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	11
2–3		Microsoft	8
2–3		North Carolina State University	8
4		Delft University of Technology	6
5		University of Zurich	5
6–9		Ben-Gurion University of the Negev	4
6–9		Singapore Management University	4
6–9		The Hebrew University of Jerusalem	4
6–9		University of Stuttgart	4
10–26		Chalmers University of Technology	3
10–26		Cornell University	3
10–26		Eindhoven University of Technology	3
10–26		Google	3
10–26		IBM Corporation	3
10–26		Monash University	3
10–26		Queen’s University	3
10–26		Stanford University	3
10–26		Tampere University	3
10–26		Università della Svizzera italiana	3
10–26		University of Bern	3
10–26		University of Helsinki	3
10–26		University of Oulu	3
10–26		University of Oxford	3
10–26		University of Toronto	3
10–26		University of Victoria	3
10–26		University of Washington	3
27–67		Concordia University	2
27–67		Curtin University	2
27–67		Durham University	2
27–67		Federal University of Minas Gerais	2
27–67		Italian National Research Council	2
27–67		Jheronimus Academy of Data Science	2
27–67		Kyushu University	2
27–67		Lund University	2
27–67		Massachusetts Institute of Technology	2
27–67		Northern Arizona University	2
27–67		Northwestern University	2
27–67		Open University of the Netherlands	2
27–67		Peking University	2
27–67		Pivotal	2
27–67		Polytechnique Montréal	2
27–67		Stevens Institute of Technology	2
27–67		UC Berkeley	2
27–67		UC Davis	2
27–67		University College London	2
27–67		University of Alberta	2
27–67		University of Amsterdam	2
27–67		University of Auckland	2
27–67		University of British Columbia	2
27–67		University of Calgary	2
27–67		University of Cambridge	2
27–67		University of Chicago	2
27–67		University of Gothenburg	2
27–67		University of Groningen	2
27–67		University of Illinois at Chicago	2
27–67		University of Jyväskylä	2
27–67		University of Luxembourg	2
27–67		University of Maryland	2
27–67		University of Oslo	2
27–67		University of Passau	2
27–67		University of Salerno	2
27–67		University of Sheffield	2
27–67		University of Southern California	2
27–67		Utrecht University	2
27–67		Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	2
27–67		York University	2
27–67		Zurich University of Applied Sciences	2
68–271		Aalborg University	1
68–271		Aalto University	1
68–271		Aarhus University	1
68–271		Allegheny College	1
68–271		Arizona State University	1
68–271		Augusta University	1
68–271		Avans University of Applied Sciences	1
68–271		Baidu, Inc.	1
68–271		Bar-Ilan University	1
68–271		Barcelona Supercomputing Center	1
68–271		Bauhaus-Universität Weimar	1
68–271		Beijing Institute of Technology	1
68–271		Bilkent University	1
68–271		Blekinge Institute of Technology	1
68–271		Bloorview Research Institute	1
68–271		Boeing Research & Technology Europe	1
68–271		Boston University	1
68–271		British Geological Survey	1
68–271		BroadPath	1
68–271		California Institute of Technology	1
68–271		California Polytechnic State University	1
68–271		Carmenta Geospatial Technologies	1
68–271		CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security	1
68–271		Clarkson University	1
68–271		Clemson University	1
68–271		Clova AI Research	1
68–271		CNRS	1
68–271		CodeScene	1
68–271		Columbia Basin College	1
68–271		Columbia University	1
68–271		Conceptos Consulting	1
68–271		Cumhuriyet University	1
68–271		Don’t Forget the Bubbles	1
68–271		Drexel University	1
68–271		Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen	1
68–271		Exact International Development	1
68–271		Facebook	1
68–271		Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte	1
68–271		Federal University of Amazonas	1
68–271		Federal University of Bahia	1
68–271		Federal University of Pará	1
68–271		Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte	1
68–271		Federal University of Sergipe	1
68–271		FHV Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences	1
68–271		Fraunhofer	1
68–271		Fraunhofer	1
68–271		Free University of Bozen-Bolzano	1
68–271		George Fox University	1
68–271		George Mason University	1
68–271		Georgia Institute of Technologyy	1
68–271		Harz University of Applied Sciences	1
68–271		Imperial College London	1
68–271		Inria	1
68–271		Institut Teknologi Bandung	1
68–271		Intruder Systems	1
68–271		Iowa State University	1
68–271		Iran Telecommunication Research Center	1
68–271		IRISA	1
68–271		Jane Street Capital	1
68–271		Jet Propulsion Laboratory	1
68–271		JetBrains Research	1
68–271		Johns Hopkins University	1
68–271		KAIST	1
68–271		Kansas State University	1
68–271		Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	1
68–271		Kennesaw State University	1
68–271		Kent State University	1
68–271		King’s College London	1
68–271		Korea Press Foundation	1
68–271		KTH Royal Institute of Technology	1
68–271		Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital	1
68–271		Leadership Footprint	1
68–271		Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology	1
68–271		Leicester Royal Infirmary	1
68–271		Leiden University	1
68–271		Loyola College	1
68–271		Maastricht University	1
68–271		Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods	1
68–271		Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy	1
68–271		McGill University	1
68–271		Meta	1
68–271		Meta4	1
68–271		METOP GmbH	1
68–271		Montclair State University	1
68–271		Multitudes	1
68–271		Murdoch University	1
68–271		Netflix	1
68–271		Nokia Bell Labs	1
68–271		Northeastern University	1
68–271		Norwegian University of Science and Technology	1
68–271		NTNU	1
68–271		Oakland University	1
68–271		Ontario Tech University	1
68–271		Örebro University	1
68–271		Oregon State University	1
68–271		Østfold University College	1
68–271		Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg	1
68–271		Paderborn University	1
68–271		Philipps University Marburg	1
68–271		Polytechnic Institute of Tomar	1
68–271		Polytechnic University of Milan	1
68–271		Polytechnique Montreal	1
68–271		Radboud University	1
68–271		Rochester Institute of Technology	1
68–271		Rolls-Royce plc	1
68–271		Ruhr University Bochum	1
68–271		Saarland University	1
68–271		Sauce Labs	1
68–271		SEB Life & Pension Holding AB Riga Branch	1
68–271		Shanghai Jiao Tong University	1
68–271		Simula Research Laboratory	1
68–271		SINTEF	1
68–271		Software Improvement Group	1
68–271		Swinburne University of Technology	1
68–271		Swisscom	1
68–271		Sydney Children’s Hospital	1
68–271		Technische Universität München	1
68–271		Tecnalia	1
68–271		Texas A&M University	1
68–271		The College of William and Mary	1
68–271		The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	1
68–271		The Liberators	1
68–271		The Open University	1
68–271		The Royal London Hospital	1
68–271		The University of New Mexico	1
68–271		Tilburg University	1
68–271		U-Hopper	1
68–271		UAM Iztapalapa	1
68–271		Umm Al-Qura University	1
68–271		Universidad de los Andes	1
68–271		Universidad Rey Juan Carlos	1
68–271		Universidade Federal de Pernambuco	1
68–271		Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná	1
68–271		Università della Svizzera italiana	1
68–271		University Carlos III of Madrid	1
68–271		University College Cork	1
68–271		University College Ghent	1
68–271		University of Adelaide	1
68–271		University of Alabama	1
68–271		University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland	1
68–271		University of Arizona	1
68–271		University of Arkansas	1
68–271		University of Barcelona	1
68–271		University of Basel	1
68–271		University of Bologna	1
68–271		University of Brasília	1
68–271		University of California, Los Angeles	1
68–271		University of California, Santa Cruz	1
68–271		University of Castilla-La Mancha	1
68–271		University of Castilla–La Mancha	1
68–271		University of Central Lancashire	1
68–271		University of Copenhagen	1
68–271		University of Duisburg-Essen	1
68–271		University of East Anglia	1
68–271		University of Florence	1
68–271		University of Freiburg	1
68–271		University of Geneva	1
68–271		University of Genoa	1
68–271		University of Georgia	1
68–271		University of Giessen	1
68–271		University of Hawai‘i	1
68–271		University of Illinois	1
68–271		University of Klagenfurt	1
68–271		University of Leeds	1
68–271		University of Leicester	1
68–271		University of Lorraine	1
68–271		University of Magdeburg	1
68–271		University of Malta	1
68–271		University of Manitoba	1
68–271		University of Massachusetts Amherst	1
68–271		University of Melbourne Medical School	1
68–271		University of Miami	1
68–271		University of Milano-Bicocca	1
68–271		University of Molise	1
68–271		University of Mons	1
68–271		University of Murcia	1
68–271		University of New South Wales	1
68–271		University of Newcastle	1
68–271		University of Oregon	1
68–271		University of Potsdam	1
68–271		University of Queensland	1
68–271		University of Rennes 1	1
68–271		University of Sannio	1
68–271		University of Santiago de Compostela	1
68–271		University of Saskatchewan	1
68–271		University of Science and Technology of China	1
68–271		University of South Carolina	1
68–271		University of Stellenbosch Business School	1
68–271		University of Technology Sydney	1
68–271		University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	1
68–271		Vanderbilt University	1
68–271		Vassar College	1
68–271		Vincit	1
68–271		Vrije Universiteit Brussel	1
68–271		Wayne State University	1
68–271		Wesleyan University	1
68–271		Westerdals ACT	1
68–271		Western Hospital Footscray	1
68–271		Western Michigan University	1
68–271		Western Washington University	1
68–271		Whitireia Polytechnic	1
68–271		William & Mary	1
68–271		Wuhan University	1
68–271		Yale University	1