Looking at it with a calm mind, Xiong Bingqi: 71 universities on the World University Rankings Paper | Global | University Rankings
On June 28, the 2024 QS World University Rankings was officially released. Peking University ranked 17th in the world and Tsinghua University ranked 25th in the world. In addition to these two top universities, the performance of other domestic universities is also remarkable. In this ranking, the number of Chinese universities entering the list ranks third in the world, with 71 universities on the list, second only to the United States and the United Kingdom. The number of Chinese universities entering the world's top 50 and top 100 universities with research influence ranks first in the world, with 13 and 18 respectively.
In fact, this is not the first time that Chinese universities have made an eye-catching performance in the world university rankings. Last year, in the 2023 World University Rankings released by Times Higher Education, 7 Chinese universities entered the top 100 of the world universities. Looking at the "eye-catching" performance of Chinese universities in the world university rankings requires a rational and pragmatic attitude. Of course, we have reason to be pleased that these universities have been internationally recognized. However, the ranking index is not a school running standard, and higher education is not a "ranking competition".
Last year, three Chinese universities announced their "withdrawal" from the international university rankings, causing public concern. Objectively speaking, the announcement of the "withdrawal" of these three universities only shows their attitude towards the university rankings, that is, running a school cannot be kidnapped by the rankings. For example, the school of Nanjing University made it clear in the preparation of the "14th Five-Year Plan" of Nanjing University and the "Overall Construction Plan of Nanjing University's" Double First-class "Construction Universities" that international rankings are no longer used as important construction goals for school development and discipline construction.
It is worth noting that the release time of the rankings of universities at home and abroad is mostly in the promotion season. In view of the fact that university rankings may affect candidates' choice of universities and majors, universities are also worried that rankings will affect students' willingness to apply and apply. However, people who have come here know that choosing universities and majors based solely on university rankings is often unreliable.
There is no absolutely authoritative university rankings in the world. All university rankings are the result of ranking schools based on the indicators set by each institution. In order to make different countries and different types of universities comparable, the indicators selected in the university rankings are all explicit indicators with common characteristics, including the number of published papers, the number of top journal papers, the citation rate of papers, the proportion of doctoral degrees among teachers, and the proportion of international students studying for degrees. It can be seen from these indicators that the content emphasized by the university rankings is not exactly the same as the content that candidates are concerned about.
For a long time, domestic colleges and universities have attached great importance to academic research, and emphasized the number of papers published by teachers and the grade of journals. Therefore, it is not surprising that the performance of domestic colleges and universities on the international rankings has gone up all the way. However, we must also see that some domestic colleges and universities have the problem of "emphasizing academics and neglecting teaching", and the so-called "emphasizing academics" is more reflected in the emphasis on publishing papers rather than the quality of academic research.
Therefore, when choosing universities and majors, candidates should not one-sidedly rely on university rankings, but should choose colleges and universities that they are interested in and have a higher teaching level according to their own test scores. When comparing colleges and universities, the university rankings can only play a limited reference role. For universities, if you care too much about the ranking of universities, it is easy to go into the development misunderstanding.
University rankings are a social evaluation of universities by social institutions, rather than professional evaluation in the field of education. Therefore, if colleges and universities want to look down on the university rankings, they cannot mechanically think that they have entered the top of the world university rankings to build a world-class university. In order to build a world-class university, colleges and universities must focus on the construction of running a school, devote themselves to cultivating first-class talents and carry out high-quality academic research. If we persist on this road for a long time, China's higher education will naturally become better and better, and its international evaluation will naturally become higher and higher.
