nobel Prizes as Oxford and Cambridge combined doesn't mean that Oxford and Cambridge might not remain among the best, if not the best, institutions in classics, theology, history, philosophy, and the study of English language and literature. I'm surprised there's no debate cited on this point.

Another point that needs to be addressed is how small institutions are ranked. The Courtauld Institute, for example, is the best history of art institution in the UK and among the best in the world. The Warburg Institute is perhaps even more eminent in an even smaller field. But because of their very small size these institutions will never make it into the top 200.

But I think there must be something wrong with these rankings or something wrong with universities. Having spent some time at universities that in 2007 ranked =2 and 9 and at another one that this year dropped out of the top 200 (but last year was in the top 50 - something very strange there I think) I'd say that either the rankings are wrong or that all but the top, say, five universities in the world are not very good.

The most striking factor to me is the massive fluctuation in placings. In 2006 Colorado ranked 124 for staff-student ratio but has leapt up to 10th place, and staff-student ratio is a factor that one would expect to stay fairly stable. Manchester ranks 5th among employers in 2007 compared with 31 the year before. It's no surprise to see Oxbridge at the top (no matter what their academic standards are like employers on both sides of the Atlantic love the names), but who are these employers who rate Manchester 5th (just behind Harvard) and don't even put Yale into the top 10?

None of this is very new, and the THES says much of it itself, but I think some of it could do with deeper investigation and incorporation into the article.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 21:53, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * There would not be very many British institutions within the top 100 for any more honest ranking of world universities. THE QS has heavily biased these rankings towards British institutions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.2.132.111 (talk) 13:44, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Commentary section
This section has a couple of tags on it. One says: "This article or section contains too many quotations for an encyclopedic entry." The second tag says: "This article or section is written like an advertisement."

Both tags have a point. The commentary on the THES - QS rankings is all by representatives of universities who are on the list, most of whom treat it as an opportunity to gush about how good their programs are. I don't see the point of having such a section. If there was objective third party commentary, fine. But there isn't. I suggest eliminating this section, unless objective comments can be found. Sunray (talk) 00:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment
Hello, this is more of a comment that an edit. Public perception of Univesities is very important in that the human body is a primary concern of most forward thinking individuals thus making athletics important to the over all ranking of a university. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit for a religious perspective and we do not need any more Jenny Craig, if you get my point of view.

There should be a method of ranking public perception which includes athletics, hopefully, clean athletics, as Rose Bowls are played and National Champions are crowned at basketball, and amateur athletes in the Olympics are identified with Universities.

Most of the schools you rank very highly have not seriously invovled in athletics for quite some time.

It is unfortunate that this public perception of a healthy mind and sound body is not necesserily expressed in these ranking poles, especially this QS pole.

Furthermore, in the early 1960s Hastings Law School permitted professor's beyond retirement to continue as teachers so people like Harold Pinter could win awards.

What up, with the retirement age requirement and the methods for recruiting faculty. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.247.5.138 (talk) 21:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

times / times higher education supplement
It should be noted that the times higher education supplement (now called just 'times higher education') is in no way related to the Times newspaper, even though the name can suggest this. Even a different publisher.

At times this entry seems to blur this (refering to how the times is popular in SE Asia and Australia). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.210.172.17 (talk) 19:19, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

2008 list
2008 results can be found here: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/hybrid.asp?typeCode=243&pubCode=1 78.86.101.116 (talk) 09:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect name
The rankings are called the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings NOT the THE-QS World University Rankings - could this be changed in the title please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.240.83.20 (talk) 10:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

average score
I was wondering if the average score (rankings over 2009-2004) is a souracable statistic that the THES compiles?., or is this just extrapolated. thanks Ottawa4ever (talk) 16:38, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Leiden vs. Amsterdam
Someone tried to replace Leiden as the #1 University in the Netherlands, but if they double check with the study result, they'll find that Leiden ranks #60 vs. Amsterdam ranking #165. If anyone disagrees with this report, they should show why the ranking should be reversed, and inform the QS organization, instead of vandalizing this page. --EJohn59 (talk) 04:46, 31 October 2009 (UTC)EJ


 * You talk of "QS organization" as if it were a real thing. It's just a bunch of blokes who work in a restaurant kitchen and draw up a list on the back of an envelope whenever they are bored.137.205.183.109 (talk) 09:22, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Comments
The "comments" section of this page seems to be unduly biased towards positive comments. As can be seen on the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings page, there has been a lot of negative criticism levelled at QS' methods, and this is not reflected in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.240.83.20 (talk • contribs) 06:39, 10 December 2009
 * The comments section bias is a separate issue. It is already tagged. CrazyPaco (talk) 19:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

laughable
THES basically launched this ranking to compete with Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, presumably THES and/or QS's goal was largely to elevate the rankings for British institutions. In fact, the ARWU rankings by Shanghai University have always been far more honest and legitimate, but even they are biased towards English speaking countries.

In any case, any rankings that even includes places like Manchester and Sheffield in the top 100 world wide is laughable. There are surely 50 nations whose flagship universities beat those two, all the nations affiliated with Europe, like Istanbul's Boğaziçi University, plus the most powerful nations in Asia, South America, and Africa. You'll then easily find another 50 universities that beat Manchester and Sheffield in the U.S. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.2.132.111 (talk) 13:33, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * ARWU puts both of those in the top 100. I don't know what you're talking about. Xtremerandomness (talk) 18:52, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Colgate
i think someone is playing a joke, the page shows Colgate university, but shouldnt it really show harvard university? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.238.152.3 (talk) 15:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Updated for 2010
Here

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2010/results —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.82.54.18 (talk) 16:20, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

This is only for QS World University Rankings which has split off from the Times Higher Education World University Rankings this year (apparently). Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 05:08, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The Times Higher Education rankings can be found at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings Jellybub (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.131.110.104 (talk) 13:53, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Merging this article with THE-QS World University Rankings page
It would not be appropriate for the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings page to be merged with the QS page. Times Higher Education will also be producing rankings after the split with QS, which will be known as Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Given that both parties in the previous arrangement are now producing separate rankings, it would be inappropriate to favour one party over the other by merging the page. It would perhaps be more appropriate for a disambiguation page to be set up differentiating between THE-QS rankings (between 2004 and 2009) and the new separate THE World University Rankings and QS' own project —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jellybub (talk • contribs) 12:09, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Why? THE's new ranking has its own article. The THE-QS ranking has essentially just changed names by dropping "THE". Who cares who produces it or what it is called or what petty dispute THE and QS have? If it is true that QS owns the data and the methodology, and it appears that it is, then there does not need to be, nor should there be, two, almost entirely duplicative articles on what is exact same same ranking methodology. Wikipedia does not care about favoring one over the other, it cares about accuracy. It is simple a name change. One of articles needs to go. CrazyPaco (talk) 19:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I also see you have no other edits but for the THE-QS rankings and your user page redirects to THE rankings. Looks like obvious case of WP:COI to me. CrazyPaco (talk) 19:36, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

This is a bad idea - THE and QS are now working separately and producing very different products. It would be a backward step for Wikipedia's article structure not to reflect reality.Saint cuthbert (talk) 13:17, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, QS=the former THE-QS. The 2010-11 THE is a brand new ranking. Merging would be exactly in-line with current Wikipedia articles. Having three is were there are three completely duplicative sections is not. I would imagine it will be done as soon as the new rankings come out. Blatant COI has no place on wikipedia. CrazyPaco (talk) 17:36, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge done. THE-QS article was completely duplicative and is now appropriately split. The former article is now disambiguates between articles on the old and new methodology rankings. CrazyPaco (talk) 19:53, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Criticisms on the Talk Page
People, if you do not agree with this rankings, this page is not the place to complain. If you do not like the fact that a particular nation is doing well or poorly, this is not the place to complain. If you do not like the fact that your institution of choice does not do as well as in another ranking, this is not the place to complain.

This is a place to discuss your the article, not your opinion on its subject. Please keep it as such. Xtremerandomness (talk) 03:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Well then why not just delete this joke of an article and be done with the issue. Maybe it is a reflection of the UK's own over optimistic educational system that leads QS to value British educational institutions so highly; their deterioration in quality and the grade inflation malaise of recent decades is telling. No German institutions in the top ten? Laugh out loud! Max Planck is turning in his grave.1812ahill (talk) 23:47, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The complaints spring from the fact that QS is a phoney outfit producing idiotic lists which the media like to take seriously. It no more deserves to have an encyclopedic entry than do the musings of your nan.137.205.183.109 (talk) 09:24, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Unexplained reversion
I tabulated the methodological info. for a clearer presentation and to avoid redundant and unsourced claims, and updated the subject ranking categories. Reorganization was also done for better fluency. However, User Universityranking watcher and IP 219.252.219.113 have (has) kept reverting my changes, which provided appropriate citations, without any explanation and this seems a bit destructive. In dialogue with Biomedicinal 09:34, 5 May 2015‎

Shrinking the Coverage
To facilitate regular updates, I suggest that we reduce the coverage of the global table from top 50 to simply top 10, like those regional ones. It's quite hard to rearrange all those institutions for the right places while at the same time filling in all the previous ranks for new comers. In dialogue with Biomedicinal 18:39 Tuesday, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Popularity
A user added these sources to support the Rankings as the most viewed of its kind: I'm not sure if they're scientific and worthy enough to be added in the intro. None of these pages directly say what the statement claims either. Biomedicinal 06:40 on Sunday, September 18, 2016 (UTC)
 * 1
 * 2
 * 3

Previous year Top-10 schools in the Asian and BRICS lists
I have included schools that were in the top ten of previous years. Otherwise the list stinks of recentism. AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 00:27, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I disagree. These ranks are quite inconsistent to read with some intermediate univeristies missing. Results vary every year and it's messy and unnecessary to include all the old top-10. Just the latest ones are well enough or the reader can view the reference(s) for more info. It's even more problematic when tackling the world ranking which has lasted for over ten years. How to and what will it be if we cover them all? Biomedicinal 16:38 on Tuesday, September 20, 2016 (UTC)
 * They are only inconsistent if you focus solely on the most recent year, which is not what an encyclopedia article should be doing. The current version of the article is just as messy, with #10 of 2015 missing, #9 and #10 from 2014 missing, etc.
 * The world ranking is in fact easier to cover. For six of the seven years listed, rounding out the top ten only requires the addition of Yale and Princeton; 2011/12 is the odd one out as it had the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University in #9 and #10. Having a school that was previously ranked third (Princeton in the world rankings or Tokyo in the Asian rankings) missing from the list focuses too much on the present and makes the table look incomplete.
 * I know it is not ideal to have Nagoya (now at #26) appear, so how is this for an idea? If the top ten schools from the last five years are included, that would require adding only Princeton and Yale in the world list, and Pohang University of Science and Technology, Tokyo and Kyoto in the Asian list. The BRICS list also requires the addition of only three schools. Then, the note next to the title can be adjusted to explain the situation. AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 01:40, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply. I agree that we narrowly focus on the most recent year here. But that's the most suitable way since people often want to know the most up-to-date version. All those previous ranks are just brief history. As time passes, there'll be more columns and it'll be more difficult to manage, especially since QS results are so fluctuating (e.g. NUS and NTU climbing over ten places in a single year to surpass even Yale). We have to think of other pages of rankings as well.
 * I'm thinking if we should leave the most recent top-10 only with some citations leading to the league of previous years. It's quite confusing to read the list with the most recent top-10 followed by a 20th institution. In dialogue with Biomedicinal 03:59 on Wednesday, September 21, 2016 (UTC)

Column ordering
Columns should be ordered such that the most recent year is nearest the institution's name, with older dates being order toward the right. Making this change will make the tables much more readable. Eventually, without the recommended change, the most recent year will be the year furthest from the institution making it much harder to associate the institution with its ranking. Bluedudemi (talk) 14:09, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Criticism as a separate section
Currently, "Criticism" is listed as a minor subsection of the methodology. In fact, to be more compatible with other wiki pages, and more directly accessible given its importance, it should possibly be a section on its own? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.152.147.166 (talk) 21:09, 26 December 2021 (UTC)