NUIM included in the Princeton Review "Best 376 Colleges"

rcaz

First and only college outside North America to be included on the list.

http://international.nuim.ie/newsevents/NUIM_PrincetonReview_BestColleges2012

That's kind of a big deal right? #gwanthelads

LeixlipRed

Smells fishy to me, how the hell are we on the list? We're not even the best university in Ireland never mind the rest of the world excluding North America.

LeixlipRed

I also just realised I know our international marketing officer from a past life. Total hotty too

rcaz

LeixlipRed wrote: »

Smells fishy to me, how the hell are we on the list? We're not even the best university in Ireland never mind the rest of the world excluding North America.

We're sound.

Norrdeth

That doesn't make a great UNI though. Might make a good one.

Duddy

Among the ranking categories are lists of colleges in the book at which students most highly (or least highly) rated their administrators, their career centers and their athletic facilities. Other categories reflect campus and student body political leanings, race/class relations, LGBT acceptance, clubs & societies scene, participation in sports, and religion.

Paul_501

I was wondering what rank were they on in that list?


Perhaps some "brown envelopes" were exchanged...


We're alright, but definitely not the best.

ash xxx

Paul_501 wrote: »

I was wondering what rank were they on in that list?


Perhaps some "brown envelopes" were exchanged...


We're alright, but definitely not the best.

They're not ranked, it's just a list of colleges which have met their criteria. So they see them all as being equally worthy.

philologos

LeixlipRed wrote: »

Smells fishy to me, how the hell are we on the list? We're not even the best university in Ireland never mind the rest of the world excluding North America.

Yes, its so suspect that one would wonder what the point of it is. Are they seriously suggesting that NUI Maynooth is a better university than Oxford or Cambridge?

Anonymous_Bosch

According to the QS rankings, NUI Maynooth is in a tie for 247th in terms of the arts and humanities. The department's size and reputation is growing annually.

Paul_501

Well, whatever the reason was, it's sure to bring in more (international) students, and perhaps encourage even more improvements to be made to the college. Sounds good to me.

philologos

Paul_501 wrote: »

Well, whatever the reason was, it's sure to bring in more (international) students, and perhaps encourage even more improvements to be made to the college. Sounds good to me.

The reason is very important though. If there are going to be rankings they should be fair and honest. I think that NUI Maynooth is a great university and I have enjoyed my time there but this doesn't mean that the rankings shouldn't be reasonable.

Paul_501

philologos wrote: »

The reason is very important though. If there are going to be rankings they should be fair and honest. I think that NUI Maynooth is a great university and I have enjoyed my time there but this doesn't mean that the rankings shouldn't be reasonable.

To be honest, I'd love to know what made NUIM get into that list too.

funky penguin

Post Number 4 explains all, Jeeeeez.

The guy

LeixlipRed wrote: »

Smells fishy to me, how the hell are we on the list? We're not even the best university in Ireland never mind the rest of the world excluding North America.

I agree, if the reasons that Duddy posted are anything to go by than it's still not enough to name a college as one of the best 376.

irish_goat

What makes one university better than another?

I am slightly unconvinced as to university rankings particularly when it comes to arts and humanities subjects. For starts, we all use the same textbooks (or at least, all have access to the same ones) and any student in any university can access the same stuff online.

The only differences I can see really are teaching quality, funding for facilities and the overall workload a student is expected to complete vis-a-vis another university.

Take NUIM, some of our facilities are top notch and the newest in the country and with the library done up there shouldn't be any complaints there, though anyone who blames the lack of sockets in the library as a reason for not doing well in their degree is on ropey ground anyway.

Teaching quality is a difficult one to measure. No doubt Cambridge and Oxford attract the best through prestige and spending power but there are no shortage of good lecturers and a lot of ours have PHDs and it's not like it takes alot to teach undergrad stuff anyway.

Workload is a big factor I think as I had a friend in Oxford doing history who was expected to do an essay every week/fortnight at least whereas in NUIM there's a lot less expected of you.

The fact that the top universities produce the top graduates/big names is only to be expected given that the people most likely to succeed academically will go to those universities in the first place. So to sum up, there's no reason anyone in Maynooth should feel like they are getting a worse education than any other university and no reason NUIM shouldn't score highly in the "rankings".

NB: I don't include subjects like medicine and physics etc which require much more specialist facilities.

Anonymous_Bosch

The library in Maynooth isn't **** because it's old or small, it's because there aren't enough books in it. And I don't mean 'oh, there are only four copies of this book on our reading list', but there might not be a single book on say, the history of Greenland, or an important book on the history of Jews in China, or whatever. Whereas Oxford or Harvard would have shelves on those subjects. NUI Maynooth will not go up the global rankings because there are more plug sockets for laptops. It will go up when its collection gets bigger.

One way in which a university is thought to be better is in how many citations come from the university in peer-reviewed journals. Yale is cited more often than Trinity, and Trinity more than Maynooth.

Another way is the employability rate of graduates, and their earning rate after a certain amount of time.

There are so many more. Check the pages that have the listings. They usually have a sections saying 'how we calculate the rankings'.

mp3guy

Anonymous_Bosch wrote: »

One way in which a university is thought to be better is in how many citations come from the university in peer-reviewed journals. Yale is cited more often than Trinity, and Trinity more than Maynooth.

Can't just go spouting this stuff, show us the source of this?

Anonymous_Bosch

When you arrive at this page you'll see a column for citations and a number underneath.

Dude, have you ever actually looked at one of these lists? lol

mp3guy

Anonymous_Bosch wrote: »

When you arrive at this page you'll see a column for citations and a number underneath.

Dude, have you ever actually looked at one of these lists? lol

No. No interest, but thanks for backing up your claim.

Anonymous_Bosch

You've no interest, but you act like someone who needs sources for said claim?

Some people have too much time on their hands.

funky penguin

Yeah dude, lol! You showed him lolololololol!

mp3guy

Anonymous_Bosch wrote: »

You've no interest, but you act like someone who needs sources for said claim?

Some people have too much time on their hands.

Nothing snotty or bratty about asking for sources, providing them yields something called "credibility" for your argument. Thanks for the insult also.

Norrdeth

Keep it civil please, no personal insults.
Offending post and quote of post edited.

Anonymous_Bosch

mp3guy wrote: »

Nothing snotty or bratty about asking for sources, providing them yields something called "credibility" for your argument. Thanks for the insult also.

There were less rude ways for you to show an interest in how citations are used to measure a university's prestige.

mp3guy

Anonymous_Bosch wrote: »

There were less rude ways for you to show an interest in how citations are used to measure a university's prestige.

And there were less rude ways for you to criticise me. We're even.

Norrdeth

Ok dispute over.

I still think Maynooth is the best UNI for a Music degree in the country,
maybe the best for composition too but Cork is very close.

kickin king

firstly, i would love to know how the princeton review analyses colleges
secondly why was maynooth selected
and thirdly and finally i was a student there in the business department and i found my course very basic, i also found all of my lecturers expect for one or two course very basic for example my law teacher gave out the exact same exam paper that in previous years which i found a joke and frankly i felt disappointed i even bothered to study for the module.

i am unaware the actions of other departments in nui maynooth but certainly the one in question needs to be analysed as its content is very in fact ridiculously basis and in some respects i felt with common sense could have passed some of the modules.
it seems to me that many of these students leave the college with good grades with a moderate understanding of business principles
in this case i would like to conclude that here the era of confettti degree as it was called isnt over in this institution and needs to be critically reviewed and not praised
for me the maynooth social life was the only good aspect of university life
others business departments havelonger lecture hours and more demanding tests and assignments
anyone out ther agree????????????

mp3guy

kickin king wrote: »

firstly, i would love to know how the princeton review analyses colleges
secondly why was maynooth selected
and thirdly and finally i was a student there in the business department and i found my course very basic, i also found all of my lecturers expect for one or two course very basic for example my law teacher gave out the exact same exam paper that in previous years which i found a joke and frankly i felt disappointed i even bothered to study for the module.

i am unaware the actions of other departments in nui maynooth but certainly the one in question needs to be analysed as its content is very in fact ridiculously basis and in some respects i felt with common sense could have passed some of the modules.
it seems to me that many of these students leave the college with good grades with a moderate understanding of business principles
in this case i would like to conclude that here the era of confettti degree as it was called isnt over in this institution and needs to be critically reviewed and not praised
for me the maynooth social life was the only good aspect of university life
others business departments havelonger lecture hours and more demanding tests and assignments
anyone out ther agree????????????

If you want a serious response use punctuation. My brain nearly collapsed in on itself trying to read this.

Mastroph

mp3guy wrote: »

If you want a serious response use punctuation. My brain nearly collapsed in on itself trying to read this.

He made up for missed commas and full stops with all of those question marks though.

Athene

Princeton Review is a company; it has no affiliation with Princeton University.