One of the most popular topics involving McMaster recently had to do with its spot on the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for this year. As a university, Mac improved 35 spots from 113 to 78 in the world. This is the largest improvement of any institution in the top 100.

But there are a few stipulations to this that make a substantial difference. There are a number of subcategories that went into this overall rating. Only a few of these are directly relevant to the undergraduate experience.

The area that Mac improved in the most was “Industry Income” from 66.1 to 89.8. This is defined as: “the extent to which businesses are willing to pay for research and a university’s ability to attract funding in the commercial marketplace — useful indicators of institutional quality.”

While you could definitely make the argument that the ability to get funds means that the quality of your education will be better, it is not as direct as the other categories. Without context, this does not differentiate between graduate and undergraduate expenses, and fails to provide any indication about how effectively these funds are used.

For McMaster, this is more of an indication of the construction and purchases the university has made recently. A lot of this will likely not affect you for a few years to come, and that is assuming you have not graduated by that point.

Fortunately, this only takes up 2.5 per cent of the overall grade.

The second best improvement went to “Citations”. This is about how often a university’s published work is cited by scholars globally. An improvement from 82.3 to 89.9, the subcategory takes up a substantial 30 per cent of the overall grade. This is also separated from the subcategory of “Research,” which is another 30 per cent.

These do not directly affect you in any way. In terms of grad school, sure, you would love to work with one of the professors here. The university’s reputation as a research school is better than ever, but there is little to get excited about as an undergraduate besides the fact that construction efforts may eventually pay off.

The only real saving grace of this is that categories that might be applicable to you increased as well. “Teaching” and “International outlook” increased by 2.1 and 1.9, respectively. These increased by less than the three mentioned previously.

Progress is being made for you as an undergrad, but it is not as direct or applicable to you as we should expect. There are improvements being made across the university. You have to take rankings like this at more than face value, and see what actually affects the undergraduate population.

Feel free to enjoy McMaster’s new rank. Just remember to keep demanding more as an undergraduate.

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