Students and UCT 'friends' on Facebook were certainly pleased with news of UCT's upward mobility on the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. "wow give it up to uct," said one. "that's wsup!," noted another. (We thought we'd stick to Facebook's typically laissez-faire house style.)

The university even earned a few words of praise from the writer of Business Day's Third Umpire column, who keeps track of what's 'in' (good) and 'out' (not so good). 'In' on 7 October was vice-chancellor Dr Max Price: "While even UCT takes its top place in the Times Higher Education magazine's World University Rankings 'with a pinch of salt'," noted the columnist, "at least it bothered to fill out the paperwork." (That, in part, was a gibe at Rhodes University, which had not applied for a ranking and whose vice-chancellor had, in another Business Day article, slammed rankings for their "dubious science".)

UCT gets a brief mention in the THE video on the rankings.