ETH Zürich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland
University of Chicago, US
Johns Hopkins University, US
Yale University, US
University of California, Berkeley, US
University College London, UK
Columbia University, US
University of California, Los Angeles, US
University of Pennsylvania, US
Cornell University, US
University of Toronto, Canada
Duke University, US
Also of note:
21. Michigan
22. Carnegie Mellon
25. Northwestern
30. NYU
32. University of Washington
36. UIUC
39. UCSD, UCSB
41. Georgia Tech
44. UCD
46. UT Austin
50. U of Wisconsin-Madison
51. Brown
60. Washington Univ. in St. Louis
63. UNC - Chapel Hill
64. Boston U.
65. University of MN
68. USC
75. Penn State
79. Univ. of Pittsburg
90. Emory, Ohio State
94. Georgetown
99. Michigan State
101. Rice
Conspicuously absent from the top 100: UVA and Dartmouth. Overall our state universities are well ranked.
Looks like Dartmouth just missed at 104 (41 in U.S.), and UVA was 147 (53 in U.S.). “Research volume” and “citation influence” can help explain Dartmouth (and others like Notre Dame), but UVA is a surprise, given the number of state universities on the list.
According to THE, its methodology measures thirteen performance indicators grouped into five areas:
Teaching: the learning environment (30%)
Research: volume, income and reputation (30%)
Citations: research influence (30%)
Industry income: innovation (2.5%)
International outlook: staff, students and research (7.5%)
These ingredients, cooked at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, produces the following U.S. Top 50:
1 California Institute of Technology
2 Stanford University
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
4 Harvard University
5 Princeton University
6 University of Chicago
7 Johns Hopkins University
8 Yale University
9 University of California, Berkeley
10 Columbia University
11 University of California, Los Angeles
12 University of Pennsylvania
13 Cornell University
14 Duke University
15 University of Michigan
16 Carnegie Mellon University
17 Northwestern University
18 New York University
19 University of Washington
20 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
21 University of California, San Diego
21 University of California, Santa Barbara
23 Georgia Institute of Technology
24 University of California, Davis
25 University of Texas at Austin
26 University of Wisconsin-Madison
27 Brown University
28 Washington University in St Louis
29 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
30 Boston University
31 University of Minnesota
32 University of Southern California
33 Pennsylvania State University
34 University of Pittsburgh
35 Vanderbilt University
36 Emory University
36 Ohio State University
38 Georgetown University
39 Michigan State University
40 Rice University
41 Dartmouth College
42 University of California, Irvine
43 University of Notre Dame
44 Purdue University
45 University of Maryland, College Park
46 University of Florida
47 Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
48 University of Colorado Boulder
49 Tufts University
50 Case Western Reserve University
Purdue is another big surprise. You would think with its reputation in engineering, it would rank higher. I like this criteria far better than what’s used in USNews. Also this means the top 5 public universities in the US are:
But for most undergraduates outside of STEM fields research volume and citations has little relevance. Many of the top 50 North American universities on the list have freshman classes of 600 plus students and undergrads are relegated to second class status in favor of grad students and research.