<p>These rankings are a couple of months old, but I think they are interesting, as they depart extensively from the US NEWS rankings. They are done by Britain's "The Times." The first list is their ranking of the top 50 North American Universities, whereas the second is the top 200 World Universities. The Methodology (as well as more rankings) can be found here: <a href="http://www.thes.co.uk/worldrankings/story.aspx?story_id=2025409%5B/url%5D">http://www.thes.co.uk/worldrankings/story.aspx?story_id=2025409</a></p>
<p>I can't get these lists as clear as I want them to be, but here they are nevertheless. If something is unclear, I will do my best to clarify it.</p>
<p>NORTH AMERICA:
Rank World Rank Name Country<br>
1 1 Harvard University US
2 2 Massachusetts Inst Technol US
3 5 Stanford University US
4 6 UC, Berkeley US
5 7 Yale University US
6 8 California Inst of Technology US
7 9 Princeton University US
8 11= Duke University US
9 14 Cornell University US
10= 17= UC, San Francisco US
10= 17= University of Chicago US
12 20 Columbia University US
13 24= McGill University Canada
14 26 University of Texas at Austin US
15 27 Johns Hopkins University US
16 29 University of Toronto Canada
17 32 Pennsylvania University US
18 36 University of Michigan US
19 37 UC, Los Angeles US
20 38= Univ of British Columbia Canada
21 42 UC, San Diego US
22 44 Carnegie Mellon University US
23 46 Northwestern University US
24 54 Boston University US
25 56 New York University US
26= 58= University of Illinois US
26= 58= Washington Univ, St Louis US
28 61 Purdue University US
29 64 Pennsylvania State Univ US
30 68 Massachusetts University US
31 71 Brown University US
32= 73= Rochester University US
32= 73= Univ of Wisconsin-Madison US
34 88= Washington University US
35 105= Virginia University US
36 109= Case Western Reserve Univ US
37 114= Vanderbilt University US
38 117 Dartmouth College US
39 121= Michigan State University US
40 124 Univ of Southern California US
41 125= Texas A&M University US
42 132 Universit</p>
<p>These rankings probably reflect graduate programs and research moreso than undergraduate education...</p>
<p>I like their list....looks like I'm making steady progress up the chain with each school I've attended/plan to attend (not that it matters or would change any decision of mine...)</p>
<p>Undergrad: ranked 193 world
MS degree: ranked 143 world
hopefully PhD.: ranked 73 world (2nd choice is ranked 48)</p>
<p>also...kinda weird they all end with 3's...does that mean I'll get into that program? ;)</p>
<p>Escape, definitely. I just think we're so U.S-centric (and heavily swayed by US NEWS' hegemony), that it behooves us to consider a second opinion. Graduate schools have a huge influence on a school's reputation, and usually have a positive affect on undergraduate education (research opportunities, larger and better facilities, prominent instructors, colloquia, access to graduate level courses, etc).</p>
<p>All the ranking systems should be taken with a grain of salt.</p>