The place to be for a PhD

Prestige plays a major role in academia. It’s why researchers dream of publishing their work in prestigious journals, like Nature and Science. It’s why you can find Harvard University sweaters all over the world, even though Harvard doesn’t actually have that many students. And it’s why people get all giddy about an opportunity to work or study at Oxford, even though there are plenty of other institutions that may have more to offer.

A decent chunk of a university’s prestige comes from rankings, of which there are many. A high position in one specific ranking usually doesn’t mean a lot. A high position in many different rankings on the other hand is a clear sign that a university is indeed prestigious (side note: So I guess it’s like ensemble learning, but for rankings?).

While prestige can afford you certain privileges, it does not play that much of a role in your day-to-day life as a graduate student. Rankings tend to be based on research output and recognition thereof, but you’re likely more concerned about things like quality of education, facilities, student life, affordability, the likelihood that your supervisor will be a Machiavellian psychopath, or the university’s primary topics of research.

Most rankings are therefore kind of useless for students.

I’m going to exacerbate this problem by introducing my own ranking, the Toilet Paper Rankings, which is solely based on the number of summarised papers in which an organisation, which is usually – but not always – a university, is mentioned as an affiliation. The list is updated daily, although it usually only changes once a week, when I publish a new paper summary.

Rank	Country	Organisation	Points
1		Carnegie Mellon University	9
2–3		Microsoft	8
2–3		North Carolina State University	8
4–5		Delft University of Technology	5
4–5		University of Zurich	5
6–7		The Hebrew University of Jerusalem	4
6–7		University of Stuttgart	4
8–19		Ben-Gurion University of the Negev	3
8–19		Chalmers University of Technology	3
8–19		Eindhoven University of Technology	3
8–19		Google	3
8–19		IBM Corporation	3
8–19		Monash University	3
8–19		Queen’s University	3
8–19		Tampere University	3
8–19		Università della Svizzera italiana	3
8–19		University of Bern	3
8–19		University of Oulu	3
8–19		University of Oxford	3
20–56		Concordia University	2
20–56		Cornell University	2
20–56		Curtin University	2
20–56		Kyushu University	2
20–56		Lund University	2
20–56		Northern Arizona University	2
20–56		Open University of the Netherlands	2
20–56		Peking University	2
20–56		Pivotal	2
20–56		Polytechnique Montréal	2
20–56		Singapore Management University	2
20–56		Stanford University	2
20–56		UC Berkeley	2
20–56		UC Davis	2
20–56		University College London	2
20–56		University of Amsterdam	2
20–56		University of Auckland	2
20–56		University of British Columbia	2
20–56		University of Calgary	2
20–56		University of Chicago	2
20–56		University of Gothenburg	2
20–56		University of Groningen	2
20–56		University of Helsinki	2
20–56		University of Illinois at Chicago	2
20–56		University of Jyväskylä	2
20–56		University of Luxembourg	2
20–56		University of Maryland	2
20–56		University of Oslo	2
20–56		University of Passau	2
20–56		University of Salerno	2
20–56		University of Sheffield	2
20–56		University of Southern California	2
20–56		University of Victoria	2
20–56		University of Washington	2
20–56		Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	2
20–56		York University	2
20–56		Zurich University of Applied Sciences	2
57–255		Aalborg University	1
57–255		Aalto University	1
57–255		Aarhus University	1
57–255		Allegheny College	1
57–255		Arizona State University	1
57–255		Augusta University	1
57–255		Avans University of Applied Sciences	1
57–255		Baidu, Inc.	1
57–255		Bar-Ilan University	1
57–255		Barcelona Supercomputing Center	1
57–255		Bauhaus-Universität Weimar	1
57–255		Beijing Institute of Technology	1
57–255		Bilkent University	1
57–255		Blekinge Institute of Technology	1
57–255		Boeing Research & Technology Europe	1
57–255		British Geological Survey	1
57–255		BroadPath	1
57–255		California Institute of Technology	1
57–255		California Polytechnic State University	1
57–255		Carmenta Geospatial Technologies	1
57–255		CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security	1
57–255		Clarkson University	1
57–255		Clemson University	1
57–255		Clova AI Research	1
57–255		CNR-ISTI	1
57–255		CNRS	1
57–255		CodeScene	1
57–255		Columbia Basin College	1
57–255		Columbia University	1
57–255		Conceptos Consulting	1
57–255		Cumhuriyet University	1
57–255		Don’t Forget the Bubbles	1
57–255		Drexel University	1
57–255		Durham University	1
57–255		Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen	1
57–255		Exact International Development	1
57–255		Facebook	1
57–255		Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte	1
57–255		Federal University of Amazonas	1
57–255		Federal University of Bahia	1
57–255		Federal University of Minas Gerais	1
57–255		Federal University of Pará	1
57–255		Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte	1
57–255		Federal University of Sergipe	1
57–255		FHV Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences	1
57–255		Fraunhofer	1
57–255		Fraunhofer	1
57–255		Free University of Bozen-Bolzano	1
57–255		George Fox University	1
57–255		George Mason University	1
57–255		Georgia Institute of Technologyy	1
57–255		Harz University of Applied Sciences	1
57–255		Imperial College London	1
57–255		Inria	1
57–255		Institut Teknologi Bandung	1
57–255		Iowa State University	1
57–255		Iran Telecommunication Research Center	1
57–255		IRISA	1
57–255		Italian National Research Council	1
57–255		Jane Street Capital	1
57–255		Jeronimus Academy of Data Science	1
57–255		Jet Propulsion Laboratory	1
57–255		JetBrains Research	1
57–255		Jheronimus Academy of Data Science	1
57–255		Johns Hopkins University	1
57–255		KAIST	1
57–255		Kansas State University	1
57–255		Kennesaw State University	1
57–255		Kent State University	1
57–255		King’s College London	1
57–255		Korea Press Foundation	1
57–255		KTH Royal Institute of Technology	1
57–255		Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital	1
57–255		Leadership Footprint	1
57–255		Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology	1
57–255		Leicester Royal Infirmary	1
57–255		Leiden University	1
57–255		Loyola College	1
57–255		Massachusetts Institute of Technology	1
57–255		McGill University	1
57–255		Meta	1
57–255		Meta4	1
57–255		METOP GmbH	1
57–255		Montclair State University	1
57–255		Murdoch University	1
57–255		Netflix	1
57–255		Nokia Bell Labs	1
57–255		Northeastern University	1
57–255		Northwestern University	1
57–255		Norwegian University of Science and Technology	1
57–255		NTNU	1
57–255		Oakland University	1
57–255		Örebro University	1
57–255		Oregon State University	1
57–255		Østfold University College	1
57–255		Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg	1
57–255		Paderborn University	1
57–255		Philipps University Marburg	1
57–255		Polytechnic Institute of Tomar	1
57–255		Polytechnique Montreal	1
57–255		Radboud University	1
57–255		Rolls-Royce plc	1
57–255		Saarland University	1
57–255		Sauce Labs	1
57–255		SEB Life & Pension Holding AB Riga Branch	1
57–255		Shanghai Jiao Tong University	1
57–255		Simula Research Laboratory	1
57–255		SINTEF	1
57–255		Software Improvement Group	1
57–255		Stevens Institute	1
57–255		Swinburne University of Technology	1
57–255		Swisscom	1
57–255		Sydney Children’s Hospital	1
57–255		Technische Universität München	1
57–255		Tecnalia	1
57–255		Texas A&M University	1
57–255		The College of William and Mary	1
57–255		The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	1
57–255		The Liberators	1
57–255		The Open University	1
57–255		The Royal London Hospital	1
57–255		The University of New Mexico	1
57–255		Tilburg University	1
57–255		U-Hopper	1
57–255		UAM Iztapalapa	1
57–255		Umm Al-Qura University	1
57–255		Universidad de los Andes	1
57–255		Universidad Rey Juan Carlos	1
57–255		Universidade Federal de Pernambuco	1
57–255		Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná	1
57–255		Università della Svizzera italiana	1
57–255		University Carlos III of Madrid	1
57–255		University College Cork	1
57–255		University College Ghent	1
57–255		University of Adelaide	1
57–255		University of Alabama	1
57–255		University of Alberta	1
57–255		University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland	1
57–255		University of Arizona	1
57–255		University of Arkansas	1
57–255		University of Barcelona	1
57–255		University of Basel	1
57–255		University of Bologna	1
57–255		University of Brasília	1
57–255		University of California, Los Angeles	1
57–255		University of California, Santa Cruz	1
57–255		University of Cambridge	1
57–255		University of Castilla-La Mancha	1
57–255		University of Castilla–La Mancha	1
57–255		University of Central Lancashire	1
57–255		University of Copenhagen	1
57–255		University of Duisburg-Essen	1
57–255		University of East Anglia	1
57–255		University of Florence	1
57–255		University of Freiburg	1
57–255		University of Geneva	1
57–255		University of Genoa	1
57–255		University of Georgia	1
57–255		University of Giessen	1
57–255		University of Hawai‘i	1
57–255		University of Illinois	1
57–255		University of Klagenfurt	1
57–255		University of Leeds	1
57–255		University of Leicester	1
57–255		University of Lorraine	1
57–255		University of Magdeburg	1
57–255		University of Manitoba	1
57–255		University of Massachusetts Amherst	1
57–255		University of Melbourne Medical School	1
57–255		University of Miami	1
57–255		University of Milano-Bicocca	1
57–255		University of Molise	1
57–255		University of Mons	1
57–255		University of Murcia	1
57–255		University of New South Wales	1
57–255		University of Newcastle	1
57–255		University of Oregon	1
57–255		University of Potsdam	1
57–255		University of Queensland	1
57–255		University of Rennes 1	1
57–255		University of Sannio	1
57–255		University of Santiago de Compostela	1
57–255		University of Saskatchewan	1
57–255		University of Science and Technology of China	1
57–255		University of Stellenbosch Business School	1
57–255		University of Technology Sydney	1
57–255		University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	1
57–255		Vanderbilt University	1
57–255		Vassar College	1
57–255		Vincit	1
57–255		Vrije Universiteit Brussel	1
57–255		Wayne State University	1
57–255		Wesleyan University	1
57–255		Westerdals ACT	1
57–255		Western Hospital Footscray	1
57–255		Western Michigan University	1
57–255		Western Washington University	1
57–255		Whitireia Polytechnic	1
57–255		Wuhan University	1