For many years, Maclean's Magazine has put out a Guide to Canadian Universities. Working at one of those ranked, I've always wondered how they go about ranking them....
Well, now 11 universities have "withdrawn" from Maclean's judgement this year -- University of Toronto, McMaster University, University of Ottawa, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Alberta, University of Calgary, University of Lethbridge, University of Manitoba, Université de Montréal, Dalhousie University -- but Maclean's intends to continue with it's ranking of all 47 universities including these 11, claiming that the information it uses is all publicly available.
Regardless, I'm sure the special issue will fly off newsstands as it does every year. Maybe moreso this year thanks to this "controversy."
tags: academia, media
14 August 2006
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2 comments:
Those rankings are incredibly influential on peoples' choices, as I'm sure you know. The fact is, though, that the dean of UVic Law told me in 1999 that he thought the methodology of the surveys and rankings was suspect. However, UVic Law had garnered first that year, so he wasn't about to complain publically.
AFAIK, Macleans sends out surveys to the student societies then combines that with a quick scan of the annual report. It is HIGHLY suspect... but, yeah, UVic keeps coming out smelling like roses (except the Library, apparently).
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