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 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	Institution	Count
1–2		Carnegie Mellon University	7
1–2		Microsoft	7
3		North Carolina State University	6
4–5		The Hebrew University of Jerusalem	4
4–5		University of Zurich	4
6–11		Chalmers University of Technology	3
6–11		Delft University of Technology	3
6–11		IBM Corporation	3
6–11		Monash University	3
6–11		Università della Svizzera italiana	3
6–11		University of Stuttgart	3
12–40		Ben-Gurion University of the Negev	2
12–40		Curtin University	2
12–40		Eindhoven University of Technology	2
12–40		Google	2
12–40		Kyushu University	2
12–40		Open University of the Netherlands	2
12–40		Pivotal	2
12–40		Polytechnique Montréal	2
12–40		Queen’s University	2
12–40		Singapore Management University	2
12–40		Tampere University	2
12–40		University College London	2
12–40		University of Auckland	2
12–40		University of Bern	2
12–40		University of British Columbia	2
12–40		University of Calgary	2
12–40		University of Chicago	2
12–40		University of Gothenburg	2
12–40		University of Groningen	2
12–40		University of Luxembourg	2
12–40		University of Maryland	2
12–40		University of Oslo	2
12–40		University of Oulu	2
12–40		University of Passau	2
12–40		University of Southern California	2
12–40		University of Victoria	2
12–40		University of Washington	2
12–40		Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	2
12–40		Zurich University of Applied Sciences	2
41–185		Aalto University	1
41–185		Augusta University	1
41–185		Avans University of Applied Sciences	1
41–185		Baidu, Inc.	1
41–185		Barcelona Supercomputing Center	1
41–185		Boeing Research & Technology Europe	1
41–185		British Geological Survey	1
41–185		BroadPath	1
41–185		California Institute of Technology	1
41–185		California Polytechnic State University	1
41–185		Carmenta Geospatial Technologies	1
41–185		Clarkson University	1
41–185		Clemson University	1
41–185		Clova AI Research	1
41–185		CNR-ISTI	1
41–185		CodeScene	1
41–185		Columbia Basin College	1
41–185		Columbia University	1
41–185		Conceptos Consulting	1
41–185		Drexel University	1
41–185		Durham University	1
41–185		Exact International Development	1
41–185		Facebook	1
41–185		Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte	1
41–185		Federal University of Bahia	1
41–185		Federal University of Minas Gerais	1
41–185		Federal University of Pará	1
41–185		Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte	1
41–185		Federal University of Sergipe	1
41–185		Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering	1
41–185		George Fox University	1
41–185		Harvard Business School	1
41–185		Harz University of Applied Sciences	1
41–185		Imperial College London	1
41–185		Iowa State University	1
41–185		Iran Telecommunication Research Center	1
41–185		Italian National Research Council	1
41–185		Jane Street Capital	1
41–185		Jeronimus Academy of Data Science	1
41–185		Jet Propulsion Laboratory	1
41–185		Johns Hopkins University	1
41–185		KAIST	1
41–185		Kansas State University	1
41–185		Kennesaw State University	1
41–185		Kent State University	1
41–185		King’s College London	1
41–185		Korea Press Foundation	1
41–185		Leadership Footprint	1
41–185		Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology	1
41–185		Leiden University	1
41–185		Loyola College	1
41–185		Lund University	1
41–185		McGill University	1
41–185		Meta4	1
41–185		METOP GmbH	1
41–185		Montclair State University	1
41–185		Murdoch University	1
41–185		Netflix	1
41–185		Nokia Bell Labs	1
41–185		Northern Arizona University	1
41–185		Northwestern University	1
41–185		Norwegian University of Science and Technology	1
41–185		Oakland University	1
41–185		Örebro University	1
41–185		Oregon State University	1
41–185		Østfold University College	1
41–185		Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg	1
41–185		Paderborn University	1
41–185		Peking University	1
41–185		Philipps University Marburg	1
41–185		Polytechnic Institute of Tomar	1
41–185		Rolls-Royce plc	1
41–185		SEB Life & Pension Holding AB Riga Branch	1
41–185		Shanghai Jiao Tong University	1
41–185		Simula Research Laboratory	1
41–185		SINTEF	1
41–185		Software Improvement Group	1
41–185		Stevens Institute	1
41–185		Swinburne University of Technology	1
41–185		Swisscom	1
41–185		Technische Universität München	1
41–185		Tecnalia	1
41–185		Texas A&M University	1
41–185		The College of William and Mary	1
41–185		The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	1
41–185		The University of New Mexico	1
41–185		Tilburg University	1
41–185		UAM Iztapalapa	1
41–185		UC Berkeley	1
41–185		UC Davis	1
41–185		Umm Al-Qura University	1
41–185		Universidad de los Andes	1
41–185		Universidad Rey Juan Carlos	1
41–185		Universidade Federal de Pernambuco	1
41–185		Università della Svizzera italiana	1
41–185		University College Ghent	1
41–185		University of Adelaide	1
41–185		University of Alabama	1
41–185		University of Alberta	1
41–185		University of Amsterdam	1
41–185		University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland	1
41–185		University of Arizona	1
41–185		University of Arkansas	1
41–185		University of Barcelona	1
41–185		University of Basel	1
41–185		University of Brasília	1
41–185		University of California, Los Angeles	1
41–185		University of Castilla–La Mancha	1
41–185		University of Copenhagen	1
41–185		University of Duisburg-Essen	1
41–185		University of East Anglia	1
41–185		University of Florence	1
41–185		University of Freiburg	1
41–185		University of Georgia	1
41–185		University of Giessen	1
41–185		University of Hawai‘i	1
41–185		University of Helsinki	1
41–185		University of Jyväskylä	1
41–185		University of Lorraine	1
41–185		University of Magdeburg	1
41–185		University of Manitoba	1
41–185		University of Massachusetts Amherst	1
41–185		University of Miami	1
41–185		University of Molise	1
41–185		University of Murcia	1
41–185		University of Newcastle	1
41–185		University of Oregon	1
41–185		University of Oxford	1
41–185		University of Potsdam	1
41–185		University of Salerno	1
41–185		University of Sannio	1
41–185		University of Saskatchewan	1
41–185		University of Science and Technology of China	1
41–185		University of Sheffield	1
41–185		University of Stellenbosch Business School	1
41–185		University of Technology Sydney	1
41–185		University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	1
41–185		Vassar College	1
41–185		Vincit	1
41–185		Wayne State University	1
41–185		Wesleyan University	1
41–185		Westerdals ACT	1
41–185		Western Michigan University	1
41–185		Wuhan University	1
41–185		York University	1