u/Helpful-Career5740

It always bothered me how top U.S. universities sell their Masters degrees. Last year 11.5k “Masters”, 2.5k Bachelors and 600 Doctors graduated from Columbia. Excluding legit Business schools, it seems like top U.S. colleges on “Masters” level are just degree mills. Columbia, and other T20s get all their reputation from bachelors (selectivity) and doctorate (research+faculty/professional schools). Masters programs there almost always have 50+% acceptance rate and are ready to accept anybody with a pulse and money. Then, do these “Masters” have the same prestigious diploma as undergrads/doctors (the question I often see)? The answer should be “NO”. I am pretty sure that majority of employers/students etc. are aware of these universities’ revenue booster degrees. Is it true though?

This year Vanderbilt was ranked at #265 in QS World Rankings (with 30/100 Employer Reputation which is ridiculous LMAO). While being excellent and very prestigious university, it seems very wrong. Yes, Vandy is very highly ranked in all national rankings that matter the most, but for me as an international student it seems very off, because unfortunately, some people (and even governments) abroad still believe in QS. It is not even about the research, Vanderbilt is massive research university, especially per capita, that can be easily observed in Nature, Leiden, CWUR, ARWU and others purely research-based global rankings (it is usually in T70 even by merely the research volume). Why do not they want to solve the problem with so off numbers in pretty popular ranking? It can legitimately increase even the domestic prestige... It is pay to play ranking and the school should really do something about it.

It is going wild LOL, there are so many unjustifiable inconsistencies in this particular ranking. For all people that think that it is a research-based ranking - here is the real data for the university research activity (only volumes are considered - no quality - no per capita, filter by score): https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/generate/all/global/all