St Andrews University: A Warning

Is it my fault that St Andrews doesn't come in the top 200 of the latest Meta World Rankings? It is World class for teaching, but not for research. I am not against this university, I recognise it is prestigious, just not for academia. More so for the history and tradition, and more recently it's connections to royalty.

Incidentally, I did recently consider St Andrews, but for the online MSc, with no attendance required.

So, in answer to my question, no. I genuinely have no idea how somebody could attack the academic quality of an institution on an online forum without even having studied there, and this is as somebody who does not see the place through rose tinted glasses by any stretch of the imagination. Get a hobby or something.

I apologise if I hurt your feelings. I am just pointing out what the latest statistics say.

Trust me, there is no criticism of St Andrews you could throw out there that I haven't voiced myself at one point or another, but I am somebody who has spent several years studying here. I would have no desire to ever go onto another university's forum and start criticising it, as I wouldn't feel qualified in the slighest to do so. I just find it fascinating that anybody would be compelled to do so.

St Andrews doesn't even come in the top 200 of the World in the Meta Rankings.

So one of the biggest flaws in the methodologies used for these global rankings is the weighting given to 'reputation' as judged by an opinion poll of academics. I'd say most academics regard the tables as unreliable and faintly pointless. QS gives 40% of its score on the basis of reputation, by asking academics (disproportionately 'anglo-saxon') to say 'where the best work is currently taking place within their field of expertise'. It's such a rubbish question quite a lot of us just don't bother trying to answer, even if we get asked (which we don't all). So the sample is already flawed.
Even if you do get asked and you do reply, see a good critique here: http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20080904152335140
including this:
'Expert opinions' suffer from three major flaws. First, the halo-effect: one department's reputation that the expert is familiar with may indiscriminately influence the rating of the whole institution. Second, so-called experts may be uninformed about all the institutions they are rating. Third, there is a question over the seriousness with which respondents are likely to treat an opinion poll. This all makes the reliability, validity and objectivity of reliance on expert opinion (not professional judgement) highly questionable.'
I've also seen it argued that there is a certain amount of games-playing - you can vote for your own university, so big universities can garner more votes. Even Times Higher Ed says it has had to make major adjustments to its formula because reputation data 'are highly skewed in favour of a small number of institutions at the top of the rankings'. (I've heard of Harvard so I'll vote for it).
They are also likely biased towards STEM subjects. But if you unpick the disciplines, St Andrews comes out 37th for arts and humanities in the THE world rankings (8th of the 25 UK universities in the top 100). If you believe that. Frankly I think the national league tables tend to offer a better, rounded judgement of universities across research and teaching quality, imperfect though they are too.

To be frank, if I was a St Andrews graduate, I wouldn't give a monkeys about any league table individually. The fact that it is the third oldest university after Oxbridge says it all. The rankings are more important for the likes of Manchester and KCL, large research-led universities that are chasing international reputation in research.

You can be an old and small university AND be academically good. Its research is very highly regarded (and cited) in many academic disciplines, and they certainly care about rankings. I'm just saying that global rankings in particular are deeply suspect and don't tell us anything reliable about research quality.

Incidentally people from UK public schools are used to that type of community / isolation / seclusion. That is why they love it. They think clubs and High Street shops are common anyway so they never need to go to them.

Would you have gone there if Prince William didn't?

So one of the biggest flaws in the methodologies used for these global rankings is the weighting given to 'reputation' as judged by an opinion poll of academics. I'd say most academics regard the tables as unreliable and faintly pointless. QS gives 40% of its score on the basis of reputation, by asking academics (disproportionately 'anglo-saxon') to say 'where the best work is currently taking place within their field of expertise'. It's such a rubbish question quite a lot of us just don't bother trying to answer, even if we get asked (which we don't all). So the sample is already flawed.
Even if you do get asked and you do reply, see a good critique here: http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20080904152335140
including this:
'Expert opinions' suffer from three major flaws. First, the halo-effect: one department's reputation that the expert is familiar with may indiscriminately influence the rating of the whole institution. Second, so-called experts may be uninformed about all the institutions they are rating. Third, there is a question over the seriousness with which respondents are likely to treat an opinion poll. This all makes the reliability, validity and objectivity of reliance on expert opinion (not professional judgement) highly questionable.'
I've also seen it argued that there is a certain amount of games-playing - you can vote for your own university, so big universities can garner more votes. Even Times Higher Ed says it has had to make major adjustments to its formula because reputation data 'are highly skewed in favour of a small number of institutions at the top of the rankings'. (I've heard of Harvard so I'll vote for it).
They are also likely biased towards STEM subjects. But if you unpick the disciplines, St Andrews comes out 37th for arts and humanities in the THE world rankings (8th of the 25 UK universities in the top 100). If you believe that. Frankly I think the national league tables tend to offer a better, rounded judgement of universities across research and teaching quality, imperfect though they are too.

Fantastic response. This individual appears to spend all day wandering around TSR using the the QS rankings as a weapon to trash St Andrew's and Durham. Thank you for demonstrating the flaws in his argument.

QS Rankings are an indicator which UK universities are taking quite seriously, nevertheless. I believe in this case he was referring to Meta Rankings, which are an average of QS, TES, and ARWU. St Andrews does not make the top 200 in the World for Meta Rankings, as Mansun correctly stated. Nottingham, Durham, Oxbridge, Manchester, Edinburgh, and a few others all do feature.

ARWU has different but equally problematic methodological issues. It doesn't matter how meta the analysis if the constituent data are flawed. Rubbish in rubbish out.

St Andrews has just chased the rankings by keeping student numbers and departments small, like a large private school rather than a university.

Actually the university is pushing to increase student numbers due to a concern that funding bodies overlook it due to its small size.

St Andrews was for a long, long time in the wilderness and low in the UK rankings for like 15 years. Only in the last 5 years have the rankings and grades shot up to unprecedented levels. No idea why this university is currently so popular with the brightest students. It is a small university in the middle of nowhere, and is not as targeted as many other universities by employers. It is an ancient university, but so are Glasgow and Aberdeen, so St Andrews should be thrown in with this bracket. Edinburgh is the best university in Scotland, and this has been the case for decades. St Andrews has just chased the rankings by keeping student numbers and departments small, like a large private school rather than a university.