THE, QS and ARWU: Which university rankings should you trust?

Afterschool

June 11, 2015

Things are getting controversial when Malaysian universities failed to make the cut in the latest Times Higher Education despite glowing remarks in the 2015 Top 200 QS Asian Rankings. In this quick feature, we show you the major university rankings (and their uniqueness) that some of our local universities participate in.

Like all other ranking systems, their methodologies must be understood clearly before reporting or using the results.

Each ranking system has received various criticisms. In the end, there's no perfect system, There is, however a ranking system that closely answers what you're looking for in a university.

Ranking System	Times Higher Education (THE)	QS World University Ranking System	Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)
Type	Multi-indicator rankings system	Reputational rankings system	Award factor system
Emphasis	Research	Student experience	Scientific Research
Breakdown	Teaching quality (30%) Research: volume, income and reputation (30%) Research influence (30%) Industry income: innovation (2.5%) International outlook: staff, students and research (7.5%).	Academic reputation (30%) Employer reputation (10%) Faculty-student ratio (20%) Citations per paper (15%) Papers per faculty (15%) International faculty (2.5%) International students (2.5%) Inbound exchange students (2.5%) Outbound exchange students (2.5%)	Faculty quality: nobel laureates (20%) and highly cited researchers (20%) Research: published in nature science (20%) and papers indexed in Science citation index-expanded and social science citation index (20%) Per Capita Performance (10%) Teaching quality (10%)
Survey Method	Relies invitation-only survey of academics (teaching and reputation) accounts for 1/3 of the ranking system	Relies on reputational survey (it accounts for 40% of overall ranking	Team of researchers at the Centre for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University sums up these criteria to assess university's ranking.
Who uses it?	Government: Scholarship sponsors (e.g. JPA Overseas Scholarship)	Employers	Government
Who should use it?	Students planning to continue postgraduate studies either by research or coursework	Students looking for the best learning experience overseas or planning to join the job market right after graduation	Students who are looking for permanent academic jobs or planning to pursue postgraduate studies by research

THE, QS and ARWU: Which university rankings should you trust?

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