QS World Rankings 2019

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1
  1. MIT
  2. Stanford
  3. Harvard
  4. Caltech

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2019

2

The more “international” the university the higher the QS ranking so if Stanford lets in a lot more international students they could get to number one. Seeing this favors European universities (due to the international aspect of their student/ faculty) I’m surprised the top 4 are American universities at all. I guess it just shows how much better academically they are than the European ones.

3

This ranking, like most university rankings, leaves a lot to be desired. Most of the non-US schools are wildly overrated. Just follow the top graduate students or faculty. There aren’t many non-Japanese students or faculty at the University of Tokyo. Having said that, it is hard to argue with the top four. I don’t know which one should be number one and which number four, but they are in some respects the top four universities in the world.

4

Maybe

MIT+Harvard+Caltech > Stanford.

5

These world rankings are actually very consistent across all rankings (there are about 5-6 of them) including many non-US schools.

A couple of wildly over-rated universities are some of the ivies that do poorly in these numerous global rankings relative to their standing in USNWR (Yale and Princeton are good examples)