Policy
Rankings Are a Lagging Indicator
By the time a programme rises in the tables, the cohort that made it good has already graduated.
Daniel Fairbairn13 April 20265 min read
League tables are built from data that is, at best, two years old and weighted by inputs that change slowly: faculty counts, research income, historic salaries.
That makes them a reasonable measure of institutional durability and a poor measure of a programme's current momentum.
Applicants who want a leading indicator should read the placement list, the recruiter roster and the last two years of dissertation titles instead.