Harvard! Grrrr…
The Times Higher Education apparently has an annual ranking of universities around the world. It made news on the BBC because the top 10 are filled with American and British universities. In case you didn’t guess, Harvard is the unworthy (in my opinion) number one.
I am vain enough that I am pleased to have attended two of the universities listed in the top 30, although I have to admit that the ranking, like all rankings, is a little suspect. The position of some of the U.S. and British institutions does seem rather surprising, and I’m not still talking about Harvard. (I don’t know enough about schools in other countries to judge those.)
But what I really wanted to comment on was this reaction piece from heads of some of the schools in the ranking. I am biased, being a graduate of the University of Chicago, but is it just me or do all the comments read like student recruitment brochures except President Zimmer’s from University of Chicago?
All the other comments read like, “We’re wonderful, so you should come here,” whereas the President Zimmer’s comment reads,”Hey, come here or don’t. But this is what we do.”
Anyone who’s been to Chicago will have heard exactly the same thing that Zimmer said, over and over. And over. The uber-geeks at Chicago are so focused, it’s kinda scary…
