Quote:
Originally Posted by Hakan
Goes to show what you know.
American Universities are the best research institutions in the world right now when it comes to sheer quantity.
Also, there's really no way McGill competes with U of T. U of T is the best research university in the country. It's a fact.
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Okay. I'll buy that. You seem to be looking at this from a research angle, and I can't argue with that logic one bit. (okay, maybe a little)
My angle was more geared towards the quality of education. Good research universities don't always have the best Quality of Eductation for their students. U of C has very good research (especially medical), but many of their other programs severely lack in educational quality, mostly attributed to the fact that they jam 200-300 students into one lecture and call it "teaching".
U of T is quite similar in this regard. I know a number of people who have recently gone through programs at U of T and some others at McGill. The quality of instruction at McGill far exceeds U of T from what I can gather from others, because class sizes are much small, and you can actually interact with instructors.
The above aside... I can't comment on the specific rankings with regards to the aim of the linked article. The articles rankings are based mostly on a University's willingness to provide education on the entire spectrum of cultures and values, in order to prepare a student for global careers. I do not have much knowledge of these university's ability to provide such things, but I stand by my statement that the bias is towards the USA instututions. In my (limited) experience, I have found that the american educational system tends to favour "american" issues in education over global issues.
I would expect that many european institutions (and perhaps even Canadian institutions as well) could provide a much more broad eductation on global cultures and values, but I am only speculating.
You bring up research, and while it is important, it does not fully reflect the quality of education the students are receiving on the issues that the article wishes to focus on. So please do not question my knowledge based of the issue at hand merely becasue U of T is "the best research facility in the country" and "american institutions are "the best research institutions in the world right now". THe article only mentions research as part of the equation, not the sole factor in compiling these rankings.