A new ranking of national universities based on their “lasting contributions to society” puts Case Western Reserve 11th in the country, just behind Carnegie Mellon and ahead of Princeton, Dartmouth and Cornell universities.
Developed by researchers at Michigan State University and Duke University based on statistical data, the list seeks to answer the question of “Which universities are most likely to produce individuals with lasting effect on our world?”
The researchers focused their measures largely on STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) fields, in part because those are among the most objective.
“Of course, our ranking doesn’t capture all the ways individuals can impact the world,” MSU’s Steve Hsu and Duke’s Jonathan Wai wrote in Quartz, an online business publication affiliated with The Atlantic magazine. “However, achievements in the Nobel categories, plus math and computer science, are of great importance and have helped shaped the modern world.”
The researchers developed two lists: one—where Case Western Reserve came in at 11th—ranked undergraduate alma maters of the winners of the Nobel Prize, Fields Medal and Turing Award. The other—where the university came in at 22nd—involved undergraduate alumni elected to the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering or Institute of Medicine.
To account for the likelihood that larger, older schools may have more awards attributed to their graduates, the researchers instead computed a per capita rate of production, based on the relative size of the alumni population.
Among many other breakthroughs, Case Western Reserve undergraduate alumni developed the Nike Air sole, Gmail and technology that made the use of magnetic resonance imaging techniques on human patients possible.
“We are gratified that these rankings highlight how Case Western Reserve prepares its graduates to make a profound impact in their fields and on society,” President Barbara R. Snyder said. “We also appreciate that the researchers acknowledge that education in many fields can prepare graduates to engage in ways that dramatically improve the human condition.”
The researchers noted a strong correlation between their ranking and the average SAT score of each student population—suggesting that cognitive ability, as measured by standardized tests, likely has a connection with powerful contributions down the road.
“While admission to one of the colleges on the lists above is no guarantee of important achievements later in life,” the researchers noted, “the probability is much higher for these select matriculants.”
Three of Case Western Reserve’s undergraduate alumni—Donald A. Glaser (CIT ’41), Polykarp Kusch (CIT ’31) and Paul C. Lauterbur (CIT ’51, HON ’00)—have won Nobel Prizes, and Donald Knuth (CIT ’60) won the Turing Prize. Twenty-eight undergraduate alumni have earned admission to the National Academies.
(Thirteen graduate/professional school alumni and faculty have earned Nobel Prizes, and countless others have been inducted to the National Academies. However, the Quartz list included only undergraduate alumni.)