Why we should – and shouldn’t – pay attention to World Rankings

By Alex Usher. The father of modern university rankings is James McKeen Cattell, a well-known early 20^th-century psychologist, scientific editor (he ran the journals Science and Psychological Review) and eugenecist.  In 1903, he began publishing American Men of Science, a semi-regular rating of the country’s top scientists, as rated by university department chairs.  He then hit on the idea of counting how many of these scientists were graduates of the nation’s various universities. More...