Studying abroad: world’s top universities

Getting ready to study abroad? You probably noticed choosing the right university can be challenging. Every year, various world university rankings are published. Picking a higher education institution abroad isn’t only about checking the list of world’s top universities. Nevertheless, rankings do help you find out how well renowned a university is. According to most rankings, the best universities in the world are in the United States or in the United Kingdom. Spotlight on international rankings and their criteria.

3 major world universities rankings

There are three famous world university rankings, which are published annually:

the QS World University Rankings, which ranks 800 universities,
the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, which compares 400 institutions,
the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), which compares the performances of 500 universities.

Methodologies vary and there sometimes are major differences from one ranking to another.

The world’s top 15 universities

Though the rankings are different, the same higher education institutions often appear in the world’s top 15 universities. And the winners are… the American universities!

QS World University Rankings

Rank	University	Country
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	USA
2	Harvard University	USA
3	University of Cambridge	UK
3 bis	Stanford University	USA
5	California Institute of Technology	USA
6	University of Oxford	UK
7	UCL (University College London)	UK
8	Imperial College London	UK
9	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	Switzerland
10	University of Chicago	USA
11	Princeton University	USA
12	National University of Singapore (NUS)	Singapore
13	Nanyan Technological University (NTU)	Singapore
14	EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)	Switzerland
15	Yale University	USA

Times Higher Education World University Rankings

Rank	University	Country
1	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	USA
2	Harvard University	USA
3	University of Oxford	UK
4	Stanford University	USA
5	University of Cambridge	UK
6	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	USA
7	Princeton University	USA
8	University of California, Berkeley	USA
9	Imperial College London	UK
9 bis	Yale University	USA
11	University of Chicago	USA
12	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)	USA
13	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	Switzerland
14	Columbia University	USA
15	John Hopkins University	USA

Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities

Rank	University	Country
1	Harvard University	USA
2	Stanford University	USA
3	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	USA
4	University of California, Berkeley	USA
5	University of Cambridge	UK
6	Princeton University	USA
7	California Institute of Technology	USA
8	Columbia University	USA
9	University of Chicago	USA
10	Oxford University	UK
11	Yale University	USA
12	University of California, Los Angeles	USA
13	Cornell University	USA
14	University of California, San Diego	USA
15	University of Washington	USA

University ranking criteria

Can one really compare institutions from all over the world when university systems vary widely from one country to another? International university rankings are sometimes criticized because of their possible lack of objectivity and completeness. To get ready to study abroad, use these rankings wisely! What are the criteria for comparing universities?

QS ranking criteria	Times Higher Education ranking criteria	ARWU ranking criteria
Academic reputation	Teaching: learning environment	Quality of education
Employer reputation	Research: volume, income & reputation	Quality of faculty
Raculty/student ratio	Citations: research influence	Research output
Citations per faculty	Industry income: innovation	Per capita performance
International staff radio	International outlook : staff, students & research
International student radio

To find out more about the world’s best universities:

Take a look at the full rankings: QS rankings, Times Higher Education rankings, ARWU.

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