Top three universities overall in the world

College Search & Selection
1

<p>What are considered to be the top three universities (considering everything: undergraduate college, graduate programs, professional schools) in the world?</p>

<p>I think the top 2 are very clear.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Harvard (top in everything but engineering, #1 undergraduate college in the US, #1 business school, #1 medical school, #2 law school, top MA and PhD programs in every area except engineering)</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford (#1 business school, #3 law school, #2 school of engineering, top 5 undergraduate college, top MA and PhD programs in everything area)</p></li>
<li><p>Berkeley or Cambridge or Oxford or MIT or Yale or UChicago</p></li>
</ol>

2

<p>I wouldn’t put a state school like Berkeley anywhere near the other choices you have. Except for that, I would flip three with two.</p>

3

<p>I’m probably wrong, but I always considered Oxford to be #1</p>

4

<p>^Oxford is not academically the best school in the world. A combination of prestige +academics would perhaps make it sneak into the top 5. In fact, I believe Cambridge excels Oxford in most subjects.</p>

5

<p>This is perhaps cheating a bit, as I’m combining a few…but in no particular order:</p>

<p>1) Harvard
2) Berkeley/UCSF
3) Oxford & Cambridge</p>

<p>Berkeley and UCSF have enough collaboration for me to lump them together for this thread; certainly they’re a lot closer to each other physically than, say, Cornell is to its med school in NYC. </p>

<p>Oxford and Cambridge can be lumped together because they’re mostly interchangeable. Students can only apply to one of the two, so they share no cross-admits.</p>

<p>Reasons for excluding others:
[ul][<em>]Yale - not quite as strong as the others
[</em>]Stanford - not as strong in the humanities as the others
[<em>]Chicago - no engineering
[</em>]Princeton - no professional schools
[li]MIT/Caltech - not well-rounded enough[/ul]</p>[/li]
<p>

Cambridge and Oxford are also public. Most universities elsewhere in the world are.</p>

6

<p>^^^ interesting combination.</p>

<p>1, Harvard
2, Stanford
these are the only 2 well-rounded universities on this planet. (undergraduate + graduate + professional schools)</p>

<p>3, ?</p>

7

<p>A lot of the ranking of world universities are focused on research or quality of MA/PhD programs. None, as far as I know, rank an university based on a combination of the undergraduate college, MA/PhD programs, and professional schools.</p>

<p>Stanford is quite strong in the humanities as well. It ranks as such in the humanities according to US News:</p>

<h1>1 in History</h1>

<h1>1 in Political Science</h1>

<h1>2 in English</h1>

<p>Oxford is on par with Harvard, Stanford, UChicago, etc. in terms of quality of MA and PhD programs, but I think Oxford (and Cambridge) trails overall because they trail in the area of professional schools.</p>

8

<p>

You don’t think Oxbridge have strong programs in medicine and law?</p>

9

<p>This is tough, but I would go: Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge.</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>nah there are others, albeit none quite as extra-ordinary, but columbia, michigan, uchicago (without engineering school), upenn and cal (without med school) all qualify here. Harvard’s engineering school is tiny.</p>

11

<p>My list would be Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford although the differences between what I think are the third, fourth and fifth best schools are marginal.</p>

12

<p>^ Good choices. :)</p>

13

<p>

With the exception of English, US News ranks no humanities programs. Glancing over the NRC rankings, you’ll see that Stanford has some weaknesses there - art history (#14), classics (#16), religious studies (#19), etc. </p>

<p>Berkeley, on the other hand, has 35 of its 36 PhD programs ranked in the top 10 (the 36th is #12), law is top 10, business is top 10, and medicine (by my lumped list) is top 5. Virtually no weaknesses whatsoever.</p>

<p>Stanford easily belonged in my list of the top 5 universities in the world recently. Top 3, I’m not quite so sure.</p>

<p>

Of course not! They don’t do engineering either. They just produce authors and royalty. Everyone knows that! ;)</p>

14

<p>Yes, Berkeley’s graduate schools certainly do very well in the rankings.</p>

15

<p>… but Berkeley is a state school so that disqualifies it automatically!</p>

16

<p>

</p>

<p>2,000 academics do:
PA Score, School:
4.9, Harvard
4.9, Stanford
4.7, Berkeley</p>

<p>NRC Non-Zero Score Rating: [NRC</a> Rankings](<a href=“http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html]NRC”>NRC Rankings)
MIT, 8.7
Berkeley, 8.5
Harvard, 8.2</p>

<p>Average of all 41 Programs:
Stanford, 7.76
Berkeley, 7.46
…</p>

<p>National Academy of Engineering Members:
MIT, 113
Stanford, 92
Berkeley, 78</p>

<p>National Academy of Science Members:
Harvard, 148
Berkeley, 130
Stanford, 124</p>

<p>ARWU Ranking of World Universities:
2009 Overall Rank: [ARWU</a> 2009](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009.jsp)

  1. Harvard
  2. Stanford
  3. Berkeley
  4. Cambridge</p>

<p>Natural Sciences and Math: [ARWU</a> FIELD 2009 Natural Sciences and Mathematics](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/FieldSCI2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/FieldSCI2009.jsp)

  1. Harvard
  2. Berkeley
  3. Princeton
  4. Cambridge</p>

<p>Engineering/ Technology: [ARWU</a> FIELD 2009 Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/FieldENG2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/FieldENG2009.jsp)

  1. MIT
  2. Stanford
  3. UIUC
  4. Berkeley</p>

<p>Mathematics: [ARWU</a> SUBJECT 2009 Mathematics](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/SubjectMathematics2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/SubjectMathematics2009.jsp)

  1. Princeton
  2. Berkeley
  3. Harvard</p>

<p>Physics: [ARWU</a> SUBJECT 2009 Physics](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/SubjectPhysics2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/SubjectPhysics2009.jsp)

  1. Harvard
  2. MIT
  3. Caltech
  4. Princeton
  5. Berkeley</p>

<p>Chemistry: [ARWU</a> SUBJECT 2009 Chemistry](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/SubjectChemistry2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/SubjectChemistry2009.jsp)

  1. Harvard
  2. Berkeley
  3. Cambridge
  4. Stanford</p>

<p>Computer Science: [ARWU</a> SUBJECT 2009 Computer Science](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/SubjectCS2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/SubjectCS2009.jsp)

  1. Stanford
  2. MIT
  3. Berkeley</p>

<p>Economics/Business: <a href=“http://www.arwu.org/SubjectEcoBus2009.jsp[/url]”>http://www.arwu.org/SubjectEcoBus2009.jsp&lt;/a&gt;

  1. Harvard
  2. Chicago
  3. MIT
  4. Columbia
  5. Stanford
  6. Berkeley</p>

<p>

Obviously you are a very rational and logical person… ;)</p>

17

<p>GoBlue81-Being public doesn’t mean anything at all, since we are talking about the school as a whole (not just undergrad). Oxbridge are public as well. I do think Oxbridge have strong program in law and perhaps medicine, but their professional schools (considering medicine, business, law, engineering…) are not as strong as Harvard’s or Stanford’s.</p>

18

<p>GoBlue was being sarcastic.</p>

19

<p>Hey, according to topuniversities.com (not the most reliable source, I know, but it works)</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Cambridge University</li>
<li>Yale </li>
</ol>

<p>[THE</a> - QS World University Rankings 2009 - top universities | Top Universities](<a href=“http://topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2009/results]THE”>http://topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2009/results)</p>

20

<p>QS World University Rankings 2009 is not a comprehensive ranking. It doesn’t take into account undergraduate programs and professional programs.</p>