Seven of the nation’s universities were included in UK-based Quacquarelli Symonds’ 2018 Graduate Employability Rankings released on Tuesday, but National Taiwan University (NTU) dropped out of the top 100.
NTU was listed in a group of universities ranked as the 101st to 110th best institutions in the world at producing employable graduates, dropping sharply from 61st place in this year’s rankings.
Of the other four Taiwanese universities that made a repeat appearance in the list, only one, National Chiao Tung University, maintained its standing. The school ranked between 161st and 170th this year after ranking between 151st and 200th last year.
However, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) fell to between 161st and 170th this year, from 101st to 150th last year, and National Sun Yat-sen University tumbled to between 251st and 300th, after ranking between 151st and 200th last year.
National Tsing Hua University dropped to between 301st and 500th after finishing in the 201st to 300th bracket in last year’s list.
Next year’s rankings consist of the top 500 schools, compared with only the top 300 schools in this year’s rankings.
The two Taiwanese universities that made the list for the first time this year were National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST), which ranked between 171st and 180th, and National Central University (NCU), ranked between 301st and 500th.
Topping the list was Stanford University, followed by the University of California, Los Angeles; Harvard University; the University of Sydney; and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Rounding out the top 10 were the University of Cambridge; the University of Melbourne; the University of Oxford; the University of California, Berkeley; and Beijing-based Tsinghua University.
NTU was ranked only 19th in Asia in graduate employability this year, down from 16th last year, finishing behind seven universities in Japan, five in China, two each in South Korea and Hong Kong, and one in Singapore.
How successful universities are at producing employable graduates is determined according to five indicators — employer reputation, partnerships with employers, alumni outcomes, employers’ presence on campus and the graduate employment rate.
Among the Taiwanese universities, NTU outperformed others in alumni outcomes, while NCKU and NCU performed well in employer-student connections and NTUST had the highest graduate employment rate.
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