Q's Mind: UNIVERSITY RANKING

Just chanced upon an NTU advertisement on Yahoo!. Was kinda peeved to see universities advertising... and it also reminds me of a conversation with my mum one fine morning over breakfast...

Mum: Why is it that some people study University degree and graduate so fast, but you take so long?

Q: Because I am studying part-time and earning $$$ at the same time... *munch munch*

Mum: How come people study degree, you also study degree, but you need to study so many subjects?

Q: Mum, its the STANDARD and the REPUTATION of the university. There are some Par-liah Universities out there offering 2-years direct masters straight from O-levels, but I've never even heard of the University before. Mine's a 明校 okay~? Nowadays, degrees are so common that almost everyone has one; so what makes you stand out from the rest depends on where your paper comes from. Branded degree branded degree... *munch munch*

Okay, that about sums up our conversation... so, as I saw NTU's advertisement, I googled for "University Rankings" and went to my favourite ranking site - THES - QS

Sourced from Wikipedia:
The THES - QS World University Rankings is an annual publication of university rankings around the world, published by The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The full listings feature on the QS website and on the THES website. They have been running since 2004 and are broken down by subject and region.

The ranking weights are:
Peer Review Score (40%)
Recruiter Review (10%)
International Faculty Score (5%)
International Students Score (5%)
Faculty/Student Score (20%)
Citations/Faculty Score (20%).

Yea, I am aware that there are many other rankings out there, some are bias towards US, some towards UK, some toward Natural sciences, some bias here and there... and there were lotsa disputes and criticism over certain criteria of rankings... but heck, I chose this.