Dive Brief:
- The QS World University Rankings has the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as its top school, followed by the University of Cambridge, the Imperial College of London, Harvard University, and University College London.
- The QS rankings assess 3,000 schools based on six criteria, with 40% of the scoring based on academic reputation, 10% on employer reputation, 20% each for faculty/student ratio and citations per faculty, and 5% each for international student and international staff ratios.
- Rounding out the top 10 in the rankings are the University of Oxford, Stanford University, the California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and Yale University.
Dive Insight:
When a college ranking is based largely on reputations, there’s little chance that it will contain any major surprises. All of the top 10 schools were in the top 10 last year. QS states that the point of its rankings is to help students compare their international options for universities. Those with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics enjoyed the most success in moving up in this year’s rankings, according to QS.