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+---
+layout: post
+title: To PhD applicants: A word about department rankings
+author: Charles Sutton
+tags:
+- phd applications
+date: 2017-11-12 12:00:00
+---
+
+When I was applying for my PhD, I used rankings of computer science
+departments to help me decide where to apply.
+Rankings are never perfect, but I didn't have access to
+detailed knowledge of the research landscape,
+and the rankings helped to steer me in the right direction.
+In retrospect, I can see that the rankings were not perfect, and
+I made one or two silly mistakes about where to apply,
+but I would have made even more silly mistakes without them.
+
+I'm saying this to give you this context:
+I'm not anti-ranking. Very possibly rankings have had a negative effect
+on higher education overall, but they can be useful if done right, and if
+you read them in the right way.
+
+The Computing Research Association has just released a statement
+[urging everyone to ignore the new rankings](https://cra.org/cra-statement-us-news-world-report-rankings-computer-science-universities/) of global computer science departments
+from US News and World Report. I'm sorry to see this, because I found the US News rankings
+helpful when I was an undergraduate. But I've read the new US News rankings, and I have to agree with the CRA.
+
+These US News rankings are absurd. They are garbage. No one should read them,
+and I won't even link to them. You can find them easily via a search engine. Please don't. The ranking
+methodology is flawed, for a simple reason that any computer science researcher
+could tell them immediately. And we did. Influential researchers in computer science
+pointed out the flaws directly to editors at US News; they were ignored.
+I don't know why the editors of US News would ignore this feedback,
+unless they cared a lot about creating a controversy that would generate
+page views, and not at all about helping students who are applying
+for their PhD.
+
+I'll repeat: **Please do not read these rankings at all, not even if you intend take my advice and ignore them.** If you click on them, even to laugh at them,
+you are spending advertisers' money to support this magazine in misleading
+ PhD applicants
+who are not as well informed as you.
+
+My advice: If you need rankings, instead go to
+[CSRankings.org](http://csrankings.org/). This is a fully open ranking from [Prof Emery Berger](https://emeryberger.com/) at UMass Amherst that ranks global computer science departments
+directly by the amount of research they produce. You can filter
+the rankings by geographic area and research area. No ranking is perfect, but this is defensible and open.
+
+I mentioned that rankings are only useful if you read them correctly.
+Here are some thoughts about how to do that:
+
+* Overall ranking is not the same as subject specific ranking.
+The department ranked #50 isn't ranked that way because its research is #50
+in every area of CS. Instead, it will have some research areas that are #50 ---
+which is still pretty damn good --- but a few groups that are in
+the top five. If you are in one of those top groups, then you are in a top group, with all the same excitement and opportunity as the top groups
+at a bigger name school.
+
+* Disregard small differences in ranking. Ranking is an ill-defined
+problem, so you can't take small differences seriously. As far as overall strength goes,
+the school ranked #1 is exactly the same as the school ranked #5.
+Exactly the same. But #1 is going to be overall stronger than #18.
+
+* For your PhD, what matters most is your supervisor and their group,
+rather than the department overall. This relates to what I said
+above, and is probably worth a blog post of its own.
+
+* Rankings are not life. The distinctions that we are talking about
+here are small distinctions at the very top. The school ranked #100
+--- I haven't looked up what it is --- is a fine university with brilliant
+researchers where you will learn a lot. Here's an analogy. The weakest football player in the English Premier League, who spends most of his time on
+the bench, is still a prodigiously talented football
+player who would run circles around anyone who you and I have ever met. The difference between Lionel Messi and that guy --- that's the level of difference we're talking about here.
+
+The key point: **Use rankings as a way to discover departments**
+you didn't know about that are strong in your area. Don't use them
+as a way to decide between departments: For that, you should be reading
+the work of potential supervisors that interest you. Doing a PhD is about
+learning to do research. What types of papers do you want to write?