Rankings and AAU

I've written before, wondering aloud as to UGA's chances of ever being invited to the Association of American Universities, the big-kid club of research universities. I speculated in previous posts about whether UGA produces enough research -- and research dollars -- given it doesn't have a medical school. It takes big bucks to be asked to the academic prom. Today I approach this from a slightly different angle, comparing AAU membership to the world university rankings that came out this week.

Let's take a look.

The table below orders all the AAU members by their world rankings. Skim it. UGA would be in the bottom of the pile (I put it in the place where it'd sit, via rankings), but it's still better than seven other AAU members. What does this prove? Not much. AAU and the world rankings do rely on some of the same measures, so if you're pulling for UGA to get invited there's a little something here for you, but keep in mind the schools UGA beats in the world rankings (but are members of AAU) have been in for a long time. Missouri, for example, joined in 1908, Kansas in 1909, and the most recent being Buffalo in 1989.

Check on the list below with their respective world rankings. I have a little speculation at the bottom of the list.

SCHOOL	World Rank
Harvard University	1
Stanford University	2
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	3
Columbia University	6
University of California, Berkeley	7
The University of Chicago	8
Princeton University	9
Yale University	10
California Institute of Technology	11
Cornell University	12
University of Pennsylvania	14
University of California, Los Angeles	15
Johns Hopkins University	16
University of California, San Diego	17
University of Michigan	19
Northwestern University	21
New York University	22
University of Wisconsin–Madison	25
University of Washington	27
Duke University	29
University of Toronto	30
The University of Texas at Austin	32
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign	34
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	38
University of Virginia	40
McGill University	42
Rutgers University–New Brunswick	43
University of Southern California	44
University of Minnesota	45
Ohio State University	46
University of Pittsburgh	47
University of California, Davis	49
Washington University in St. Louis	51
The Pennsylvania State University	52
Purdue University	56
University of California, Santa Barbara	58
University of Florida	59
Boston University	62
University of Colorado Boulder	65
Carnegie Mellon University	67
University of Maryland, College Park	68
Vanderbilt University	71
University of Rochester	72
The University of Arizona	73
Emory University	79
Georgia Institute of Technology	86
Brown University	87
University of California, Irvine	88
Texas A&M University	98
Michigan State University	106
Case Western Reserve University	108
Rice University	114
Indiana University Bloomington	123
The University of Iowa	125
Stony Brook University	154
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA	204
Iowa State University	205
The University of Kansas	206
University of Missouri	209
Brandeis University	229
State University of New York at Buffalo	272
Tulane University	288
University of Oregon	342

Who ranks high but isn't a member? Good question, because I'd assume those schools would be competing for an invite with UGA.

Dartmouth isn't a member. Surprised me, but it's ranked #50 in the world. The University of Utah is ranked #66 but isn't a member. Those are far above UGA's #204 ranking, and there are several other schools who aren't in the club but rank higher.

My take? UGA is several years away from an invite despite it's #17 Forbes best public school ranking (also out this week). Medical and engineering programs generate lots and lots of research grant dollars, and UGA's small programs in each are nowhere close to that kind of success and prestige.