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
1–2		Carnegie Mellon University	8
1–2		Microsoft	8
3		North Carolina State University	7
4–7		Delft University of Technology	4
4–7		The Hebrew University of Jerusalem	4
4–7		University of Stuttgart	4
4–7		University of Zurich	4
8–18		Ben-Gurion University of the Negev	3
8–18		Chalmers University of Technology	3
8–18		Eindhoven University of Technology	3
8–18		Google	3
8–18		IBM Corporation	3
8–18		Monash University	3
8–18		Queen’s University	3
8–18		Tampere University	3
8–18		Università della Svizzera italiana	3
8–18		University of Oulu	3
8–18		University of Oxford	3
19–53		Concordia University	2
19–53		Cornell University	2
19–53		Curtin University	2
19–53		Kyushu University	2
19–53		Lund University	2
19–53		Northern Arizona University	2
19–53		Open University of the Netherlands	2
19–53		Peking University	2
19–53		Pivotal	2
19–53		Polytechnique Montréal	2
19–53		Singapore Management University	2
19–53		UC Berkeley	2
19–53		UC Davis	2
19–53		University College London	2
19–53		University of Auckland	2
19–53		University of Bern	2
19–53		University of British Columbia	2
19–53		University of Calgary	2
19–53		University of Chicago	2
19–53		University of Gothenburg	2
19–53		University of Groningen	2
19–53		University of Helsinki	2
19–53		University of Jyväskylä	2
19–53		University of Luxembourg	2
19–53		University of Maryland	2
19–53		University of Oslo	2
19–53		University of Passau	2
19–53		University of Salerno	2
19–53		University of Sheffield	2
19–53		University of Southern California	2
19–53		University of Victoria	2
19–53		University of Washington	2
19–53		Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	2
19–53		York University	2
19–53		Zurich University of Applied Sciences	2
54–247		Aalborg University	1
54–247		Aalto University	1
54–247		Aarhus University	1
54–247		Allegheny College	1
54–247		Augusta University	1
54–247		Avans University of Applied Sciences	1
54–247		Baidu, Inc.	1
54–247		Bar-Ilan University	1
54–247		Barcelona Supercomputing Center	1
54–247		Bauhaus-Universität Weimar	1
54–247		Beijing Institute of Technology	1
54–247		Bilkent University	1
54–247		Blekinge Institute of Technology	1
54–247		Boeing Research & Technology Europe	1
54–247		British Geological Survey	1
54–247		BroadPath	1
54–247		California Institute of Technology	1
54–247		California Polytechnic State University	1
54–247		Carmenta Geospatial Technologies	1
54–247		Clarkson University	1
54–247		Clemson University	1
54–247		Clova AI Research	1
54–247		CNR-ISTI	1
54–247		CNRS	1
54–247		CodeScene	1
54–247		Columbia Basin College	1
54–247		Columbia University	1
54–247		Conceptos Consulting	1
54–247		Cumhuriyet University	1
54–247		Don’t Forget the Bubbles	1
54–247		Drexel University	1
54–247		Durham University	1
54–247		Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen	1
54–247		Exact International Development	1
54–247		Facebook	1
54–247		Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte	1
54–247		Federal University of Amazonas	1
54–247		Federal University of Bahia	1
54–247		Federal University of Minas Gerais	1
54–247		Federal University of Pará	1
54–247		Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte	1
54–247		Federal University of Sergipe	1
54–247		FHV Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences	1
54–247		Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering	1
54–247		Free University of Bozen-Bolzano	1
54–247		George Fox University	1
54–247		George Mason University	1
54–247		Georgia Institute of Technologyy	1
54–247		Harz University of Applied Sciences	1
54–247		Imperial College London	1
54–247		Inria	1
54–247		Institut Teknologi Bandung	1
54–247		Iowa State University	1
54–247		Iran Telecommunication Research Center	1
54–247		IRISA	1
54–247		Italian National Research Council	1
54–247		Jane Street Capital	1
54–247		Jeronimus Academy of Data Science	1
54–247		Jet Propulsion Laboratory	1
54–247		JetBrains Research	1
54–247		Jheronimus Academy of Data Science	1
54–247		Johns Hopkins University	1
54–247		KAIST	1
54–247		Kansas State University	1
54–247		Kennesaw State University	1
54–247		Kent State University	1
54–247		King’s College London	1
54–247		Korea Press Foundation	1
54–247		KTH Royal Institute of Technology	1
54–247		Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital	1
54–247		Leadership Footprint	1
54–247		Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology	1
54–247		Leicester Royal Infirmary	1
54–247		Leiden University	1
54–247		Loyola College	1
54–247		Massachusetts Institute of Technology	1
54–247		McGill University	1
54–247		Meta	1
54–247		Meta4	1
54–247		METOP GmbH	1
54–247		Montclair State University	1
54–247		Murdoch University	1
54–247		Netflix	1
54–247		Nokia Bell Labs	1
54–247		Northeastern University	1
54–247		Northwestern University	1
54–247		Norwegian University of Science and Technology	1
54–247		NTNU	1
54–247		Oakland University	1
54–247		Örebro University	1
54–247		Oregon State University	1
54–247		Østfold University College	1
54–247		Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg	1
54–247		Paderborn University	1
54–247		Philipps University Marburg	1
54–247		Polytechnic Institute of Tomar	1
54–247		Polytechnique Montreal	1
54–247		Radboud University	1
54–247		Rolls-Royce plc	1
54–247		Saarland University	1
54–247		Sauce Labs	1
54–247		SEB Life & Pension Holding AB Riga Branch	1
54–247		Shanghai Jiao Tong University	1
54–247		Simula Research Laboratory	1
54–247		SINTEF	1
54–247		Software Improvement Group	1
54–247		Stanford University	1
54–247		Stevens Institute	1
54–247		Swinburne University of Technology	1
54–247		Swisscom	1
54–247		Sydney Children’s Hospital	1
54–247		Technische Universität München	1
54–247		Tecnalia	1
54–247		Texas A&M University	1
54–247		The College of William and Mary	1
54–247		The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	1
54–247		The Liberators	1
54–247		The Open University	1
54–247		The Royal London Hospital	1
54–247		The University of New Mexico	1
54–247		Tilburg University	1
54–247		U-Hopper	1
54–247		UAM Iztapalapa	1
54–247		Umm Al-Qura University	1
54–247		Universidad de los Andes	1
54–247		Universidad Rey Juan Carlos	1
54–247		Universidade Federal de Pernambuco	1
54–247		Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná	1
54–247		Università della Svizzera italiana	1
54–247		University Carlos III of Madrid	1
54–247		University College Cork	1
54–247		University College Ghent	1
54–247		University of Adelaide	1
54–247		University of Alabama	1
54–247		University of Alberta	1
54–247		University of Amsterdam	1
54–247		University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland	1
54–247		University of Arizona	1
54–247		University of Arkansas	1
54–247		University of Barcelona	1
54–247		University of Basel	1
54–247		University of Brasília	1
54–247		University of California, Los Angeles	1
54–247		University of California, Santa Cruz	1
54–247		University of Cambridge	1
54–247		University of Castilla-La Mancha	1
54–247		University of Castilla–La Mancha	1
54–247		University of Central Lancashire	1
54–247		University of Copenhagen	1
54–247		University of Duisburg-Essen	1
54–247		University of East Anglia	1
54–247		University of Florence	1
54–247		University of Freiburg	1
54–247		University of Genoa	1
54–247		University of Georgia	1
54–247		University of Giessen	1
54–247		University of Hawai‘i	1
54–247		University of Illinois	1
54–247		University of Leeds	1
54–247		University of Leicester	1
54–247		University of Lorraine	1
54–247		University of Magdeburg	1
54–247		University of Manitoba	1
54–247		University of Massachusetts Amherst	1
54–247		University of Melbourne Medical School	1
54–247		University of Miami	1
54–247		University of Molise	1
54–247		University of Mons	1
54–247		University of Murcia	1
54–247		University of New South Wales	1
54–247		University of Newcastle	1
54–247		University of Oregon	1
54–247		University of Potsdam	1
54–247		University of Queensland	1
54–247		University of Rennes 1	1
54–247		University of Sannio	1
54–247		University of Santiago de Compostela	1
54–247		University of Saskatchewan	1
54–247		University of Science and Technology of China	1
54–247		University of Stellenbosch Business School	1
54–247		University of Technology Sydney	1
54–247		University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	1
54–247		Vanderbilt University	1
54–247		Vassar College	1
54–247		Vincit	1
54–247		Vrije Universiteit Brussel	1
54–247		Wayne State University	1
54–247		Wesleyan University	1
54–247		Westerdals ACT	1
54–247		Western Hospital Footscray	1
54–247		Western Michigan University	1
54–247		Western Washington University	1
54–247		Whitireia Polytechnic	1
54–247		Wuhan University	1