The Varsitarian

UST HAS slipped from the list of the top 500 universities in the Times Higher Education-Quacquarelli Symonds (THE-QS) 2009 survey.

The University is now in the 501-600 bracket of the survey after getting into it last year at the 450-500 bracket. Harvard University in Boston topped again the survey.

Ateneo de Manila University retained its highest position among Philippine schools and even rose to the 234th place from being 254th last year. State-run University of the Philippines-Diliman also went notches higher to 262nd place from 276th in 2008, while De La Salle University remained in the 401-500 bracket.

The survey ranked the universities according to the following criteria: evaluation by “peers” (40 percent), a review by employers and recruiters (10 percent), student-faculty ratio (20 percent), research citations per faculty (20 percent), and “international factors,” which include international students (five percent) and foreign faculty (five percent).

The Times Higher Education Supplement is a UK firm that provides readings, reports and analyses from academic research and its partner, Quacquarelli Symonds, is a leading international network for education and career development.

Last year, the THE-QS rankings drew flak from UP and UST officials with UP president Emerlinda Roman saying that the university did not participate in the survey “conducted by an organization who refuses to divulge where it obtains its data.”

UST said that it did not submit data to THE-QS, and to website QS.com, which placed UST at No. 144 on the top 200 Asian universities last May.

Rector Fr. Rolando de la Rosa, O.P. had dismissed such surveys as based merely on “perception.”

THE-QS, on its website, even admitted that drawing flak from the release of the 2009 world rankings was inevitable.

“This year's rankings will spark endless debate about the relative positions of different universities. But they cannot be ignored,” QS’s John O'Lean said.