No Matter What People Tell You, University Rankings Matter
Duh. Of course university rankings matter. Or there’d be no way to tell what the best (and worst) universities were. Rankings are there for a reason – to help you decide what university to go for and to help everyone else decide if your degree is worth more than the paper it’s printed on (don’t worry: most of the time the answer is yes). So, yes, they do matter – and it’s all very well to criticise rankings for being too vague and all-encompassing to give any valuable data, but that’s like criticising the world chess champion’s technique because he doesn’t use a certain opening – whatever happens, he’s still the champion, and variety isn’t going to change that.
Thing is, when you’re weighing up what university you want to go to, the rankings will be one of the things you look at first. Which is, frankly, the right move. They’re a good, easy, and simple way to find out what universities are good and what are bad. And before anyone talks about them not being reliable or encompassing enough, remember that a degree from a university will have more value if the university has a higher rank, even if the university itself isn’t any good. Whether or not the rankings are accurate (and for the most part, they are) is more or less irrelevant – what matters more is the effect the rankings have on your degree. It’s the employer’s perception of the rankings that matter for your degree – whether or not they’re accurate doesn’t really matter.
Besides, as a rule university rankings are more or less accurate. Admittedly, yes, they can miss out on the finer parts of a university’s charm and appeal – not everyone needs to be as concerned about minor aspects of the grading system, like pastoral support ratings and that kind of stuff, but in their entirety university ratings make life much, much easier to just choose a university and get stuff done.
Yes, there are other sources of information outside university rankings; such as certain awards and accolades, the general reputation of universities amongst employers, and the amount and quality of research that a certain university does. But these – though, of course, very important – are all secondary to the master-list of general university rankings. Hey, we don’t make the rules, but the ranking system is what everyone looks at first and therefore it matters more than anything else, even if a certain university has received a special award in a more specific field.
Now, don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying that awards and all of the other ways of grading a university aren’t incredibly valuable and that you shouldn’t have a look at all of that kind of stuff as well; we’re just saying that you should look at the university rankings first. They’re the most important because everyone else will be looking at them, and no matter what people tell you, they matter a great deal. Next time someone says they don’t give them a 2/10 and pin a medal on – they’ll get the message.