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
6–9		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
27–65		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
66–268		Aalborg University	1
66–268		Aalto University	1
66–268		Aarhus University	1
66–268		Allegheny College	1
66–268		Arizona State University	1
66–268		Augusta University	1
66–268		Avans University of Applied Sciences	1
66–268		Baidu, Inc.	1
66–268		Bar-Ilan University	1
66–268		Barcelona Supercomputing Center	1
66–268		Bauhaus-Universität Weimar	1
66–268		Beijing Institute of Technology	1
66–268		Bilkent University	1
66–268		Blekinge Institute of Technology	1
66–268		Bloorview Research Institute	1
66–268		Boeing Research & Technology Europe	1
66–268		Boston University	1
66–268		British Geological Survey	1
66–268		BroadPath	1
66–268		California Institute of Technology	1
66–268		California Polytechnic State University	1
66–268		Carmenta Geospatial Technologies	1
66–268		CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security	1
66–268		Clarkson University	1
66–268		Clemson University	1
66–268		Clova AI Research	1
66–268		CNRS	1
66–268		CodeScene	1
66–268		Columbia Basin College	1
66–268		Columbia University	1
66–268		Conceptos Consulting	1
66–268		Cumhuriyet University	1
66–268		Don’t Forget the Bubbles	1
66–268		Drexel University	1
66–268		Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen	1
66–268		Exact International Development	1
66–268		Facebook	1
66–268		Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte	1
66–268		Federal University of Amazonas	1
66–268		Federal University of Bahia	1
66–268		Federal University of Minas Gerais	1
66–268		Federal University of Pará	1
66–268		Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte	1
66–268		Federal University of Sergipe	1
66–268		FHV Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences	1
66–268		Fraunhofer	1
66–268		Fraunhofer	1
66–268		Free University of Bozen-Bolzano	1
66–268		George Fox University	1
66–268		George Mason University	1
66–268		Georgia Institute of Technologyy	1
66–268		Harz University of Applied Sciences	1
66–268		Imperial College London	1
66–268		Inria	1
66–268		Institut Teknologi Bandung	1
66–268		Intruder Systems	1
66–268		Iowa State University	1
66–268		Iran Telecommunication Research Center	1
66–268		IRISA	1
66–268		Jane Street Capital	1
66–268		Jet Propulsion Laboratory	1
66–268		JetBrains Research	1
66–268		Johns Hopkins University	1
66–268		KAIST	1
66–268		Kansas State University	1
66–268		Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	1
66–268		Kennesaw State University	1
66–268		Kent State University	1
66–268		King’s College London	1
66–268		Korea Press Foundation	1
66–268		KTH Royal Institute of Technology	1
66–268		Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital	1
66–268		Leadership Footprint	1
66–268		Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology	1
66–268		Leicester Royal Infirmary	1
66–268		Leiden University	1
66–268		Loyola College	1
66–268		Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods	1
66–268		Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy	1
66–268		McGill University	1
66–268		Meta	1
66–268		Meta4	1
66–268		METOP GmbH	1
66–268		Montclair State University	1
66–268		Multitudes	1
66–268		Murdoch University	1
66–268		Netflix	1
66–268		Nokia Bell Labs	1
66–268		Northeastern University	1
66–268		Norwegian University of Science and Technology	1
66–268		NTNU	1
66–268		Oakland University	1
66–268		Ontario Tech University	1
66–268		Örebro University	1
66–268		Oregon State University	1
66–268		Østfold University College	1
66–268		Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg	1
66–268		Paderborn University	1
66–268		Philipps University Marburg	1
66–268		Polytechnic Institute of Tomar	1
66–268		Polytechnic University of Milan	1
66–268		Polytechnique Montreal	1
66–268		Radboud University	1
66–268		Rochester Institute of Technology	1
66–268		Rolls-Royce plc	1
66–268		Saarland University	1
66–268		Sauce Labs	1
66–268		SEB Life & Pension Holding AB Riga Branch	1
66–268		Shanghai Jiao Tong University	1
66–268		Simula Research Laboratory	1
66–268		SINTEF	1
66–268		Software Improvement Group	1
66–268		Swinburne University of Technology	1
66–268		Swisscom	1
66–268		Sydney Children’s Hospital	1
66–268		Technische Universität München	1
66–268		Tecnalia	1
66–268		Texas A&M University	1
66–268		The College of William and Mary	1
66–268		The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	1
66–268		The Liberators	1
66–268		The Open University	1
66–268		The Royal London Hospital	1
66–268		The University of New Mexico	1
66–268		Tilburg University	1
66–268		U-Hopper	1
66–268		UAM Iztapalapa	1
66–268		Umm Al-Qura University	1
66–268		Universidad de los Andes	1
66–268		Universidad Rey Juan Carlos	1
66–268		Universidade Federal de Pernambuco	1
66–268		Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná	1
66–268		Università della Svizzera italiana	1
66–268		University Carlos III of Madrid	1
66–268		University College Cork	1
66–268		University College Ghent	1
66–268		University of Adelaide	1
66–268		University of Alabama	1
66–268		University of Alberta	1
66–268		University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland	1
66–268		University of Arizona	1
66–268		University of Arkansas	1
66–268		University of Barcelona	1
66–268		University of Basel	1
66–268		University of Bologna	1
66–268		University of Brasília	1
66–268		University of California, Los Angeles	1
66–268		University of California, Santa Cruz	1
66–268		University of Castilla-La Mancha	1
66–268		University of Castilla–La Mancha	1
66–268		University of Central Lancashire	1
66–268		University of Copenhagen	1
66–268		University of Duisburg-Essen	1
66–268		University of East Anglia	1
66–268		University of Florence	1
66–268		University of Freiburg	1
66–268		University of Geneva	1
66–268		University of Genoa	1
66–268		University of Georgia	1
66–268		University of Giessen	1
66–268		University of Hawai‘i	1
66–268		University of Illinois	1
66–268		University of Klagenfurt	1
66–268		University of Leeds	1
66–268		University of Leicester	1
66–268		University of Lorraine	1
66–268		University of Magdeburg	1
66–268		University of Malta	1
66–268		University of Manitoba	1
66–268		University of Massachusetts Amherst	1
66–268		University of Melbourne Medical School	1
66–268		University of Miami	1
66–268		University of Milano-Bicocca	1
66–268		University of Molise	1
66–268		University of Mons	1
66–268		University of Murcia	1
66–268		University of New South Wales	1
66–268		University of Newcastle	1
66–268		University of Oregon	1
66–268		University of Potsdam	1
66–268		University of Queensland	1
66–268		University of Rennes 1	1
66–268		University of Sannio	1
66–268		University of Santiago de Compostela	1
66–268		University of Saskatchewan	1
66–268		University of Science and Technology of China	1
66–268		University of Stellenbosch Business School	1
66–268		University of Technology Sydney	1
66–268		University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	1
66–268		Vanderbilt University	1
66–268		Vassar College	1
66–268		Vincit	1
66–268		Vrije Universiteit Brussel	1
66–268		Wayne State University	1
66–268		Wesleyan University	1
66–268		Westerdals ACT	1
66–268		Western Hospital Footscray	1
66–268		Western Michigan University	1
66–268		Western Washington University	1
66–268		Whitireia Polytechnic	1
66–268		William & Mary	1
66–268		Wuhan University	1
66–268		Yale University	1