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(sidenote: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 University 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.

Toilet Paper University Rankings

Rank	Country	Institution	Count
1		North Carolina State University	6
2		Carnegie Mellon University	5
2		Microsoft	5
4		The Hebrew University of Jerusalem	4
5		Delft University of Technology	3
5		IBM Corporation	3
5		University of Zurich	3
8		Ben-Gurion University of the Negev	2
8		Chalmers University of Technology	2
8		Eindhoven University of Technology	2
8		Google	2
8		Kyushu University	2
8		Monash University	2
8		Open University of the Netherlands	2
8		Polytechnique Montréal	2
8		Queen’s University	2
8		Singapore Management University	2
8		Università della Svizzera italiana	2
8		University College London	2
8		University of British Columbia	2
8		University of Calgary	2
8		University of Chicago	2
8		University of Luxembourg	2
8		University of Maryland	2
8		University of Oslo	2
8		University of Oulu	2
8		University of Southern California	2
8		University of Stuttgart	2
8		University of Washington	2
30		Aalto University	1
30		Augusta University	1
30		Avans University of Applied Sciences	1
30		Baidu, Inc.	1
30		Barcelona Supercomputing Center	1
30		Boeing Research & Technology Europe	1
30		British Geological Survey	1
30		BroadPath	1
30		California Institute of Technology	1
30		California Polytechnic State University	1
30		Clarkson University	1
30		Clemson University	1
30		Clova AI Research	1
30		CNR-ISTI	1
30		Columbia Basin College	1
30		Conceptos Consulting	1
30		Curtin University	1
30		Drexel University	1
30		Durham University	1
30		Exact International Development	1
30		Facebook	1
30		Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte	1
30		Federal University of Bahia	1
30		Federal University of Minas Gerais	1
30		Federal University of Pará	1
30		Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte	1
30		Federal University of Sergipe	1
30		Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering	1
30		George Fox University	1
30		Harvard Business School	1
30		Harz University of Applied Sciences	1
30		Imperial College London	1
30		Iowa State University	1
30		Iran Telecommunication Research Center	1
30		Italian National Research Council	1
30		Jane Street Capital	1
30		Jeronimus Academy of Data Science	1
30		Jet Propulsion Laboratory	1
30		Johns Hopkins University	1
30		KAIST	1
30		Kansas State University	1
30		Kennesaw State University	1
30		Kent State University	1
30		King’s College London	1
30		Korea Press Foundation	1
30		Leadership Footprint	1
30		Leiden University	1
30		Loyola College	1
30		McGill University	1
30		Meta4	1
30		METOP GmbH	1
30		Montclair State University	1
30		Murdoch University	1
30		Netflix	1
30		Northern Arizona University	1
30		Northwestern University	1
30		Norwegian University of Science and Technology	1
30		Østfold University College	1
30		Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg	1
30		Paderborn University	1
30		Peking University	1
30		Philipps University Marburg	1
30		Pivotal	1
30		Polytechnic Institute of Tomar	1
30		Rolls-Royce plc	1
30		SEB Life & Pension Holding AB Riga Branch	1
30		Shanghai Jiao Tong University	1
30		Simula Research Laboratory	1
30		SINTEF	1
30		Software Improvement Group	1
30		Stevens Institute	1
30		Swinburne University of Technology	1
30		Swisscom	1
30		Tampere University of Technology	1
30		Technische Universität München	1
30		Tecnalia	1
30		Texas A&M University	1
30		The College of William and Mary	1
30		The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	1
30		Tilburg University	1
30		UAM Iztapalapa	1
30		UC Berkeley	1
30		UC Davis	1
30		Umm Al-Qura University	1
30		Universidad de los Andes	1
30		Universidad Rey Juan Carlos	1
30		Universidade Federal de Pernambuco	1
30		Università della Svizzera italiana	1
30		University College Ghent	1
30		University of Adelaide	1
30		University of Alabama	1
30		University of Alberta	1
30		University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland	1
30		University of Arizona	1
30		University of Arkansas	1
30		University of Auckland	1
30		University of Barcelona	1
30		University of Basel	1
30		University of Bern	1
30		University of Brasília	1
30		University of California, Los Angeles	1
30		University of Castilla–La Mancha	1
30		University of Copenhagen	1
30		University of Duisburg-Essen	1
30		University of East Anglia	1
30		University of Florence	1
30		University of Freiburg	1
30		University of Georgia	1
30		University of Gothenburg	1
30		University of Groningen	1
30		University of Hawai‘i	1
30		University of Helsinki	1
30		University of Lorraine	1
30		University of Magdeburg	1
30		University of Manitoba	1
30		University of Massachusetts Amherst	1
30		University of Miami	1
30		University of Molise	1
30		University of Murcia	1
30		University of Newcastle	1
30		University of Oregon	1
30		University of Oxford	1
30		University of Passau	1
30		University of Potsdam	1
30		University of Salerno	1
30		University of Saskatchewan	1
30		University of Science and Technology of China	1
30		University of Sheffield	1
30		University of Stellenbosch Business School	1
30		University of Technology Sydney	1
30		University of Victoria	1
30		University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	1
30		Vassar College	1
30		Vincit	1
30		VU University Amsterdam	1
30		Wayne State University	1
30		Westerdals ACT	1
30		Western Michigan University	1
30		York University	1
30		Zurich University of Applied Sciences	1