UCL's rise in the rankings

In recent years, most people have probably observed UCL rise to 4th in the QS world rankings for their undergraduate courses. It is, without a doubt, a very respectable university and would not be looked down upon by any employer or post-graduate admissions officer. But I still don't buy into the common assertion that you'd be stupid to turn down an offer from UCL for a lower ranked American/Australian university.

Here are some key points I would like to put out for discussion~

1. No matter where UCL (or even LSE/Imperial) is in the rankings, the vast majority (there will always be exceptions) of Oxbridge offer-holders will still firm Oxbridge.

2a. Unlike HPYSM in the US, UCL does not have an elite and exclusive alumni network that will set you up with a job where-ever you desire.

2b. On point 2a. I suspect this is because UK universities assess applicants based on their courses, while US universities assess them holistically regardless of their subject preference, making it a whole lot more competitive across the board rather than in select subjects.

3a. The rankings people seem to harp on have factored in lots of statistics that are completely irrelevant to the average UG student there ie. Citations per faculty and International outlook.

3b. In all honesty, the only things that should matter in undergraduate rankings are employer reputation, teaching quality, and student satisfaction.

4. Taking the example of several threads on TSR in which people blatantly slam UNSW/Usyd/Umelb for being lower in ranking, I'd like to point out that rankings don't really matter on the world scale as much as they do on the national one. In today's day and age, nobody with a foreign degree is going to be able to get a great job in the UK and vice versa. While UCL thoroughly outmatches Australian universities in world rankings, a graduate from the one of the best universities in Australia will still get the best jobs in Australia, whereas a graduate from UCL will probably be next in line to Oxbridge.

This may seem awfully blunt and crushing to many TSRians, but the fact of the matter is that rankings are a horrible illusion, misleading thousands of young students into thinking that they are on top of the world. And this is not just UCL, examples in the US include Caltech/UChicago coming ahead of Stanford and Princeton. While they are certainly great schools, they are not elite just because a ranking said so.