Brown came in at No. 61 on the London Times Higher Education Supplement's first-ever World University Rankings, placing significantly lower than every Ivy League school except for Dartmouth.
Harvard placed first out of 200 schools, followed by the University of California-Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Ivy League was well represented in the top portion of the list, as both Yale and Princeton placed in the top 10. Five of the league's eight schools held top-30 positions.
American schools captured seven of the top 10 slots. England's Oxford University placed the highest among international schools at No. 5.
The Times' rankings, published Nov. 5, were based on five weighted factors that included scores for peer review, international faculty, international students, student-to-faculty ratio and faculty member citations or publications. Peer review assessments counted toward 50 percent of each school's final score.
This ranking methodology differs from the U.S. News and World Report's highly publicized America's Best Colleges list, which placed Brown at No. 13 in is 2005 report. Among American universities, Brown held the No. 26 slot in the Times' rankings.
Although U.S. News evaluates peer review assessments in its rankings, this factor counts for only 25 percent of each school's final score. Other factors include graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving and the difference between predicted and actual six-year graduation rates.
In an editorial analyzing the Times' findings, Times editor John O'Leary wrote that the magazine limited its evaluation criteria because "so few indicators of quality in higher education translate reliably across borders."
For this reason, O'Leary wrote, "the process has been kept simple."
Mark Nickel, director of the Brown News Service, said not many University administrators had taken note of the rankings, adding that the report is "not a high-profile element in the University's planning."
Director of Admission Michael Goldberger said he believes these types of rankings systems can negatively affect a student's college search.
Systems that try to objectively rank a large number of universities "destroy the sense of a match" between individual students' academic goals and each school's strengths and offerings, Goldberger said.
Connecting a student's goals with a school's educational philosophy should be "the primary goal" of any college search, he said.
"It really is not a good thing that these rankings exist," he said.
Such ranking systems do not always address the individual needs of each applicant, according to Roland Adams, vice president for public affairs and external relations at Dartmouth.
Adams said he hopes each prospective applicant "creates their own individual ranking" based on "what institution is best for each student individually."
Typically, Dartmouth does not place too much emphasis on its position in various rankings systems, he said.
"We try to keep our focus on our mission. Rankings will take care of themselves," he said.
Although some potential applicants do factor in rankings when looking at colleges, Adams said fluctuations in ranking placement historically do not have a tangible effect on the applications Dartmouth receives.
"What we see is a steady increase in the number and quality of applications" regardless of Dartmouth's position in different rankings systems, he said.
Because this is the first year the Times has published rankings on higher education institutions, Adams said their relevance for potential applicants is difficult to determine.
"It depends on whether (the rankings) are widely noticed or not," Adams said.
Luke Balleny '06 said he believes students in England are more likely to evaluate colleges based on their history and reputation. Magazine rankings are likely to have little effect on this perception, he said.
Goldberger said he believes the rankings will have little effect on the number and quality of domestic applications the University receives but that he could not gauge whether this list will alter the make-up of Brown's international applicants.
"I just don't know enough about that region and whether rankings are part of the culture or not," he said.
Although he was not familiar with the criteria that generated the Times' list, Adams said he has seen "published opinions here that question the basis of these rankings."
Goldberger said he suspects some of the statistical measurements may favor larger research universities over smaller liberal-arts schools that focus on undergraduate teaching.
Goldberger called the measurement of faculty publications a "curious and interesting idea," but added that a faculty member's published work does not likely enhance opportunities available for undergraduates.
"Are these people teaching undergraduates? And what is the impact they have on the undergraduate curriculum? I have a feeling that there's a dramatic difference between (Berkeley) and Brown in that respect," Goldberger said.
The emphasis on peer review of each university also calls into question some of the Times' findings, Goldberger said.
"I just don't really see how (peer evaluators) have a sense of about more than a handful of institutions," he said.
