as if

The other day i randomly came across the news that the latest Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings (you know, the one where NUS was methinks two years or so ago ranked #16) were out. And then last night, after piecing together my thoughts for the think piece, i went over to the library and finally read the newspaper for the first time this week (excluding Sunday) and came across the article that had a headline with "NUS drops from 19 to 33 in World University Rankings" or something to that effect. After a big laugh (silently, as i was in the library), i read the subtitle to the headline which of course had to attribute the big drop to a change in ranking criteria, which saw student-to-faculty ratio counting more. Then i forget who was defending NUS, talking about how it doesn't have the kinda endowments that other schools have to get lots of faculty, and how it has to take in more students blah blah... Oh well, whatever, criteria schmiteria...

So i just came across the rankings online, and here are some excerpts of it:

Seriously, even though NUS dropped 14 places, it's still better than the likes of Beida, UCLA and U of Toronto???!!!

Ack and egads! UNC is joint 151st? I wonder if they mean just UNC at Chapel Hill or every single member of the UNC system as a whole - i'm inclined to think the latter since they didn't clarify it on the ranking, unlike say California or Texas, but oh well... Any ranking that had NUS at #16 before is inherently suspect in my books... I remember reading that report a couple of years ago, and i nearly gagging in response to that. Kinda like how i felt when i heard that the batch after me at ACJC had put it into the top 5 JCs (where it apparently still is today?)...

Oh well, i'm not anti-NUS or anything, just that i can't imagine how it's that good of a school as the rankings suggest it is. I'm thankful to be here all the same, though something tells me that if they included students' own impressions of their own schools as part of the criteria, NUS would be even further down there... And of course, i don't want to do my part to further perpetuate S'pore's obsession with rankings [e.g. corruption-free, living standards, ministerial pay (heh maybe that's not one they'd want to broadcast eh)]. Of course there are other rankings like press freedom, human rights and democracy that are far less harped upon, but well, i'll leave that off the record...