Cardiff is one of the top 200 universities in the world

Cardiff has been ranked in the top 200 universities in the world.

The ranking comes as a part of US News’ list of 2016’s Best Global Universities.

Swansea were 529th.

Flanked by our old rivals

One of the factors which contributed to Cardiff’s place in this apparently authoritative list was the number of conferences held at the university.

A factor which may seem important to academics bent on comparing their place of employment to that of their former colleagues or classmates, but unfortunately has no standing for those actually attending the university in question.

Likewise, the “Normalised Citation Impact” of a university is not something which most of us research when deciding on their UCAS choices.

Apparently our own contentment is no longer a factor when it comes to university rankings, and instead we should all be focusing on how better to improve our “Global Research Reputation” rather than how many drinks we can get for a tenner on a night out.

Cardiff is well known for being one of the best nights out, so where does that factor into our global positioning?

Honestly, where else could you see a parade of students using skateboards, trolleys, wheel chairs and scooters to get from pub to pub on a Tuesday night?

Not Swansea, that’s for sure.

You don’t get this in Swansea

Ultimately, the qualities that the US News believes are important are completely irrelevant to anyone who is actually attending university.

At least there is now further proof that Cardiff is, indeed, better than Swansea, now on a global scale.