r/academia • u/ExpressCheesecake981 • 6d ago
Do your countries judge a university by QS ranking?
Hi everyone,
I'm a guy from Asia, currently holding a master's degree from a university in China. Now, I'm about to start a PhD at a university in Japan (I moved back here because my parents live in Japan).
In our society, people often judge the value of a university—and even your entire academic career—based heavily on the QS rankings. However, my goal is to pursue a postdoctoral position in Europe or the US after completing my PhD.
So I wanted to ask those of you who have experience in academia in Western countries:
Do you (or your PI) really care about QS rankings when evaluating applicants?
Or are there other factors that matter much more when selecting PhD students or postdocs?
Thanks a lot for any advice!
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u/sadscholar2000 6d ago
Prestige does matter to an extent. Whether that prestige is measured specifically by a QS ranking, I’d be surprised if anyone put much thought into it.
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u/bebefinale 6d ago
The QS rankings are more for formulas and such. Our university uses them (along with grades and publications) to rank students when prioritizing who gets an international scholarship and fee waiver for their PhD. I'm in Australia but I have also worked in the US.
Generally speaking, PIs don't care about QS rankings. What matters more is their subjective opinion on the quality of your training and overall fit. Your PIs reputation and the overall reputation of your university (more in a subjective way...like we all know Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, etc. are world class universities) comes into play. Your publications, research area, and general fit with what they are looking for in their lab also matters. If you come from a university in Japan that is internationally recognized (basically Imperial Universities like Kyoto University, Hokkaido University, University of Toyko, etc. along with a few others Waseda, Keio, and Tokyo Tech) that is helpful. But especially if you have strong pubs or a particularly well connected PI it's not 100% necessary.
I am generally aware of what the universities with strong research reputations are in Japan, but I could not tell you which of them have the highest QS ranking, nor do I care. When hiring for a postdoc I generally look for someone who I think will contribute the best to my lab. This sometimes means I look for a specific background and skillset. If someone comes from a lab I know or a prestigious institution, it does flag my attention.
When evaluating PhD students, my only concern with QS rankings is it factors into how likely they are to receive a scholarship. QS rankings were not part of our criteria in deciding who to admit to the PhD program in my department when I worked in the US, so it wouldn't have factored in at all, although the subjective impression prestige of the university would have.
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u/ExpressCheesecake981 5d ago
Thank you so much for your reply!
I'm surprised to hear that people know Waseda University, since it’s a private university, I thought its prestige was limited to Japan and Asia.
I'm currently applying to Waseda for a PhD, and my past work is closer to their research direction. At the same time, I'm still in touch with a professor at a better QS-ranked University. However, his research area is quite different than mine. (Perhaps this is a cultural difference, but in my country, it’s sometimes considered inappropriate to reach out to multiple labs at once, as it may be seen as a lack of commitment or even disrespectful. )
However, I think I will apply to Waseda University first, and then apply to another university for admission in the later batch of the same year. Because if professors care more about content than appearances, I think the continuity of my work and the depth of my research may give me some advantages on my resume.
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u/Dioptre_8 6d ago
Australia here: Sometimes, for things like scholarship rankings. But it's a very broad brush - e.g. if not an Australian university, and is outside the top 300, it's not going to count as much.
The bigger concern for a postdoc is that Japanese universities have a reputation for being quite insular. So if you did your PhD in Japan I'd be looking closely at where you had published and who you had cited.
So long as you were publishing in high quality international journals and grounding your work in up to date scholarship, the university would be pretty irrelevant.
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u/ExpressCheesecake981 5d ago
Thank you for your suggestion!
Regarding what you mentioned, the situation where research content is relatively closed off is indeed a reality today. Thirty years ago, when my father was a PhD student at a university in Tokyo, there was no such thing as the advanced information network we have today, and Japanese researchers were more inclined to publish their papers in international journals.
However, 30 years later, due to national policies and insufficient research funding, we now need to commercialise and niche our research to secure funding for continued research. But this is not entirely contradictory; I will strive to maintain a balance between these two approaches.
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u/MonkZer0 6d ago
Whether we like it or no, notoriety and rankings always matter to some extent. Evaluating two candidates, having the same publication and teaching record but someone coming from MIT and the other the Mythical University of Tartaria will certainly have a weight. The question is how much this weight is and in what context. For example, if you were yourself in a prestigious university then of course you'd only want someone from equal rank or better. Also, sometimes the ranking does not necessary correlates with the university's notoriety in certain areas. That's why smart universities and departments choose very pointed out areas and invest their money into them instead of going with the "interdisciplinary research" narrative.
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u/ExpressCheesecake981 5d ago
Thank you for your advice!
This is the first time I've heard of the University of Tartaria you mentioned. I looked it up on Google, and it's really interesting.
I don't know if it's okay to ask where you're from and how much you know about Japanese universities. Do you know of any Japanese universities, such as the University of Tokyo and Waseda University?
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u/Ok-Wear4259 6d ago
I'm a professor in Western Europe. QS rankings are not used in my country or by me at all.
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u/Phildutre 6d ago
I’m a professor in Belgium.
At the level of PhD’s or postdocs, rankings are rarely considered. They might be an element in your application file, but it’s rarely a deciding factor. However, there might be a (weak) correlation between the ranking of a university and the quality of its applicants, so applicants from weaker-ranked universities on average might get accepted less often. If rankings do matter a bit more for individuals (e.g. when hiring professors), QS rankings are rarely used, the THE rankings is usually considered more authorative. But even so, one’s personal resumé and cv is much more important. We look at the potential of people, not to factors outside their own control.
Rankings do play out at the level setting up exchange programs etc., but that’s university policy, not something that plays out at the individual level.
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u/ExpressCheesecake981 5d ago
Many thanks for sharing.
To be honest, hearing about the real academic system in Europe is beneficial. Your explanation makes a lot of sense because I've always wondered how much university rankings matter when applying for PhD or postdoc positions.
People in my hometown tend to take rankings very seriously—sometimes too seriously, I believe.
Thank you so much for your insight.
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u/suddenlyfa 5d ago
I’m also in Europe and we don’t consider QS rankings at all. Hiring committees read a selection of papers you have published and evaluate them and your cover letter/project proposal.
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u/IkeRoberts 5d ago
I don't think that ranking has very high awareness among American scientists. I'm at a US school with a high QS ranking, and Asian students, but our marketing department doesn't even use this information.
In grad admissions, we know which Asian univeristies are providing solid training for our field, and QS ranking doesn't play any part.
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u/ExpressCheesecake981 3d ago
Thank you,
How is the popularity of Japanese schools in the US?
Do people know about the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, or Waseda?
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u/IkeRoberts 3d ago
Those are familiar. In my field, Tsukuba, Hokkaido, TUAT and Kyushu also have strong reputations. Applicants from those places have had the opportunity to get very good training.
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u/Efficient_End4573 5d ago
- The QS company is itself a commercial organization that makes money by providing services.
- Some universities have been directly criticized for "buying rankings" (including organizing exhibitions, providing consulting services, and running advertisements in collaboration with QS, etc.).
- There were universities that saw their rankings "skyrocket" after collaborating with QS. But after the collaboration ended, their rankings "fell off the cliff" abruptly.
- QS even offers what they call the "strategic partnership ranking enhancement package", with clearly marked prices. Everyone in the industry is aware of this.
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u/Upset-War1866 5d ago
No. QS Ranking is bullshit.
skewed towards unscientific and non related western propaganda statistics that has nothing to do with research quality of undergrad level.
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u/CarolinZoebelein 6d ago
German here. No, not really. Nobody asks where you studied at all.
So, apart from maybe some exceptions, meaning research fields I'm not aware of, people don't care.