Down grading QS in our rankings average

As noted in our Methodology, our binning sequence tries to take into account the average of other rankings across the space. We, of course rely on the concept that the average of these different methods of ranking will allow what information is contained in those rankings to percolate upward and be recognized, in the same sense as the Wisdom of Crowds (basic information theory). We of course recognize that this doesnt represent perfect sampling and so is flawed in some small way, but overall it is intersting to see what different measures have to say on average.

We have traditionally taken a straight-forward average. But for the second year in a row we note that teh QS rankinsg of graduate studies in physics includes several universities that do not offer graduate degrees in physics. Moreover there are several others that do not even have physics departments! While it is true that "department" status is not necessary to offer a PhD. we consider this part of the university committmentto the program and part of the environment in which the student will engage. For this reason we are down-grading our inclusion of the QS rankings. While we still look at them and correlate our findings with theirs, they will not a part of the average until we can better understand what has gone wrong - if anything, and what our position on this should be.

TPRP