1.Oxford University
2.Cambridge University
3. Caltech
3. Stanford University
5. MIT
6. Harvard University
7. Princeton University
8. Imperial College London
9.University of Chicago
10. ETH-Zurich
10. University of Pennsylvania
12. Yale University
13. Johns Hopkins University
14. Columbia University
15. UCLA
16. UCL
17. Duke University
18. UC Berkeley
19. Cornell University
20. Northwestern University
Brown and Wash U at 50. Dartmouth at 89. Emory at 98. Vanderbilt at 105. Georgetown at 103. Notre Dame at 150… These are some big names in the US News rankings, but they never seem to get much respect in international rankings.
“that’s because the US tops the charts in elite education. But the Europeans and Asians have a more egalitarian higher education system.” LOL. Read about the trials of students trying for U of Tokyo. Oxbridge among the most elitist schools on earth.
@85bears46 I agree re Imperial College. But Oxbridge do deserve to be in top 10. Of course, any ranking that does not have Harvard as number one is inherently flawed.
It’s not a propaganda thing, but this ranking does inherently favour British (and other European) colleges over American ones. The key is the “international outlook” metric: “This takes into account a university’s proportions of international students, international staff and journal publications with at least one international co-author.”
American students and especially faculty are far less diverse in terms of nationality than European ones, and mostly just because European countries are smaller and (for now) there is free movement in the EU. It’s quite noticeable that European academic departments are far more international than US ones.
Whether this should count at all I’m not sure, but it certainly gives an artificial boost to smaller countries in these rankings.
From today’s WSJ, a couple of interesting tidbits:
“The ascendance of Oxford and Cambridge comes after years of increases in research revenue—but much of that money, as well as the researchers who use it, come from the European Union. Britain’s decision to withdraw from the EU has thrown that revenue source into question.”
"The rise of Chinese universities also comes as the Chinese Communist Party has invested heavily in research universities. Elizabeth Perry, a professor at Harvard and expert on China, said the Chinese are actively “gaming” the system.“They are hiring an army of postdocs whose responsibility is to produce articles,” she said. “They are changing the nature of a university from an educational institution to basically a factory that is producing what these rankings reward.”
3 California Institute of Technology
3 Stanford University
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
6 Harvard University
7 Princeton University
9 University of Chicago
10 University of Pennsylvania
12 Yale University
13 Johns Hopkins University
14 Columbia University
15 University of California, Los Angeles
17 Duke University
18 University of California, Berkeley
19 Cornell University
20 Northwestern University
21 University of Michigan
24 Carnegie Mellon University
25 University of Washington
27 New York University
31 University of California, San Diego
33 Georgia Institute of Technology
37 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
43 University of Wisconsin-Madison
49 University of Texas at Austin
50 Brown University
50 Washington University in St Louis
@i012575 China can top any chart it wants. It will never be as desirable a place for students as any leading US or UK school. Moreover, the overwhelming Chinese who are able and qualify move heaven and earth to gain admissions to top US and UK schools.
@Chrchill That’s not quite true about many Chinese students. Many of the very top students who gain admission to the most competitive public universities wish to stay there. Going overseas is an option for many students who are rich but don’t do quite well enough in the national college entrance exam.
Please read the methodology. research is the dominant criterion. The ranking says nothing about selectivity or student life at the undergraduate level.