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Publishing in a Procedia journal versus a 'proper' one
I’m torn between asking for my (somewhat weighty) conference paper to be included in an issue of Transportation Research Procedia, versus submitting it separately to a journal with an impact factor, e.g., Transportation Research B. The conference paper will have to be peer reviewed to qualify, but the journal advice says,

The Transportation Research Procedia does not have, and is not eligible for, an Impact Factor as it does not publish primary research, full length, peer-reviewed articles.

Is a separate submission likely to be worth it (i) for dissemination of the research, and (ii) for REF (Research Excellence Framework) return?

Would you please clarify what you mean by "for REF return"?

Sorry. Research Excellence Framework. In the UK this is how the research performance of institutions gets evaluated, with consequences for obtaining funding down the line.

Do you actually have an option?  It looks to me like Procedia is a just an alternate conference archival service

Yes. I could choose to withhold my paper from Procedia and submit it elsewhere (in addition to presenting at the conference)

The journal information site says the following:

What is the Transportation Research Procedia?
The Transportation Research Procedia is an open access product focusing entirely on publishing full sets of conference proceedings, enabling fast, world-wide dissemination so that conference delegates can publish their papers in a dedicated online issue on ScienceDirect. (see link: Website)

Which means that this is actually NOT A JOURNAL. And, essentially not equivalent to a journal in any sense. It publishes the proceedings of the recently organized conferences in the related fields. Simply put, it indexes online the papers which are accepted and presented in the conferences.
Why it can not get an impact factor?
Actually, it can not; because, it is not a single proceeding. It is a collection of multiple proceedings. Say for example, International conf. on Transportation Engineering A, International Conf. on Civil Aviation (these are just names, ignore).
Even if it tries to get any impact factor, then it would be completely biased given the number of conferences and their corresponding standards of accepted papers.


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Why are most of the top universities American?
In any ranking system, at least 50% of top universities (top 100, for example) are American. What is special about American higher education?

They are old and welcome the best of the best.  After that you have the Matthew effect -- my 2cents.

No, they are not old, not even close. http://www.topuniversities.com/blog/10-oldest-universities-world But yes, they do welcome the best of the best.

Surprised nobody has yet mentioned that most rankings originated from the US, which inspired several other closely related rankings (e.g. the Shanghai ranking defines Harvard U to be rank 1). University rankings are mainly a PR game, so obviously the (mostly American) universities that produce them end up on top, or the rankings wouldn't be made in the first place. This is not to say that these rankings are total BS, but please don't overestimate their relevance.

@Mico No, if true, Marc's comment is 100% relevant. The question is "Why do American universities do so well in the rankings?" and, if true, Marc's comment answers that.

One contributing factor that I have not yet seen in an answer: In the US there is a clear concept of a "top university" and an inter-university ranking. At least in some other countries this might not be the case. I'm thinking especially of Germany where this is much less pronounced and people can be hard-pressed to even name a university that is distinctly above others. Thus reputation, funding and concentration of top academics tend to be more spread out. There is a government initiative in Germany that tries to establish "elite universities", but it will take time to show an effect.

@Emil: And even with the "elite universities" program (which has also received quite some criticism within Germany, because apparently quite some people do not want single universities to stand out and receive more funding than others), there is also an "excellence initiative", which, to some extent, can be perceived in a way that universities that didn't get chosen as "elite" can still get chosen to house a "cluster of excellence". Like this, every university can ultimately get some sort of a "special marker", again without a clear ranking.

@Mico: I think Marc's comments directly address both questions. "Why are most of the top universities American?" -> "Because the rankings that bring them to top were designed to bring them to top."; "What is special about American higher education?" -> "As opposed to other higher education systems, the American higher education system is the one that was defined to be the ideal form when designing the rankings." (Not saying that this is entirely true, and I'd like to see some references for the claims, but nonetheless I see the claims as direct answers to both forms of the question.)

@MarcClaesen If backed up with evidence (or at least plausible explanations), your comment would make a good answer.

Another factor: US is big. 300 million inhabitants, compared to the 500 of the EU; and richer. So, even with everything else being equal, I'd expect  a fair chunk (around 30-40%) to be American.

@MarcClaesen, you say that "the Shanghai ranking defines Harvard U to be rank 1."  Could you tell me exactly where in your link this is stated?

The Los Angeles Times has an essay about the importance of high-level networking between researchers and businessmen.  It compares the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California from 1970-2015.  Both regions started with strong aerospace, electronics, and media businesses.  Both regions have major research universities (Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UCSF in the Bay Area; CalTech and UCLA in Southern California).  Both regions are subject to the same increasingly burdensome state and federal governments.

@JoelReyesNoche, http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU-Methodology-2014.html Not exactly written, though its common sense. When ARWU started, they had been observing how universities were ranked then, and what was it that the top universities then have that makes them top universities. And first with the list of top univerisities then as the definition of a top university, it reverse-engineered and created a methodology with calibrated numbers that when applied, puts the top universities then as the top universities then. And using that methodology, with..

...its calibrated numbers, it ranks all other universities against the then top universities. Also related: Are Chinese universities of lower quality.

It started in the 1930s, when Nazi Germany started to fire Jewish professors and other people who opposed the regime. Many others left voluntarily as well. Germany had the best universities before this period. The United States ended out getting more of the refugees than any other country (e.g. Einstein) and this started the ascendancy of American universities.
Then World War II happened. Germany ended out with their universities basically obliterated, through the actions of the Nazis and also from the war itself. Japan's universities were also very damaged. The US on the other hand, not only benefited from the refugees but also from the war effort. A lot of money and effort was put into the Manhattan Project and so on, and this infrastructure was used after the war. Other European countries did not really gain as much... some suffered extensive war damage and others like France were at least occupied. Britain's academic institutions were (basically) intact but they were losing ground to the Americans.
After WWII the Cold War happened, and universities were highly supported by the US government during this period, building on the earlier growth. The US had a lot of financial resources and were willing to use them to help universities. Also, American universities in recent decades have been quite welcoming to foreigners, and the increasing prominence of US universities in turn attracts immigrants. So this has become a self-perpetuating phenomenon.

It started before the 1930s.

The top American universities didn't really compare to the best in Germany, France, or the UK before then.

Japan was in a similar situation. Can you explain this more?  Was the level of Japanese academics that different before vs after WWII?

Similar meaning most of their universities were destroyed by the war. But pre-war their research universities weren't at the level of the European ones.

@Zarrax including Standford, Harvard, MIT, etc?

@Ooker Yes... MIT was especially unspectacular in the old days. Harvard was a premier US institution but the major breakthroughs (in science at least) rarely came out of there.

In the 1950s, American universities stratified along IQ / SAT score lines.  Charles Murray's book Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 discusses this process, and its long-term implications.  Murray pointed out that World War II and the GI bill pushed the American universities to their capacities, so they had to select applicants.  MIT doubled in size during World War II.

Circa 1980, the U.S. changed its laws for university funding and intellectual property ownership to encourage university faculty (and students) to "spin-off" their research into private companies.  Genentech was one of the first such companies; there have been many others.  It is not a coincidence that most of America's high tech companies are located near prominent universities -- they were founded by people working at those universities.  It is also not a coincidence that those prominent universities' endowments own large, valuable stakes in the tech companies.

U.S. universities were already very good in the 19th century, it's true that staying away from the various types of collectivism fashionable in Europe in the early 20th helped them to be a step above European ones.

@Zarrax Do you have a source for your claim that U.S. top universities didn't compare to those of Germany, France, or the U.K. prior to the 30s? I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but a source would be helpful.

In my field (math), the major developments before the 30s almost all came out of Europe, and if you look at the history of science in other fields you will see the same thing. I suggest looking at histories of science as sources for this. I actually don't know the reasons why the US lagged so much. Maybe someone else can give the answer to this.

@Zarrax -- In my engineering textbooks, I start seeing output from MIT starting in the 1920s:  Steam tables, Al Sloan's methods of managing General Motors, Doc Edgerton's stop motion photography.  Before that, most of the notable American developments came out of machine shops and inventors' laboratories, with some help from places like Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Cooper Union.  Perhaps the most important American scientific institution was the U.S. Patent Office, just by encouraging inventors to share ideas.

@reirab Simple check science history: in Biology, Physics or Chemistry most progress was made and key figures were coming from Western and Central Europe. Many of these immigrated to the US before or during the war.

@CapeCode: It was not the "staying away from various types of collectivism", it was the staying away from persecuting sizeable portions of their population, and most especially from war within their borders. When the USA went a bit overboard with the "staying away" to the point of persecution during the McCarthy era, it didn't make them friends among the academics...

Ranking is based on several features. To understand why many top universities are located in the USA, according to many rankings, you might want to look at each feature. Examples of features:

faculty salary: this gives to USA-based universities an advantage over some of the countries where academics are less paid. (e.g. France)
student satisfaction: the American culture tends to be more positive than in some countries.
research grants: in some countries, academics don't focus on obtaining grants as much as in the USA.
reputation: the large average size of US universities make them more visible than in many other countries. Also, (taken from O.R. Mapper in the comments), some American universities seem to run professional news outlets on their websites that report about everything noteworthy that happens in the university. In contrast, in some other countries, e.g. Germany, universities' newsfeeds tend to be on a comparably low priority.
Americans speak English decently well, it helps to get published, give talk in international conferences, create MOOCs, etc.
endowment: see Why do American universities receive lots of endowments?
etc.

Then of course there is brain drain. Students with good academic credentials wishing to study abroad are likely to choose the USA, if they have the option.

The "American spirit" comment seems both vague and a bit biased, especially with no supporting links.

@barbecue When something is "good" in France, it's "great" in the US. When something is "great" in France, it's "outstanding" in the US. I'll post supporting links if I come across any, but I thought it was commonly accepted :) (I am also interested in quantifying it though) In the meantime one hint could be the number of student strikes in France vs in the USA.

@barbecue Some ideas: Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project: The American-Western European
Values Gap. Please share your references if you find something better.

One more point springing to mind: A lot of research in Europe is not carried out at Universities but independent institutes - the universities primarily teach. E.g. research at INRIA (France), the Max Planck Institutes (Germany) etc. is very good but will never feature in a university ranking.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

@DetlevCM There are research labs in the US, too.

Another point is that a lot of universities in France were split per broad topic: University of  I, University of  II. There have been mergers (partly driver by those ranking criteria) to form larger entities over the past recent years. In addition, a number of reasonably good students choose to go to engineering schools rather than universities. Those would be even smaller entities (not necessarily producing much research output anyway).

@FranckDernoncourt And something "outstanding" in the USA would be "really not too bad at all" here in the UK. :)

The final brain drain remark is of course not 100% a reason how US universities became top-ranked but rather why they remain top-ranked once they are top-ranked and preferred

@HagenvonEitzen I agree, this could be definitely expanded: Hitler, WW II, snowball effect, etc.

Here's an aspect that's mostly missing in the answers that have been posted so far: American universities -- at least the ones which value research output, which are also the ones that tend to show up in published rankings... -- care either very little or not at all about the national origins and citizenship status of the faculty they wish hire and of the graduate students they would like to attract. They try very hard to hire the very best research faculty and the most research-oriented graduate students, irrespective of national origin.
In many of the top departments in the U.S., especially in the sciences and in economics, more than half the faculty and more than two thirds of the graduate students are not native U.S. citizens. (Quite a few, of course, choose to become U.S. citizens if they stay in the U.S.) Thus, rather than thinking in terms of "American universities", it may be more useful to think about "universities in America" in order to understand their prevalence in the rankings. If universities in the U.S. are free to compete for the best talent from around the world, whereas other universities have to give preference to applicants from their own countries (or regions) or are barred outright from hiring non-nationals, it shouldn't be a surprise that the freer system ends up with more talent.

Addendum to address @Emil's comment, about me allegedly claiming that non-US universities suppress cultural diversity. Please note that I have made no such claim. My answer was focused on issues of citizenship and nationality, and not on cultural diversity -- which, I believe, is a much broader concept. Since you asked, though, let me give a specific example of the effects that being able to hire faculty and attract graduate students irrespective of their national origin can have. In Switzerland, the country I live in right now (Switzerland), the immigration law that's still in effect has tended to give great leeway to universities in their hiring decisions. The ETH in Zurich and the EPF in Lausanne, in particular, have made great use of this freedom in recent years to attract stellar faculty and students, in the process either solidifying or strongly improving their international ranking positions. Unsurprisingly, then, a good chunk of the faculty and students, especially the younger faculty and students, of both universities are not Swiss citizens. (Switzerland is, after all, a fairly small country!) In early 2014, however, Swiss voters approved an amendment to the Swiss federal constitution which -- if implemented as some fear/expect it will -- will greatly curtail the freedom of the ETHZ, the EPFL, and all other Swiss universities to go after talent irrespective of their national origin or current citizenship status. Leaders of the ETHZ and EPFL have already warned that if and when the law that implements the constitutional amendment goes into effect, and if the law will be as restrictive as some fear it will be, the rankings of these two universities (and of the other Swiss universities) will suffer seriously and rapidly as many of their top faculty will choose to go elsewhere and as international students look elsewhere when they think about pursuing graduate studies.
@Emil also wrote:

I thought the causation could as well be the other way around: "Because US universities have a high reputation they attract more international students and faculty."

Isn't such an argument nearly circular? For sure, it doesn't explain how or why the rankings of European and Asian universities have finally managed to rise in recent years -- in many cases quite significantly so. What matters greatly, obviously, is having a good reputation. However, being based in the US does not, by itself, establish a good reputation. After all, it's rather well known that there are lots and lots of mediocre and poor universities in the U.S. as well.

Could you give references or examples  for the statement that universities outside the US are actively or passively suppressing cultural diversity? I'm not saying it's not true, I'm just interested. I thought the causation could as well be the other way around: "Because US universities have a high reputation they attract more international students and faculty."

@Emil - I posted an addendum to address the questions you raised in your comment.

@NajibIdrissi - Are you critiquing Emil's comment (about a potential reverse causality between rankings and the ability to attract high-quality staff and graduate students) or my response to the comment?

@NajibIdrissi - I would have thought that it was obvious from my write-up that I believe that a whole bunch of variables (including institutional rankings and the ability to attract top-notch faculty and graduate students) are determined jointly. That's also why I expressed the belief that conditioning one endogenous variable (ability to attract staff and students) on another endogenous variable (published rankings) can lead to circular arguments. However, regrettably, I may have failed in conveying this view fully.

I'm looking at http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2015#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search= and I see that 10 of the top 50 are British, vs 18 USA.
However the population of the USA is about 5 times that of the UK.
So the answer to your question is there's nothing special about the US education system other than the country has a larger population than some other countries with a better education system.

And of the top 10 only 5 are US. 4 are from the UK.

Your posting does not actually establish that "there's nothing special about the US [higher] education system". It does establish that the U.S. and British higher education systems, taken together, are jointly special. It might be useful if you addressed what's jointly special about these two systems.

This ranking also goes to show that the OP's statement "In any ranking system, at least 50% of top universities … are American." is not quite accurate.

@Emil - Five US-based universities in the top-10, 18 US-based universities in the top-50: How does these two data points make the OP's statement "not quite accurate"?

18/50 = 36% < 50% (Note that the OP said "any" and "at least", not "many" and "almost".)

These rankings are by Quacquarelli Symonds, a British educational firm. It's not too surprising they have a higher opinion of British universities than others. Even more amusing is how they rank their universities so much higher than the French ones :) The say for example that the University of Edinburgh is better than every university in France. Guess what.. it isn't.

@Zarrax The question said "in any ranking system" so calling out a particular system doesn't prove anything.

@DavidPostill It indicates that this particular ranking system is not to be taken that seriously. Obviously one can create a ranking system that says anything you want. This is one of my personal favorites: http://www.top-law-schools.com/wiki/Thomas_M._Cooley_Law_School#The_Cooley_rankings

@Zarrax Exactly. They are all biased.

@DavidPostill Being a top university is well-defined despite all the flaws in ranking systems. And it is true the US has more of the top universities than other countries

@Mico Actually, it doesn't even establish that. It establishes that some British ranking system thinks that American and British universities are special.

This ranking system has 8 of the top 10 and 55 of the top 100 in the U.S., for example, so at least some rankings do indeed put more than half of the top schools in the U.S., though certainly not all rankings, like the OP suggested.

Here's a piece that is touched on in a few other answers but which seems to be unstated: the United States' university system has many of the worlds top schools because it is massively unequal.
The US has more than 4,000 colleges and universities — the "best" universities may be in the US but so are some of the worst. These two facts are not unrelated. The US higher education system is more effective at concentrating resources (top students, money, grants, and the best faculty) in a small number of universities at the top than any other national system.
In much of the developing world and in many small countries, there are simply few resources. In many developed countries, universities are funded by governments that attempt to distribute resources widely and fairly (if not equally) across universities in their systems. If, for example, most students go to universities near their hometown, it seems unfair to send the best faculty and most of the grant funding to the university that trains the folks who happen to live in the capital.
In the US, there are few pretensions. Most of the top US schools are private schools that compete with funds and that have a massively disproportionate share of the money,  grants, top students, and top faculty. Because there are few checks on inequality in the US system, this leads to a feedback loop where universities at the top use their resources to capture more — aggravating inequality over time.

American child-rearing and American education are more tolerant of failure.  Top American students have learned how to lose gracefully as well as how to win gracefully.  They have been taught that risk-taking is worthwhile.
If you look at the distribution of academic scores in American primary, secondary, and undergraduate education, you will find that the American education system has institutions that are consistently very poor, institutions that are consistently mediocre, and institutions that are consistently strong.  Depending on their resources and priorities, Americans gravitate toward the institutions that seem to suit them.
A top secondary student who wishes to attend a premier undergraduate school needs to focus on certain things.  In Asian countries, the student should cram to pass tests.  In America, the student should split their effort into essay-writing, math, science, and athletics.  Most premier American undergraduate schools can easily fill their student bodies with students who have high academic marks.  Athletic striving helps distinguish applicants as being "well-rounded".
American secondary schools have well developed inter-scholastic leagues in many sports.  In each contest between schools, one school wins, and one school loses.  Occasional failure is expected; effort and improvement are demanded; coaching is provided; and success is honored.  Success is simultaneously measured on a personal improvement level, in contests between individuals, and on a team level.
Courses like MIT's "2.70 contest" have been replicated at several top engineering schools around the world.  Instructors of these courses have noted the wide variety of approaches and successfulness of MIT's students, as compared to other countries' students.  At MIT, it is normal for one-third of the students' machines to fail to score any points.  On the other hand, some MIT students' machines are wildly aggressive and/or wildly successful.  In prestigious European and Japanese engineering schools, nearly all students' machines score some points -- in identical contests -- but few students take the unconventional approaches needed to be wildly successful.

Very interesting points

The other answers are excellent, but I'd like to add some I haven't seen, in particular aspects where the American system differs:

American universities have to compete for funds. Even "public" universities have to compete for state tuition and certainly for research funding from places like NSF, NIH, DOEnergy, DOEducation... The best American universities are in fact the ones who have some of the longest history of competing for those funds and winning them. Faculty successful at securing external funding often receive higher salaries than those who do not succeed.  (Some Europeans tell me their countries are changing over to this model now.)
American laws do not mandate a preference for American employees in higher education. There are some hoops to jump through for foreign labor, but they are largely a pure formality, also unlike some countries. (Again, some Europeans tell me that their laws on this are not mere formalities, which is why so many of their universities have a preponderance of natives in the sciences.)
Perhaps the most important reason: Americans send a much larger proportion of their population to university. Many countries send only a filtered group (e.g., to enroll in the sciences you had to take a certain curriculum at a science-oriented high school). That means a lot of Americans are attending college, which means a lot more money is going through the American higher education system, which gives both more resources to American universities to spend on things, and more incentive to spend it wisely.

Your comparison of US versus European labo(u)r law is off the mark. In both cases, you can't employ somebody from outside the bloc (US or EU) unless you can argue that they're better than everyone inside it, which isn't hard in academia since everyone has unique skills. And EU citizens have the automatic right to work in any EU country. A far more significant effect is that English is widely taught as a second language throughout the world and is the lingua franca of academia. Wanna work in the US? Your English is probably OK. Wanna work in Italy? Bulgaria?

Also, research funding in the UK and Canada is competitive. The European Union has extensive competitive research funding programmes.

And if you look at the graph at the end of this BBC article, you see that, in 2010, the USA was actually slightly below the OECD average of proportion of people who get a university degree. In summary, all three of your points are suspect.

David, that's a chart of graduation rates. Contrast that to the OECD's statement, "Only Canada (51%), Israel (46%), Japan (45%) and the Russian Federation (54%) have higher tertiary attainment levels among [25-64 year olds]." http://www.oecd.org/edu/CN%20-%20United%20States.pdf

As for funding, I should have been more careful in my language, but (for instance) the funding regimes really are different. I was on sabbatical in Europe last year, and I was told that, historically, European agencies have tried to award many small grants, while American agencies typically prefer a few large grants. The person I spoke with was unhappy that the Europeans were changing to imitate the US.  Here is a complaint from Bertrand Meyer (not whom I spoke to) that Europeans are changing their criteria to "breakthrough" results, in imitation of NSF. https://bertrandmeyer.com/tag/darwin/

Finally, I don't quite buy the argument about English, since the universities I visited generally had quite a lot of English-language labor and education. That said, how long has the automatic right to work in any EU country been in place? I was referring to historical issues; i.e., 20-30 years ago or more.

In Germany, many if not most undergrad programs are taught in German. Since usually every university professor has to teach undergrad courses (with few exceptions), you have to speak German in order to be employed. I can't imagine that that is different in the US; would a non-English-speaking person get any job?

Germany has both a university system and a very substantial research institute system (see the Max Planck and Frauenhofer societies). Certainly in the institutes I have visited, the vast majority of the research staff are foreign (and probably don't speak German). The researchers are also largely post-docs, with a spattering of PhD students (and no undergraduates at all, except those on the odd summer research project). The university roles have a much larger teaching component, and are much less well funded, which changes the game somewhat.

@JohnPerry Freedom of EU citizens to work anywhere in the EU dates back to the Treaty of Rome (1957). It was already present in a restricted form in the EU's predecessor form, the European Steel and Coal Community, which gave freedom of movement to workers in those two sectors from 1951 (though, at that time, the signatories were just Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany).

@Raphael - You ask, "would a non-English-speaking person get any job [at a US-based university]"? Well, probably not if they're completely illiterate. However, as long as they can write in English reasonably well and thus have the potential to write research papers that will be read by their peers, their spoken English is usually of negligible importance at many top-flight US-based research-oriented institutions.

Re the BBC article I linked, the caption says, "Estimated percentages of 2008 age cohort which will complete first-time academic degrees, out of 26 OECD countries, plus Australia figure for 2007." In other words, it's graduation rates expressed over the whole age group population, not just the fraction going to university. It's saying that 37% of Americans go to university and get a degree (compared to sixty-something percent of Finns), not that only 37% of American undergrads pass their course!

David, I'm willing to admit I'm wrong on the EU employment thing. I was distinctly told that employment rules in the EU make it very hard for non-Italians (for example) to find jobs in Italy, and not just for reasons of language.

As for the graph, you misunderstand what I'm saying. What the OECD report I linked to states is that, historically, the US has sent a higher proportion of its population through universities. This has obvious consequences for the amount of money in the system, and consequent potential on quality of education. Both the OECD report and your graph also say that currently others do better. The caption on this BBC story's table makes the same data clear: http://www.bbc.com/news/education-11203790 Note it says, "Percentage of young people who are first-time graduates from university, 2008."

John, for what concerns Italy, not really, in general. However, to obtain a permanent position in an Italian university you have to obtain the Italian citizenship before applying. This can actually be discouraging for a non-EU citizen, like a foreigner PhD student, who wish to find a university position in Italy.

@MassimoOrtolano " to obtain a permanent position in an Italian university you have to obtain the Italian citizenship before applying" Um. How is that legal? (Or are permanent employees of universities considered civil servants, for which I believe there's an exception.)

@DavidRicherby Yes, we are considered officials or civil servants (I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know which translation fits better).

In my somewhat extensive experience of Japanese universities vs American universities, the expectations of students and faculty are far higher in American universities. For example, in Japan it is enough for faculty to publish "research" in their university's own journals, few of which are peer reviewed. Plagiarism is a minor problem. In Japan, the student is simply asked to rewrite the paper. In the U.S. it is grounds for immediate expulsion.
In Japan, students spend much of their time doing extra-curricular activities, and preparing for the school festival. Academics generally take a backseat to the social development that is foregone in earlier schooling, when exam preparation is foremost in most students' minds.
Furthermore, administrators generally make it difficult for faculty to fail recalcitrant students. Giving a social pass is generally preferred to justifying a failing grade.
I recently did an Academic writing class for third year students in a high level public university. I found that many students were recycling papers they had written in previous years, and once I took measures to obviate that, the quality improved markedly, but it was also clear the papers were written for, and edited by, professors of higher level classes.

"I recently did an Academic writing class [...]" Is this in a Japanese university or in an American university?

While I agree that this difference very much exist, it is hardly influence any university ranking lists which often focuses on number of Nobel prize winners , number of papers and diversity of faculty/ students.

Let's define a top university as a university that attracts top talent from all around the world because of its reputation.
Building a reputation as a top university takes generations. It requires a stable operating environment, a decent level of funding, proper management, and more than a bit of luck. If a university has a reputation as a good university, it tends to attract good researchers and good students, which further increases its reputation over time. Top Asian universities are rare, because most Asian countries haven't been that stable long enough.
Destroying the reputation (or the university) takes much less time. Continental European universities are still recovering from WW2.
We're having this discussion in English. The universities in English-speaking countries have an obvious advantage in recruiting top talent, because most researchers and students already speak English. It's much easier to move abroad, if you already speak the language.
Because of these reasons, it's easy to understand why US/UK universities are overrepresented in most university rankings.

In that ranking, the UK has one top-100 university for every 3.6 million people and the US has one for every 10.6 million people. For Japan and China, the numbers are 25.5 million and 170 million, respectively. That sounds quite rare. Small countries/administrative areas such as Singapore and Hong Kong are isolated success stories that rely on being far more developed than their surroundings.

Without normalization, the question would be meaningless. It would just be the equivalent of asking why almost all top universities are outside Australia. With normalization, we can at least try to see the big picture by looking at regions that are large enough and somehow comparable. We can see, for example, that the rich English-speaking countries are overrepresented, when compared to the rich non-English Europe or the rich parts of East Asia.

Cities named Cambridge have even more top-100 universities per capita. That's why it's important to look only at regions with sufficiently high population, in order to avoid bias caused by arbitrary administrative borders, historical/geographical coincidences, and random chance.

@schester: With Hong Kong and especially Singapore somehow being English-speaking, too, of course.

There are two related factors that weigh heavily on most worldwide university ranking systems:

Global ranking systems tend to be heavily biased towards prowess in academic research.
The US conducts a huge, disproportionate amount of the world's academic research.

With regard to the first point, let's look at a few specific ranking systems. The US News & World Report has one such ranking system that is a significant metric for my university. Of the top 50 schools in their World Universities category, 36 are American (72%). Their methodology is exclusively research-based (some categories sound like they're not exclusively research-oriented, but if you read the specific criteria below you'll see that they essentially are). Not only are the rankings exclusively research based, they're almost entirely based on research-related publications. This ranking system totally ignores teaching, teacher to student ratio, grad student to undergrad ratio, faculty salary, percentage of courses taught by PhDs, etc.
The Times Higher Education ranking is another that comes up highly in Google results. Of the top 50 schools in that ranking, 28 are American (56%). This methodology scores based on teaching, research, and "broader impacts" criterion. However, at least 65% of a school's score is attributed to research by my judgement (research category, citations category, international collaboration, and industry income). This system does include metrics such as faculty salary and staff-to-student ratio, but other educational metrics such as number of PhDs awarded is arguably just another proxy for research productivity.
The third Google result is QS Top Universities. Of their top 50 schools, 19 are American (38%). This methodology is starkly different from the previous two. Only 20% of a university's total score is specifically research-related, however the first category (academic reputation) is probably going to be heavily slanted towards research productivity, so 60% of a school's score is directly or indirectly research related. Moreover, this system is different because a full 50% of a school's ranking is dependent on reputation- subjective opinions of the school formed by faculty and experts around the world.
The last organization on the first page of Google results (and where I'll stop) is the Center For World University Rankings. Here, out of the top 50 institutions are 33 American schools (66%). If you look at their methodology, essentially 50% is directly research related (points 3-8), and a further 25% is indirectly research related (quality of education, since this essentially measures the number of students who go on and win research-related prizes). This system also does not explicitly rank any of the educational quality metrics mentioned here, with the remaining 25% being determined by the number of students who go on to be successful in business.
With all that said, you should be convinced of point number one above. Research plays a huge role in global university rankings. Even in the systems that attempt to factor both research and educational outcomes, such as the second and fourth system, the ranking is heavily weighted towards research. Both of those systems place two to three times more importance on research than on education. If you play the numbers game, a school that scores zero on educational stats but about 50% on research stats will be ranked similarly to a school with perfect educational stats but zero research stats. Also note that the one ranking system that places the least emphasis on research productivity, the third, also contains the greatest number of non-American universities.
Now, with respect to the second point above, the US is the world's academic research powerhouse. This is not to say that other countries do not contribute or that they do not produce good work. What is meant is that the US produces the largest volume of academic research as an individual country, and by virtue of that alone receives a tremendous boost in research-oriented ranking systems.
The simplest and best explanation for this in my mind is the amount of funding available for academic research. The top ten countries by expenditure on research in higher education (all funding sources), according to OECD data:
Country       Academic R&D Funding in 2013
USA           64.7 Billion USD
China         24.1 Billion USD
Japan         21.9 Billion USD
Germany       18.4 Billion USD
France        12.1 Billion USD
UK            11.0 Billion USD
Canada        10.5 Billion USD
Italy         8.0  Billion USD
Australia     6.8  Billion USD
South Korea   6.3  Billion USD

As you can see, the US expends a significant amount on academic R&D. More than the next three countries combined, and a large fraction of the top ten countries (35%). To generate a graph such as the above you need to view the data set itself and customize:
Measure: PPP
Sector of Performance: Higher Education
Source of Funds: Total
Years: 2013
Table Rows: Country (in the layout customization)

The difference in funding doesn't explain the difference in rankings fully, but it goes a long way. In my opinion it is the primary source of the problems that other countries face when trying to engage in academic research- 50.6% of the top-ten funding occurs in English speaking countries, while only 28.5% of the top-ten funding occurs in Asian countries. Compared to individual countries, which is perhaps what matters most for your question, the US spends about two and a half times as much as China, three times as much as Japan or Germany, six times as much as France, the UK, and Canada, etc.
That funding disparity, combined with the institutional inertia possessed by the US universities (how that happened is a different question altogether), ensures that the US will be the most fertile single nation for academic research for some time to come.
If you consider research to be a input/output situation, then funding dollars is the primary input. However, all of the ranking systems above are more concerned with research output, as expressed through academic publications. A slightly dated Reddit thread aggregates this data from a few different sources. If you take that data at face value, the US publishes about 35% of the world's papers. The next competitor (China) publishes about 16%. The third place country (UK) publishes about 10%.
Bear in mind that most of those ranking systems also emphasize quality of papers over quantity, so this is a crude estimate to answer your question. But, different ranking systems will define quality in different ways (citations vs awards and honors, and so on).
As many others have pointed out, there are a host of other interrelated factors that influence this as well. But, I think the overall situation is best explained by the two points I have presented above.

Another explanation is the governance. American universities are governed by their alumni. It is alumni who care the most about quality since any reduction in their institution's reputation immediately reflects on them. It also helps
immensely with fund raising and money helps a lot with making a good university.
In other countries, it tends to either be the faculty or the government who govern and they have different motivations.

This is true for many private universities, but generally not US public universities.  For example, the Regents of the University of California, who are the highest governing body of the University, are appointed by the governor of California, who in turn is elected by the voters of the state.  Alumni don't have any particularly special role, except insofar as they can influence university administrators or regents.

"In other countries, it tends to either be the faculty or the government who govern" - even where that is not the case, I suspect "any reduction in their institution's reputation immediately reflects on them" highlights another difference: In countries where the idea of a ranking is not so prevalent, reduction in the institution's reputation will not immediately reflect on alumni. Unless there is a really scandalous discovery revealing a whole university as a fraudulent entity, it is not necessarily important where you studied as long as you got a specific degree in a specific discipline.

There is no simple answer. I would think that it is a system dynamic thing. Top universities have a tendency to be sinks for the resources. Best people want to work at the best places and they produce the best results. The resource pool in US is big and there is not much friction; it is also that the system is made easy for talented foreigners so the friction from borders is low.
It is also game-theoretic. Governments have their own objectives like producing educated work force, having equally good universities around the nation, and having relatively cheap specialists to do some research for them. If the universities are left free, they can optimise for the rankings. Trivially you get what you make. For a privately funded university the rankings are one of the best commercial. I remember reading about sensitivity analysis paper where Rockefeller University ranked high in some of those lists, but "low" on another. It is important to look into many rankings while trying to figure out "the true ranking".
US universities is not a singular educational system as in many nation they are; thus they can not be analysed as one. In general, US science has a really bad reputation in my country. It is a synonym for "lobbed click-bait propaganda". It can even be used as a counter-argument in a debate to nullify opponent's information. As such it is often attached the name of the US university as a source, if the university is a respectable one. It is a custom to reference the source somehow, often nations or capitals are appropriate in a public debate because the source needs to say something for the audience. US is shunned more than an unknown researcher.

Many of the top US universities are public schools with public mandates.

I am probably biased, but if I have understood it right they have no similar automatic funding system with the ministry of education. At least to a degree where the education is free for the students. If I made a correction  I should probably write privately funded?

It varies widely by institution and state. Public universities are funded at the state level, and we have 50 states in the US. When I went to undergrad (2004) roughly 2/3rds of the cost of my education was provided by the state, and I made up the difference in tuition. At other places and times those numbers might be very different, with the students paying most of the cost of their education. I think the best edit you could make would be to not imply that all US universities are either public or private.

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What did Grothendieck mean by "the capacity to be alone" in the context of mathematical research?
I'm confused about a statement Alexander Grothendieck made in his book Récoltes et semailles.

In fact, most of these comrades whom I gauged to be more brilliant
than me have gone on to become distinguished mathematicians. Still
from the perspective or thirty or thirty five years, I can state that
their imprint upon the mathematics of our time has not been very
profound. They’ve all done things, often beautiful things, in a
context that was already set out before them, which they had no
inclination to disturb. Without being aware of it, they’ve remained
prisoners of those invisible and despotic circles which delimit the
universe of a certain milieu in a given era. To have broken these
bounds they would have to rediscover in themselves that capability
which was their birthright, as it was mine: The capacity to be alone.

Why did Grothendieck say “the capacity to be alone,” and how does this phrase apply to researchers?

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As this is a translation, the words "capacity to be alone" may not be the best way to phrase it. Perhaps this is a more literal translation, but from context I might write it as "independence".
He is saying that other people who he perceived as more capable individuals ("more brilliant than" he) as researchers were successful, and yet were constrained by doing work similar to others. Perhaps they worked on incremental solutions to problems within a general framework in the research community.
He implies that the status quo ("invisible and despotic circles which delimit the universe of a certain milieu") is a constraint on creative work.
He is suggesting that his own impact has been more profound or more revolutionary because he has been able to be more independent from others, to make his own path either in the problems he approached or in the solutions he found, and that he thinks the other people he talks about would have had similarly profound impacts if they had been less focused on the work or opinions of others.
Who knows whether he is correct that this is how researchers should think, it's just one opinion. I think it's somewhat dangerous to assume that because an approach worked for someone that you should take their advice that it would work for everyone. There is a lot of survivorship bias in that those who go their own path but are not successful are seldom heard from - who would read their book?
I'm not a mathematician and am not familiar with Grothendieck's work. Just from his Wikipedia page it seems he became a bit reclusive and didn't engage with the broader community later in his career. From Wikipedia which talks about the work that you quote from:

In the 1,000-page autobiographical manuscript Récoltes et semailles (1986) Grothendieck describes his approach to mathematics and his experiences in the mathematical community, a community that initially accepted him in an open and welcoming manner but which he progressively perceived to be governed by competition and status

It could be that he misjudges the ways in which his earlier work that became so influential benefitted from that of others around him, and misjudges the profundity or impactfulness of the work that he later pursued in solitude. Just because someone has a genius in mathematics or any other field does not necessarily mean they are good at assessing the reasons behind their own success; self-reflection is an entirely separate skill set.
For what it's worth in contrast, another famous mathematician wrote, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants", which seems to be a bit of a different philosophy (though I may be treating Grothendieck uncharitably, as it seems his quarrel is less with the work of others and more with the academic establishment, but it still speaks to the value or lack thereof of independence/solitude in academic work). Google Scholar uses the motto "Stand on the shoulders of giants" in recognition and tribute to this sentiment.

Good answer! Grothendieck was an earlier generation’s Perelman: exceptionally brilliant mathematician, and incapable to handle his own life with one fleeing to his mother’s basement, the other into a life as a farmer recluse. You don’t want life advice from a troubled person, so you’re really spot on.

@gnometorule Indeed, if one hears from a world-famous athlete that the secret is "hard work and perseverance", it's fine to take those as necessary components of athletic success and motivation to keep to a rigorous routine, but foolish to take them as guaranteed sufficient for wealth and fame. Similarly, it seems worthwhile to take Grothendieck's advice that there is value in venturing outside mainstream thought to reach novel solutions, while shunning the notion that reclusiveness is the key to success.

Ahem, the "standing on the shoulders of giants" is a double-edged argument. Newton used that to put down Hooke, who was of small build and regularly accused Newton of stealing his ideas. It sounds modest, but actually is quite a vicious (and funny) put-down.

I think you read some things in his words that are not there. I don't think what he says is at odds with the sentiment of 'standing on the shoulders of giants'. Having dabbled in obscure math myself, it is a very lonely subject to begin with. But if you do try to do something genuinely new, you will literally have nobody to talk to it about; perhaps for decades. The reality is that it is only after your new ideas are established, anyone else will take the time to even consider them.

Most, me included, dont have the stomach for that kind of chicken-egg dynamic, and would prefer to stay within the confines of more recognized domains. Its much psychologically easier to work on continuations of problems your peers worked on, which has associated conferences you can go to, and others to pat you on the back about, than it is to do something truly novel. All of that is true regardless of the respect you have for the shoulders you stand on. Nor do I see him advocating this path; he merely notes that he is that exceptional kind of loner, with zero regard for social approval.

All indications are that Grothendieck did not lack self-confidence. Just as well, considering his harsh and unlucky childhood and life situation prior to academic mathematics success.
It's not really that he "created a new subject" (modern algebraic geometry), but, rather, apparently found a path (that others were also seeking) to revivify the subject. He did have J.-P. Serre's support by correspondence, which not all of us do. :)  Still, the homological ideas in his Tohoku J. article (in particular emphasizing sheaf cohomology as right-derived functors of the global-section functor) were not "entirely new", as Eilenberg and H. Cartan write their book at about the same time. As far as I know, though, the sheaf-cohomology idea was new, with Cech cohomology still a competitor into the 1960s.
A. Weil's 1949 "Foundations of Algebraic Geometry" was the main preceding attempt to rigorize (and extend...) the intuitive physical geometry of the Italian school from early 20th century. It did not seem to offer a good extension to deal with the Weil Conjectures, which Grothendieck had set his sights on.
He was evidently a forceful personality (I never met him) as well as a very good mathematician, and managed to persuade a small army of collaborators to work to implement/develop his vision.
At some point, evidently, he did become disenchanted with French academic culture... and "retired". To my mind, there is a considerable irony that the "establishment" he decided to disdain nevertheless supported him... and he apparently accepted most of that support.
Coming back to the specific question: I think it really amounts to a difference of taste. Grothendieck could not help himself but be rebellious, and disdained those who were not rebels. Oop, not counting the people who worked very hard to make his visions come to life? I myself am unsympathetic to this, but nevermind.
So, if we are to take it seriously, his claim was that those other talented people could have been as "great" as he, Grothendieck, if only they would have adopted his approach, instead of ... following their own?
At best, it seems to me that his remarks confound the institutions with the people.
EDIT: hoping to clarify, in response to some comments... First, I do not at all wish to diminish AG's rightfully earned reputation as one of the luminaries of the 20th century. But/and I would want to say that much of his legacy was, in fact, a team effort, with him as a/the leader. But, also, for sure, several or many other exceptional people "helped"! :)  This fact is not as often made clear in the heroic legends. AG can be a heroic figure without diminishing the other very, very good mathematicians who made huge contributions (if not quite in his style).
Although I myself may be a small-time iconoclast, one thing I've thought a lot more about in the last 10-20 years is to try to give credit where credit is due. And not just to the "top ten" or similar most-heroic figures. And, factually, as my own scholariship has improved, I've learned that lots of great ideas were already manifest decades or a century or two earlier... but somehow not necessarily achieving top billing in textbooks and other professional-cultural mythology.
In AG's case, I think the Serre-Grothendieck correspondence shows the scholarly inputs Serre provided AG, although it is not easy to see that reflected in EGA nor SGA. The style of the latter did not seem much concerned with bibliographic/historical completeness.
I do think that one part of the Bourbaki impulse was an instance of "shedding the past"... partly for good reasons, but, also, throwing some babies out with the bathwater.

I am always surprised about the level of criticism that is leveled at nonconformists who go a path alone, with self-confidence, especially in a topic like mathematics where individuals actually can change a topic profoundly. I learned of course a lot from the "good citizens" in my time, but received the most impactful insights that affected my thinking most I from the "rebels" in our department. Today, the fact that these people become "the nail that stands out" seems to provoke the collective impulse to hammer them back to level. Not that they would stand any chance in today's climate anyway.

Perhaps he resembled Godement? Godement made some remarks about some sources of funding, I think, in the introduction to Notes on Jacquet-Langlands Theory, and made other critical and provocative remarks besides.

Knowing how serious of a mathematician you are, I'm a bit surprised by how you seem to downplay the originality of G.'s work.  There are so many new amazing ideas in the SGAs and in his work in the 80s, for instance.  I don't see the irony either as a) he never returned to be a star in the math scene after leaving, even turning down the Crafoord prize, and b) his beef was with people he thought acted unethically, not the establishment intrinsically.  Anyway I don't understand the "confounding institutions with people" - what does this quote have to do with institutions?

Many of the responses here give correct answers.  They also explain that the view of this quote is not the norm, and that one shouldn't necessarily trust Grothendieck's advice based anyway.  I agree with all of this, BUT with caveats so significant I believe it deserves a separate response.
Caveat 1: He is not implying that one should reject other people in the field and not cooperate with them.
As a matter of fact, in the same text he talks about how almost all his first ideas in algebraic geometry were stimulated by Serre.  He was certainly no stranger to collaboration, and this is completely compatible with this quote.  Rather than explaining abstractly this compatibility abstractly, it may be more explain to learn how he allegedly worked.  In his IHES days, he would present his seminar once a week and follow it up with discussions. Sometimes he would also often invite others to his home to do math.  But on other days, he would work alone, often late into the night, to come up with the notions he would discuss with other mathematicians.
The most well-known example of this is the notion of a scheme.  This idea, or at least close variants of it, were up in the air at the time.  But how did Grothendieck know that the very foundations of algebraic geometry should be rewritten with them? (a truly gargantuan task)  According to this same text, he had to work alone, plumbing this concept himself to see this was the way to do it all.  Another concept, the "Grothendieck topology" generalized the very notion of a topology in a seemingly naive way.  But this was what was necessary to define etale cohomology, which led to the proof of the Weil conjectures.
For a more detailed discussion, see here.  It seems to me that whenever he did math, he had a grand vision.  This vision was certainly stimulated and enhanced by others, but it was something he could "see" on his own that was remarkably unconstrained.
Caveat 2: This quote is less a judgement of others than an expression of something personally important.
While this quote does indeed mention the impact of other mathematicians, I don't think that is the point of the paragraph.  If you read on, you will find that this section is about the "interior adventure", especially about his experience of mathematics.  He explains that for him, innocence and his ability to listen to the nature of things were the most essential traits to his success in math.  While this formulation may sound romanticized, the content seems sound to me.
The notion that other mathematicians would have gained from what he describes is, in my opinion, a valid one.  I believe most of the pushback against it comes from the fact that he is saying about himself, which may lead some people to associate it with arrogance.  As a matter of fact, I have heard people talk about how various fields could have used a Grothendieck without any controversy.
Caveat 3: Just as one should not accept advice just because it is from Grothendieck, one should not reject it just because it is from Grothendieck.
There are some rather disparaging comments in the other answers about Grothendieck as a person, and how we should not listen to his advice as a result.  I find this attitude very troubling for two reasons.
First, it is largely based on negative stereotypes that are absolutely false in this case.  I've even seen many of the concrete facts about him be twisted or even made up to promote this sensationalist archetype of a recluse mathematician who understands nothing but math.  Having read some of his later writings, I can confirm that such a depiction of Grothendieck is completely wrong.  For sure, some of the events in his life did superficially resemble the stereotype, but his philosophy and understanding of life are absolutely different.
Second, one should in principle not discount somebody else's opinion based on the person, but judge it on its own merit.  Just because someone was "troubled" doesn't mean that their view is worthless.  (Especially when the cause of much of the trouble was a perception of the coming environmental crisis, leading him to be one of the first ecological activists.) In fact, as Grothendieck possessed both a unique and a supremely educated perspective, one should not be surprised if he has interesting things to say.  At the very least, they will not be the same clichés that add no value.
Even in his writing outside of math, time and time again I have been amazed by how his perspective on a topic already accounted for my own.  Experiencing this is certainly startling when you expect to be the one assessing the supposedly crazy views of another.  His work is one of the very few that I have learned from upon reading multiple times, which is why I am very disappointed when people dismiss him based off of a stereotype.

This is maybe unrelated to the question you are asking, but if your goal is to glean life lessons about how to be a good and successful researcher, then Grothendieck is probably a flawed source. Brilliant mathematician: Yes. Role model: Hardly.

Can you explain why, for the benefit of those of us who are not in the in-group of people who are experts on Grothendieck’s life and work?

I read that as "role model: Hardy" and was wondering why :-) To be honest, considering Grothendieck as a model for mathematician is like considering Feynman as a model for a physicist. It's impossible to copy that style, because one has to have the talent, and if one had it, one would and could go one's own way, anyway.

@DanRomik I think it's fair to say that Grothendieck had mental health problems and led a lifestyle that would suit few of us. He resigned from his professor position at age 32 over political disagreements, largely withdrew from society, and spent the last 25 years of his life as a recluse in a mountain village, stateless and without citizenship. That's not a judgment, but it's also not a path through life that matches what many of us aspire to or dream about.

@WolfgangBangerth thanks. To clarify, I wasn’t suspecting you of being judgmental, I just thought the answer cannot be understood without this type of background info about Grothendieck.

@DanRomik Fair enough. I had already suspected that you weren't asking for yourself since I was pretty sure that you know about Grothendieck's life story through your job :-)

I'm disappointed that you say he's not a role model (in life), when he certainly is to many like me.  Your facts are almost all incorrect - he resigned from the IHES at 42, not 32, he did not withdraw from society then but was in fact a normal professor till about 60, and he was a French citizen for the last half of his life - but that's beside the point.  His commitment to his beliefs, his abundant generosity, the love he put into his work (not only in math) make him a unique role model for me.

Most of the great scientists and mathematicians work alone. The great Artist  Pablo Picasso says that “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.” And solitude refreshes body, mind and spirit.
Einstein says that the monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
Aristotle says that the man who is content to live alone is either a beast or a god.
Pereleman also says that I decided to work alone and I had no closed friends. Most of his papers are not collaboration with others.
Grothendieck want to say that in alone your creativity and imagination power  will increase. The more you are alone the more you have creativity power. This implies the meaning of capacity to be alone.
taken from this
Here is the outline of Grothendieck statement about alone

To state it in slightly different terms: in those critical years I learned how to be alone (*)

(*) This formulation doesn't really capture my meaning. I didn't, in any literal sense learn to be alone, for the simple reason that this knowledge had never been unlearned during my childhood. It is a basic capacity in all of us from the day of our birth. However these 3 years of work in isolation, when I was thrown onto my own resources, following guidelines which I myself had spontaneously invented, instilled in me a strong degree of confidence, unassuming yet enduring, in my ability to do mathematics, which owes nothing to any consensus or to the fashions which pass as law. I come back to this subject again in the note: "Roots and Solitude" ( R&S IV, #171.3, in particular page 1080).
By this I mean to say: to reach out in my own way to the things I wished to learn, rather than relying on the notions of the consensus, overt or tacit, coming from a more or less extended clan of which I found myself a member, or which for any other reason laid claim to be taken as an authority. This silent consensus had informed me, both at the lyé and at the university, that one shouldn't bother worrying about what was really meant when using a term like "volume", which was "obviously self-evident", "generally known", "unproblematic", etc. I'd gone over their heads, almost as a matter of course, even as Lesbesgue himself had, several decades before, gone over their heads. It is in this gesture of "going beyond", to be something in oneself rather than the pawn of a consensus, the refusal to stay within a rigid circle that others have drawn around one - it is in this solitary act that one finds true creativity. All others things follow as a matter of course.

Grothendieck himself later wrote
“I learned then, in solitude, the thing that is essential in the art of mathematics — that which no master can really teach”
it is in this solitary act that one finds true creativity. All others things follow as a matter of course.

"Most of the great scientist and mathematician work alone." While that may once have been true (questionable), it certainly isn't today. Even we mathematicians swim in wide collaborative circles and have done for at least half a century. The internet has accelerated this, of course, since one needn't go on a pilgrimage to work with others outside the home institution. My first graduate experience (fifty or so years ago) was in a collaborative research seminar led by one of the "great minds".

@Buffy How can the majority be great? By definition the vast majority are within 2 standard deviations of the norm (assuming a normal distribution of skill, aptitude, etc.). I think Grothendieck is referring to those outliers far outside the norm.

@MichaelZ, I don't understand whether your comment applies to mine. If so, I don't understand. But don't assume that there is a normal distribution in math skill/ability/etc.

@Buffy I think the standard assumption when talking about characteristics of large groups of randomly selected people is to assume a normal distribution. Of course in reality the group of all scientists and mathematicians may in fact be fat-tailed, bimodal, etc., though I’ve not yet seen any convincing reason to assume so and in any case should certainly not be the default assumption. The other alternative of not assuming any distribution at all, i.e. perfect equality, also seems absurd.

@MichaelZ, no, certainly not a uniform distribution, but the filter between the general public and published mathematicians is pretty severe.

@Buffy, Right, I’m focusing on the distribution of published, and soon to be published, mathematicians and scientists, which is presumably what he’s referrring to. The population of even this select group, at least in modern times, is more than large enough for statistical reasoning.

@MichaelZ, I don't question "statistical reasoning". I question an assumption about the nature of the distribution. Nothing more. Such assumptions are a common cause of research failure.

@Buffy What distribution do you believe to be more sensible to assume in this case?

@MichaelZ, I won't assume any particular distribution. Otherwise I'd be making the same mistake.

@Buffy How do you propose then to reason about the characteristics of a large group of people? Individual assessment?

@MichaelZ, hmmm, you can use statistics itself to measure the characteristics of a population, including its likely distribution. It is for much more than estimating means and variances of a known distribution. Don't take a naive approach.

@Buffy Regardless of how ‘much more’ knowledge can be inferred from a set of data, the basic information can still be relevant, and in all likelihood  needed, for practical assessment, unless they can be shown to be in error. To presume that some subset of information is automatically invalid or inapplicable is quite strange. If there’s a good reason to believe that a normal distribution does not apply, I would be glad to hear it. Otherwise the typical default would be that.

@MichaelZ, sorry, but you need to study statistics more deeply if you want to use it effectively.

@Buffy The line of reasoning I discussed and the commonly accepted practice, both still stand regardless of what you believe my statistical background is.

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What's the deal with grade inflation?
A while back, there was a question on here about plagiarism. One statement in particular struck me:

The foundation of academia is production and dissemination of knowledge [...] Likewise, since it is such a foundational and corrosive problem, an institution can be badly damaged by tolerating it or by gaining a reputation for tolerating it

It struck me because, having been a teaching assistant in graduate school has made me develop a type of Holden Caulfield-esque outlook on academia. I understand that certain societal problems are extremely complex and multi-layered but, I've seen a lot of things that have made me uneasy. These things are: grade inflation, revision of courses so that they will have a higher success rate, teachers not giving grades for the entire semester for coursework and so on. Therefore I ask; is reputation really so important to a school that things such as this are really necessary to improve the statistics in the school's favour?
In my university, there are students who, no matter how hard a course is, will thrive and those are usually the ones who tend to become good researchers. So by permitting the aforementioned practices are we "softening" our researchers?

Possible duplicate: Why does grade inflation seem to be so severe in the USA?

Somehow, I can only hear this title in Jerry Seinfeld's voice.

@aeismail That question was more about grade inflation at the high school level, while this question seems more about the undergraduate level.

Grades are like a currency. It is tempting for the managers of academia to improve grades as it is for central bankers to print money. On the long run, people learn not to do it, but the grade inflation phenomenon is relatively new, driven by the manager-style approach to academia and by political pressures. In the past, the academics were themselves concerned with upholding the quality of their education, and you could have failure rates of 70%-80%.

I am not sure that a failure rate of 80% says as much about the quality of the education as it says about a mismatch between what the students were producing and what was expected. "Grade inflation" certainly exists and is problematic, but some historical practices had their own problems (and the "good old days" are likely to be overly romanticized, as always). @Captain Emacs

@user119624 : I am not sure what you are asking, exactly. The question is obscured somewhat in your post. Could you clarify the specific question you'd like us to answer?

I am talking about my own experience, not about good old days. And it's not romantic if you are one of the 70-80%. But the education was by far and measurably stronger. The basic knowledge has gone objectively down.

Here's the thing: I like my students. (I'm talking here about the ones in the major that I teach: the ones I see in my intimate upper-division seminars.) I've watched them learn and grow, struggle and overcome, and generally develop into capable if young professionals.
And they are about to leave the nest. They are going to take their transcripts out into the wider world and compete with other students from other institutions.
But I teach at a small and unheralded place. How are employer going to judge these friends of mine? Unless the employer knows something about my department (most don't but we have a couple of local firm who come to us looking for our best) they're going to have to rely on grades and other "objective" measures to select the ones to be interviewed.
I'm pretty confident that my students can wow them once they get a foot in the door, but they have to get into that office. If the students from that school down the road have systematically higher grades then my people might be at a disadvantage. That's a problem for me, because I want to take care of my people.
So it's a kind of tragedy of the commons: it's in most people's best interests if grades are a honest measure of something, but it's in everyone's personal interests to cheat just a little, and it is very much in everyone's personal interests not to be the only one not cheating.

Note that I say "might be at a disadvantage" because hiring managers may develop a feel for the difference between a 3.5 at my school and one from that place down the road. If they hire enough people in my field. But most of them don't. That's why we have such success locally: these firms see our people as interns and they get a chance to become familiar with the quality of students we produce and with the faculty.
There are other limits, too. If you send some total nincompoop out the door with a strong GPA and a glowing letter of recommendation the employer who hires them is likely to develop a negative opinion of your institution. That puts a very really pressure on the cheating to hold it down to a small degree. At least if your reputation isn't so secure that you don't fear the damage done by a few bozos.

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Is it worth it to print a copy of the syllabus for each student or it is better to have it on my course's website?
This is a question that has plagued me for a couple of years now. Is it worth it to print a copy of the syllabus for each student?  Or, is posting it on my course website good enough?  My syllabus contains a good deal of information.  I have the homework schedule, online video schedule, office hour info, etc.  But, the class is close to 30 students.  And printing that many three page syllabuses seems extreme.  To make the question more specific, has anyone noticed that printing the syllabus has had a greater effect than not?
EDIT: In response to the comment below, all the students have access to free printing of the syllabus in any number of computer labs.

There are some factors that we don't know here: do all your students have easy access to a printer (technically or financially), how many of them own their own computers (laptop/tablet), …

For what its worth, as a student I expect to need to print the syllabus for myself. I am always surprised on the rare occasions when the instructor provides paper copies.

First, you should check that your school doesn't have a policy that says instructors must hand out a paper copy of the syllabus to their classes (those policies exist...). Second, you have to think about whether there is anything they need that you can guarantee they've read been handed (e.g., some laboratory students have students sign that they've read the syllabus, for safety reasons). If you don't have to hand out the paper, you should feel confident these days that they can get the syllabus on your class web page.
My current strategy is to forego printing the syllabus for large classes, but to explicitly email the class with a link to the online version (along with a very short introduction). If you want to ensure they get the syllabus, attach it to the email.
For small classes (<20), I have printed out a 1-page "highlights" of the syllabus (my contact info, address for the online version, due dates for assignments, etc.). I may not even do that any more, as I just figure the students are perfectly able to get the information online.
One more thing: on the first day of class, I do go over the important parts of the syllabus, and I also put a copy on the projector as I go over it.

I am so surprised that in 2013 some universities still force instructors to hand out printed anything. What is the justification for this? Surely there are plenty of students who will simply throw it away.

@earthling My guess is that when a student says "I didn't know about 'blah, blah' policy so I should get a better grade" and whines to the administration, they can say, "It was in the syllabus that you were handed on day 1." In the case of having signed safety forms, I imagine that's strictly for insurance purposes.

I know some here will consider this too extreme but I never print my syllabus. If I were in an area where students really had no reliable access to the internet then I might consider it.
Better to get students used to keeping things electronically (and save the environment one page at a time). Of course, some students will want it printed and they can do that for themselves.
I do NOT find that giving a student a printed copy guarantees they have read everything on it. I have read recommendations that teachers should not talk too much about their syllabus in class in order to encourage students to go get a copy and read it. I don't find that to be a good idea either. If there is something you want to make sure they know, by all means put it in your syllabus but actually discuss it in class. However, try to minimize the printing. It really creates a lot of waste.

+1 For I do NOT find that giving a student a printed copy guarantees they have read everything on it.

Poor argument basing your decisions around the environment (trees are grown to be cut and paper is biodegradable). Additionally, the notion that there is no guarantee does not address if handing out a copy increases the percent of students who are aware of your policies.

@Harrichael: Perhaps you are not considering unsustainable tree harvesting (clear-cutting) which is a serious environmental problem.


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Do professors recommend their students on LinkedIn?
Do professors recommend their students on LinkedIn? If they do recommend, isn't it considered a violation of FERPA?
Professors are typically required to recommend without fear or inhibition towards the student who he is recommending. A professor will be much more candid with his recommendation when his student waives his rights to see his recommendation. In that case recommendations on LinkedIn are probably a waste for academia right?
What would your opinion be on taking a letter of recommendation from a professor who has already recommended you on LinkedIn then?

Third, the letter of recommendation, when completed, becomes an
  education record.  Both the paper copy and e-file are education
  records… and it makes no difference where they are filed.  Since FERPA
  grants the student the right to inspect any education record, there is
  also an unwritten obligation to notify the writer of this right.
In this latter instance, the placement office, or student, should
  initially provide each writer with the knowledge that the student has
  either waived, or not waived, his right to subsequently review the
  letter.  This knowledge may influence what the writer includes in the
  letter.  It may persuade the person to whom a reference request was
  made to politely decline to write the letter.  Unfortunately, letter
  writers do not have the same rights that students have in the
  letter-writing process.

Therefore , students generally waive their rights to view their letters of recommendation. Now, when you post a recommendation on LinkedIn, it will be displayed(provided the student accepts the recommendation). This might actually influence the writer of the letter to write a more positive recommendation than intended for the the student.
Now, an influenced letter is probably a waste for academia right? Or for any kind of work at all?
And if a professor is candid in his LinkedIn recommendation and mentions the student's performance objectively(say perhaps about the student's grades) then it does become a violation of FERPA right?
This is what I'd like to ask Professors in Academia now: If a student asks for a LinkedIn Recommendation , will it hold any value?

Could you be more specific: in what way do you think it is a violation of FERPA?

I have, in the past, recommended students on LinkedIn, when requested by them. This applies, in particular, to PhD students shortly before or after their defense, who were looking for a position outside academia and in the private sector. In chemical engineering, the situation of that academics tend not to use LinkedIn for looking up/assessing prospective hires, while it is widely used outside academia (and I believe this is true of other fields).
For this reason, I maintain a small presence on LinkedIn myself, because:

This is one of the ways I can help (by networking and recommendations) my former students find a job, which is part of a PhD adviser’s responsibilities.
I might want a job outside academia at some point in my career, too!

Regarding FERPA compliance, I am not US-based so I have little knowledge about it. This webpage on “FERPA Compliance [for] Recommendation Letter Writers” implies that compliance mostly puts constraints on the content of the letter (which should not include “education records”).


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CV and PI for a Master in Germany
I recently finished Medical School and I'm interested in getting into a MSc program in Cognitive Neurosciences in Germany.
Regarding my CV, what should I emphasize? I only have two articles in press and another one is under review at a well positioned journal. However I am worried because I don't know if they are too few. Are publications determinant for a Msc program admission, or... are grades and research experience ( i.e. working at my Uni research lab) more important? Also, is teaching experience something important for admission?
Also, I spoke recently with a lady working at admissions in Berlin and she told me that in Germany, specifically for a MSc it is not necessary to contact your possible principal investigator before applying, because you choose your research group during the second year. Is this true? or should I contact a possible PI and ask him for admission before applying to the University?

What kind of degree did you get from Medical School? Grades are often most important, but since interpreting foreign grades is often difficult, they may pay less attention to this in applications from abroad. Two articles in press is very good. It's a better idea to contact the person coordinating the program rather than a possible PI.

Oh, ok, this will be difficult because I am form a non-US non-EU university. My grades are given in percentages 100% is the highest grade you can get. I got a 92% so I guess it is like a 1-1.5 in Germany or a 3.7 GPA according to university conversion tables. My degree is Medical Doctor, M.D. I hope this answers your question and thank you so much! I hadn't thought about contacting the program coordinator, I'm quite inexperienced in this.

Not sure because it's not my field of study, but for MSc admissions, you usually wouldn't need any publications at all, but of course they greatly enhance your application. And yes, you usually only choose the research group for your MSc thesis in the second year. You don't need teaching experience either, because you don't normally get a TA- or RA-ship with the admission, instead you're expected to self-fund.

If you're looking to work with a specific advisor from the start, have minimal coursework and have a RA-ship or TA-ship to fund you, you'd need to apply for PhD positions. But that's usually only possible with an MSc.

Most German students coming out of an BSc program will not have any publications at all. Most of our BSc programs are 3 year programs with a 3 to 6 months thesis at the end, which is not enough to get publishable research. And it's just plain not enough time to get something published if you are directly applying for a MSc. Getting a paper written and accepted on top of writing a thesis takes months. This is of course a generalization - but from the about 70 students that graduated with me (Biology), none had a publication at the end.
Teaching experience is also usually not necessary. MSc students only rarely have to teach anything, that's for PhD students/postdocs /professors.
MSc programs are also usually more general than you seem used to. The first year is taking courses, the second year is doing research and writing a thesis with a group you got to know in that first year. There is no need to get in contact with a specific professor before applying and they might not be able to help you have a successful application anyway. You might of course want to look around already so that you know there's a few groups you'd be interested in working with at the university you choose.
Publications and research and teaching experience are of course not a bad thing, on the contrary, they give you an advantage when applying and you emphasize them in your application . They are just not required because German students often don't have publications when graduating from their BSc programs. Grades are very important for universities here, in fact, when I applied for my MSc (which was 9 years ago, though, when Germany was just starting to switch to the Bachelor/Master model), they were really the only thing the admissions comitee looked at. The university website should tell you a bit more about what they expect, though.

In Germany, and Europe in general, MSc programs are separate from PhD ones, and if you are applying for an MSc program, a publication record is not necessary at all although it definitely would put you on edge over other applicants, especially if you are applying for a popular program!
Your GPA is important, and it sounds really good. What is really important though, is the course relevance. I would recommend you to check the courses of the program you are applying for and see what courses are required and if you have taken them as part of your BSc studies or somewhere else.


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Biology and Physics are to ‘the sciences’ as Fine Art and Theatre Studies are to what?
I am editing something and am trying to find an alternative to the phrase ‘the sciences and the creative subjects’, as the use of the latter implies that the former are not creative.
For context, we are discussing those university courses that will be hardest-hit by post-coronavirus social distancing/remote teaching measures due to their reliance on equipment and lab/workshop space.
Is there a generally-accepted term that we could use in place of ‘creative subjects’, meaning subjects like Fine Art and Theatre Studies?

‘Humanities’ is too broad;
‘Liberal arts’ includes most sciences;
‘Performing arts’ doesn't, to my mind, include Fine Art;
‘Artistic subjects’ maybe?; or
‘the arts’?; or
‘Facilities-intensive subjects’ is another possibility, but loses the artistic connection.

Per my sixth suggestion and Cell's comment, we ended up going for ‘the arts’.

To answer this question, we need to know what aspects of the "humanities" you wish to exclude.

I'm not sure I understand 'facilities - intensive' as making the distinction (given that you've chosen lab sciences). 'The arts' seems like a reasonable choice, no??

Maybe culture

@AnonymousPhysicist I want to exclude those humanities that do not require workshop space (fine art) or students' physical presence (theatre studies)

Engineering courses need workshop space and, in fact a lot of expensive equipment...

@Rumps You need to edit your question.  I doubt there is a word for that.  Poetry and sculpture are both fine arts, but only one uses a literal workshop.

Googling music + art + departments + college in the hopes of getting various combined descriptions (this is the reason for including "college") might lead you to some ideas. For example, there is Visual Arts and Music that might work, and if not, might be tweaked to work.

If you wrote "the arts" I would imagine those disciplines you listed.

"Fine arts" encompasses all of these. What you seem to mean by "fine arts" in your list are studio arts (painting, sculpture, etc.) but the performing arts (music, theater) are also fine arts. So "fine arts" includes "performing arts," not the other way around.

@Damila Interesting, although within the context of our university at least Fine Art is the name of a specific Bachelor's degree scheme.

Understood, but can a student get a BFA in music? theater?

@Damila At my (UK) university at least, you get a ‘Bachelor's of Art (BA)’ in all of those subjects (e.g., BA in Theatre Studies, BA in Fine Art, BA in Music), as opposed to a ‘Bachelor's of Science (BSc)’.

Ahhh. Maybe it's a UK vs US thing, or University specific. Cheers.

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Can I use Researcher in XXX as a job title instead of formal position?
I plan to apply positions after getting my phd degree. Between graduation and getting a formal job, I am going to use "researcher in xxx" as a job title. Actually, I plan to use it after getting a formal job as well.
I am going to use it on academic website, researchgate, linkedin etc. not on research papers.
Does it sound proper or weird?

What do you mean by “use as a job title”? Do not under any circumstances write factually incorrect things about yourself in your CV. So writing: “Job title: Researcher at xxx” is a big no-no unless you are employed and that is your your literal job title. Also be very careful about presenting yourself in a misleading (even if not factually incorrect in a technical sense) way. You don’t want people reading your CV to get the impression you are dishonest or having to struggle to understand what you are trying to say about yourself exactly.

I don't want to use "independent researcher". I want to be called "researcher". You are right though, people may misunderstand what I mean. It may be confusing whether I am assistant prof somewhere or independent.

I’m not advocating for you to refer to yourself as an independent researcher. Rather, I would recommend that you simply trust that employers understand that fresh graduates are sometimes unemployed for a time while they look for a job. There is no need for a title, just list your formal credentials, and if you want to tell more about yourself and what you’re doing, that’s probably more appropriate to do in a cover letter (or personal web page, GitHub page etc).

If you tell me "I'm a researcher in rocket surgery", I might think "oh, cool! where do you do rocket surgery?", and either asking you that question or looking more closely, if the answer is "Oh, you don't actually have a job doing that, you just say you do it..." I'm going to be a bit disappointed. That taste of disappointment will be left in my mouth after reading your CV. Do you want people reading your CV to be disappointed?
Stick to things in your CV that you can be proud of and defend. If you worked for several years independently and were productive (that is, you have publications or some other output you can point to as evidence you were productive), then I think that's just fine to label and refer to. Anyone can say they do rocket surgery in their garage; if anyone can say that, then it's not useful or meaningful to say, so don't bother.
If you've just graduated, you don't need anything in your CV to explain what you've done for the past couple of weeks, and labeling it something it's not just makes you seem fake or fraudulent. It would make me wonder what else in your CV is embellished. Stick to what you've actually accomplished, and be prepared to defend and explain everything in your CV to an interviewer that asks you about it. If someone will be disappointed when they learn more, leave it out.

Thank you for the answer. In rocket surgery or some other areas, you need some equipment or lab etc. But I am in social sciences, I don't need a lab or some equipments to do a research. I have plans what to examine after graduation. Even if I don't have a formal job, I continue my studies. Actually, I prefer to be called a researcher than an assistant prof or prof.

@merebec571 I don't think that's particularly relevant. If you're not employed to do research, you're not a researcher in the sense that most people expect the term to mean. You can't claim to be a farmer for tending a garden while you're between jobs. You can't claim to be a tutor for answering a question on StackExchange. You can't claim to be a political scientist because you Twittered a policy suggestion. If you do something reportably useful while you're independent, like publishing a paper, you can list that output.

I disagree with your thought. People are researchers if they make research in a systemic way. Even there is a term for this: "independent researcher". I just don't want to use independent before a "researcher". But as Don Romik pointed out people may misunderstand that I have an affiliation if I use "researcher" instead of "independent" or "assistant prof".

@merebec571 You asked if it would be improper or weird, I answered. If you wanted to just do it anyways, why ask? And yes, I understand the hesitancy to use "independent researcher", because "independent researcher" sounds a lot like "garage rocket surgeon": while there are indeed some productive independent researchers, most people who call themselves that are just simply people without a research job. I'll say it again: if you've produced, advertise what you've produced. If not, the title lacks any value, so why include it?

If you are unemployed, then for many purposes such as a stated "affiliation" in a paper submission, "Independent Researcher" is common. Adding the field is fine. For job interviews and such, the same should apply.
But, once you have an employer you will probably get a formal title and, for many purposes, it is that title you should use. Usually the company name is also included for reference purposes. "Staff researcher at IBM", say. And some of that may be contractual, a company requirement.
Informally, you can describe yourself as you like. I generally use "Retired professor of CS" for most things, but I have no more formal relationships.
Bottom line is that context matters, especially if you have a formal relationship to an employer.

Thank you for the answer. I am going to use my formal title on research papers. I think to use informal type on linkedin, reserchgate and my website. As I summarize my cv on these sites, my formal job title is presented as well. My introduction will be something like "Merebec571 is a resercher in XX" or "I am a researcher in XX"

Sounds fine. I don't predict any issues for things like linkedin.