The Best Universities in China
May 2nd, 2009 by GCR Editor
Can Google give us any insight into the ranking of universities in China? Yes indeed, it can.
As is our practice here at the Google College Rankings, we will use a clean browser, not logged-in to any Google services, and we will search google.cn both on the English word university and on the Chinese word 大学.
Our English-language search yields this ranking:
- Tsinghua University
- Peking University
- Fudan University
- Nankai University
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University
- Yunnan University
- Tongji University
- Nanjing University
- Zhe Jiang University
- Wuhan University
And the Chinese-language search gives us this list, which has many institutions in common with the English-language list:
- Xiamen University (厦门大学)
- Tsinghua University (清华大学)
- East China Normal University (华东师范大学)
- Sun Yat-sen University (中山大学)
- Peking University (北京大学)
- Shandong University (山东大学)
- Zhe Jiang University (浙江大学)
- Wuhan University (武汉大学)
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University (上海交通大学)
- Guangzhou University (广州大学)
These lists illustrate both the value and the limitations of university rankings, and also the reason why rankings will always be with us. I’m sorry to say that I know very little about universities in China. Where would I go to learn? Knowing very little, I have no grounds for comparison, and no background knowledge to draw upon. Lists like these offer a natural starting point. No reader should take them as definitive—indeed, the concept of a “definitive” university ranking is foolish. But for an inexperienced outside observer, these initial listings are as good as any, and they can serve as a basis for learning more about higher education in the most populous nation in the world.