MCLC: Asian schools jump in rank

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Asian schools jump in rank
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Source: NYT (10/24/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/world/asia/asian-schools-jump-in-rank.htm
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Asian Schools Jump in Rank
By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE

When Christoph Kramer of Germany surveyed the field of universities
offering undergraduate business programs, he focused on their locations as
much as on their academic programs.

“China is always in the media; everyone says it is the future,” he said by
telephone from Düsseldorf. So he enrolled in a three-year program at the
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, because he thought it
would be a culturally enriching experience.

According to a recent study on graduate employability, Mr. Kramer’s
H.K.U.S.T. degree puts him ahead of business graduates from many
well-known Western universities.

The 2012 Global Employability Survey, which is being released exclusively
in the International Herald Tribune, characterized the ideal young
candidate on the basis of skills, personal qualities and the schools they
attended. The study, a collaboration of Emerging, a French consulting
firm, and Trendence, <http://www.trendence.com/en/home.html> a German
research institute specializing in recruitment, asked hundreds of
companies what they looked for when hiring recent graduates, regardless of
their course of study.

The study also asked employers what universities produced the ideal young
graduates.

In terms of desirable schools, U.S. and British universities retained
their commanding lead. The list is dominated by the same names that top
most rankings: Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford, M.I.T.,
Columbia, Princeton and Imperial College London, with Goethe-University
Frankfurt am Main rounding out the top 10.

But Asian schools are also emerging. The most striking finding this year
is the growth in the reputations of universities in China.

Just outside the top 10 is Peking University, which leapt to No. 11 from
No. 109 in just one year.

This year, four mainland Chinese universities made the top 100, as opposed
to only two last year. Shanghai Jiao Tong University went to No. 44 from
No. 139.

Meanwhile, H.K.U.S.T., where Mr. Kramer recently graduated, jumped to No.
46 from No. 94.

The only Indian institution to make the list both last year and this year,
the Indian Institute of Science <http://www.iisc.ernet.in/> in Bangalore,
rose to No. 35 from No. 134.

The fact that top Asian universities are being held in higher esteem is
both a reflection on their success in preparing students for the global
work force and the realization among employers that students trained in
Asia are better equipped to work there.

“A lot of employers are looking for global players,” said Tony Chan,
H.K.U.S.T.’s president.

Dr. Chan attributes part of his institution’s success to the fact that it
bridges the gap between China and the rest of world.

“China being the second-largest economy in the world is a huge factor,” he
said by telephone from Hong Kong. His institution’s strength, he
explained, lies in building bridges between different business cultures
and languages.

“We are one of the most international universities in China,” he said. “We
hope to train graduates that know both East and West.”

Guy Breton, rector of the Université de Montreal, also attributed his
institution’s position in the global ranking — No. 30 in the recent study,
up from No. 46 in 2011 — to a successful combination of several cultures.

“We teach in French; we are the most European of the North American
universities, and I think that is of added value to employers,” he said by
telephone.

According to Dr. Breton, Montreal’s multiculturalism and multilingualism
contribute to his university’s openness and worldliness, something global
employers are increasingly seeking.

“We are exposed to the international reality,” he said.

The Emerging/Trendence survey was conducted in two waves. Initially, 2,500
recruiters in 20 countries were asked to complete a personalized online
survey designed to characterize the ideal new graduate.

Several months later, more questions were asked of top recruiters from 10
countries deemed to be active employers. Those supplementary interviews
resulted in the list of the top 150 global institutions in terms of
graduate employability.

In ranking the importance of second languages, aside from English,
recruiters responded that they appreciated Chinese, French, Spanish,
German, Japanese, Arabic, Italian, Russian and Portuguese, in that order.

Global recruiters also listed the countries that produced the best
graduates: the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Japan, Canada,
India, China, France, Australia and Switzerland.

The quality portion of the survey found that international recruiters
appreciated soft skills like adaptability, communications and the “ability
to work in a team,” more than leadership qualities or “the ability to work
under pressure.”

Steffen Laick, a top recruiter at Ernst & Young, the accounting firm,
agreed that the ability to work with a team was important. Besides a
strong and focused academic record, he also looked at extracurricular
activities.

“Not everyone can have been a volunteer firefighter,” he said by
telephone. Showing recruiters that you have done something more than just
fixated on studies is very important, he said.

The universities also mattered, he said, because there might not be much
more for recruiters to go on when the candidate is quite young and lacking
in work experience.

Many well-known universities have partnerships with global recruiters,
which can help graduates in their applications and interviews. In other
cases, universities have alumni networks that put recent graduates ahead
of competitors from lesser-known schools.

Not all emerging economies contributed to the top universities in terms of
their attractiveness to employers, the survey found. Universities in
Brazil, Russia and the Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas, for
example, did not do as well in the rankings as Asian schools.

Brazil, which has the sixth-largest economy in the world, had only
Fundação Getulio Vargas, at No. 95, and the Universidade de São Paulo,
<http://www5.usp.br/en> at No. 112.

The study also lists two Mexican universities — Tecnológico de Monterrey
and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México  <http://www.unam.mx/>— at 110
and 113, respectively, but no other Latin American universities were
represented.

“It is surprising that Brazil and Mexico, that have really good
universities, are low on the list; they are still too focused on American
universities,” Sandrine Belloc of Emerging, the company that designed the
study, said about recruiters in those countries.

Russia’s only contribution to the list is Moscow State University
<http://www.msu.ru/en/> , in 150th place.
Mr. Kramer, after graduating from his global business program this year,
found a job with the Boston Consulting Group in his hometown in Germany.

Having a Chinese degree did not raise eyebrows in his German job
interviews. “I was looking for a job in an international consultancy, so
it was probably fairly common,” he said.