This paper is concerned with Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWUs) which have been published on the web most recently and have attracted wide attantion. One of these systems developed by academics at the Institute of Higher Education of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, is discussed in detail. Ranking methodology, a portion of the complete list of the top 500 universities and the statistics of the rankings are described. Some inherent major methodological and technical problems of this procedure are highlighted. Statistical arguments are proposed also for simplifying this ranking system by using the stepwise multiple linear regression method.
