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	10
2–3		Microsoft	8
2–3		North Carolina State University	8
4		Delft University of Technology	6
5		University of Zurich	5
6–8		Singapore Management University	4
6–8		The Hebrew University of Jerusalem	4
6–8		University of Stuttgart	4
9–26		Ben-Gurion University of the Negev	3
9–26		Chalmers University of Technology	3
9–26		Cornell University	3
9–26		Eindhoven University of Technology	3
9–26		Google	3
9–26		IBM Corporation	3
9–26		Monash University	3
9–26		Queen’s University	3
9–26		Stanford University	3
9–26		Tampere University	3
9–26		Università della Svizzera italiana	3
9–26		University of Bern	3
9–26		University of Helsinki	3
9–26		University of Oulu	3
9–26		University of Oxford	3
9–26		University of Toronto	3
9–26		University of Victoria	3
9–26		University of Washington	3
27–65		Concordia University	2
27–65		Curtin University	2
27–65		Durham University	2
27–65		Italian National Research Council	2
27–65		Jheronimus Academy of Data Science	2
27–65		Kyushu University	2
27–65		Lund University	2
27–65		Massachusetts Institute of Technology	2
27–65		Northern Arizona University	2
27–65		Northwestern University	2
27–65		Open University of the Netherlands	2
27–65		Peking University	2
27–65		Pivotal	2
27–65		Polytechnique Montréal	2
27–65		Stevens Institute of Technology	2
27–65		UC Berkeley	2
27–65		UC Davis	2
27–65		University College London	2
27–65		University of Amsterdam	2
27–65		University of Auckland	2
27–65		University of British Columbia	2
27–65		University of Calgary	2
27–65		University of Cambridge	2
27–65		University of Chicago	2
27–65		University of Gothenburg	2
27–65		University of Groningen	2
27–65		University of Illinois at Chicago	2
27–65		University of Jyväskylä	2
27–65		University of Luxembourg	2
27–65		University of Maryland	2
27–65		University of Oslo	2
27–65		University of Passau	2
27–65		University of Salerno	2
27–65		University of Sheffield	2
27–65		University of Southern California	2
27–65		Utrecht University	2
27–65		Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	2
27–65		York University	2
27–65		Zurich University of Applied Sciences	2
66–267		Aalborg University	1
66–267		Aalto University	1
66–267		Aarhus University	1
66–267		Allegheny College	1
66–267		Arizona State University	1
66–267		Augusta University	1
66–267		Avans University of Applied Sciences	1
66–267		Baidu, Inc.	1
66–267		Bar-Ilan University	1
66–267		Barcelona Supercomputing Center	1
66–267		Bauhaus-Universität Weimar	1
66–267		Beijing Institute of Technology	1
66–267		Bilkent University	1
66–267		Blekinge Institute of Technology	1
66–267		Bloorview Research Institute	1
66–267		Boeing Research & Technology Europe	1
66–267		Boston University	1
66–267		British Geological Survey	1
66–267		BroadPath	1
66–267		California Institute of Technology	1
66–267		California Polytechnic State University	1
66–267		Carmenta Geospatial Technologies	1
66–267		CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security	1
66–267		Clarkson University	1
66–267		Clemson University	1
66–267		Clova AI Research	1
66–267		CNRS	1
66–267		CodeScene	1
66–267		Columbia Basin College	1
66–267		Columbia University	1
66–267		Conceptos Consulting	1
66–267		Cumhuriyet University	1
66–267		Don’t Forget the Bubbles	1
66–267		Drexel University	1
66–267		Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen	1
66–267		Exact International Development	1
66–267		Facebook	1
66–267		Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte	1
66–267		Federal University of Amazonas	1
66–267		Federal University of Bahia	1
66–267		Federal University of Minas Gerais	1
66–267		Federal University of Pará	1
66–267		Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte	1
66–267		Federal University of Sergipe	1
66–267		FHV Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences	1
66–267		Fraunhofer	1
66–267		Fraunhofer	1
66–267		Free University of Bozen-Bolzano	1
66–267		George Fox University	1
66–267		George Mason University	1
66–267		Georgia Institute of Technologyy	1
66–267		Harz University of Applied Sciences	1
66–267		Imperial College London	1
66–267		Inria	1
66–267		Institut Teknologi Bandung	1
66–267		Intruder Systems	1
66–267		Iowa State University	1
66–267		Iran Telecommunication Research Center	1
66–267		IRISA	1
66–267		Jane Street Capital	1
66–267		Jet Propulsion Laboratory	1
66–267		JetBrains Research	1
66–267		Johns Hopkins University	1
66–267		KAIST	1
66–267		Kansas State University	1
66–267		Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	1
66–267		Kennesaw State University	1
66–267		Kent State University	1
66–267		King’s College London	1
66–267		Korea Press Foundation	1
66–267		KTH Royal Institute of Technology	1
66–267		Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital	1
66–267		Leadership Footprint	1
66–267		Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology	1
66–267		Leicester Royal Infirmary	1
66–267		Leiden University	1
66–267		Loyola College	1
66–267		Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods	1
66–267		Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy	1
66–267		McGill University	1
66–267		Meta	1
66–267		Meta4	1
66–267		METOP GmbH	1
66–267		Montclair State University	1
66–267		Multitudes	1
66–267		Murdoch University	1
66–267		Netflix	1
66–267		Nokia Bell Labs	1
66–267		Northeastern University	1
66–267		Norwegian University of Science and Technology	1
66–267		NTNU	1
66–267		Oakland University	1
66–267		Ontario Tech University	1
66–267		Örebro University	1
66–267		Oregon State University	1
66–267		Østfold University College	1
66–267		Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg	1
66–267		Paderborn University	1
66–267		Philipps University Marburg	1
66–267		Polytechnic Institute of Tomar	1
66–267		Polytechnique Montreal	1
66–267		Radboud University	1
66–267		Rochester Institute of Technology	1
66–267		Rolls-Royce plc	1
66–267		Saarland University	1
66–267		Sauce Labs	1
66–267		SEB Life & Pension Holding AB Riga Branch	1
66–267		Shanghai Jiao Tong University	1
66–267		Simula Research Laboratory	1
66–267		SINTEF	1
66–267		Software Improvement Group	1
66–267		Swinburne University of Technology	1
66–267		Swisscom	1
66–267		Sydney Children’s Hospital	1
66–267		Technische Universität München	1
66–267		Tecnalia	1
66–267		Texas A&M University	1
66–267		The College of William and Mary	1
66–267		The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	1
66–267		The Liberators	1
66–267		The Open University	1
66–267		The Royal London Hospital	1
66–267		The University of New Mexico	1
66–267		Tilburg University	1
66–267		U-Hopper	1
66–267		UAM Iztapalapa	1
66–267		Umm Al-Qura University	1
66–267		Universidad de los Andes	1
66–267		Universidad Rey Juan Carlos	1
66–267		Universidade Federal de Pernambuco	1
66–267		Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná	1
66–267		Università della Svizzera italiana	1
66–267		University Carlos III of Madrid	1
66–267		University College Cork	1
66–267		University College Ghent	1
66–267		University of Adelaide	1
66–267		University of Alabama	1
66–267		University of Alberta	1
66–267		University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland	1
66–267		University of Arizona	1
66–267		University of Arkansas	1
66–267		University of Barcelona	1
66–267		University of Basel	1
66–267		University of Bologna	1
66–267		University of Brasília	1
66–267		University of California, Los Angeles	1
66–267		University of California, Santa Cruz	1
66–267		University of Castilla-La Mancha	1
66–267		University of Castilla–La Mancha	1
66–267		University of Central Lancashire	1
66–267		University of Copenhagen	1
66–267		University of Duisburg-Essen	1
66–267		University of East Anglia	1
66–267		University of Florence	1
66–267		University of Freiburg	1
66–267		University of Geneva	1
66–267		University of Genoa	1
66–267		University of Georgia	1
66–267		University of Giessen	1
66–267		University of Hawai‘i	1
66–267		University of Illinois	1
66–267		University of Klagenfurt	1
66–267		University of Leeds	1
66–267		University of Leicester	1
66–267		University of Lorraine	1
66–267		University of Magdeburg	1
66–267		University of Malta	1
66–267		University of Manitoba	1
66–267		University of Massachusetts Amherst	1
66–267		University of Melbourne Medical School	1
66–267		University of Miami	1
66–267		University of Milano-Bicocca	1
66–267		University of Molise	1
66–267		University of Mons	1
66–267		University of Murcia	1
66–267		University of New South Wales	1
66–267		University of Newcastle	1
66–267		University of Oregon	1
66–267		University of Potsdam	1
66–267		University of Queensland	1
66–267		University of Rennes 1	1
66–267		University of Sannio	1
66–267		University of Santiago de Compostela	1
66–267		University of Saskatchewan	1
66–267		University of Science and Technology of China	1
66–267		University of Stellenbosch Business School	1
66–267		University of Technology Sydney	1
66–267		University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	1
66–267		Vanderbilt University	1
66–267		Vassar College	1
66–267		Vincit	1
66–267		Vrije Universiteit Brussel	1
66–267		Wayne State University	1
66–267		Wesleyan University	1
66–267		Westerdals ACT	1
66–267		Western Hospital Footscray	1
66–267		Western Michigan University	1
66–267		Western Washington University	1
66–267		Whitireia Polytechnic	1
66–267		William & Mary	1
66–267		Wuhan University	1
66–267		Yale University	1