The world’s top 30 most prestigious universities
09 May 2016
Reputation is everything
They say reputation is everything and this applies in education too. And a new list released by Times Higher Education ranks the universities around the world based on the opinion of top academics, who were asked to nominate the best institutions based on teaching and research. We count down the top 30.
Equal 30th – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US
Founded in 1867, this Illinois school has a long and celebrated history including 25 Pulitzer Prizes for its alumni. With a focus on innovative research the school has around 42,000 students, 20% of them hailing from all corners of the globe.
Equal 30th – Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
Founded in 1755 by Mikhail Lomonosov, the school boasts one of the biggest library systems in Russia, with over nine million books – two million of them in foreign languages. Which makes sense given each year the school enrolls around 4,000 international students from all around the world. It also has a whopping 10 Nobel Prize laureates.
Equal 30th – Northwestern University, US
Despite being based in Illinois, Northwestern also has a campus in Doha, Qatar. With around 18,000 students, the school enjoys a high student/teacher ratio of 12:8. They also boast a star-studded alumni including Emmy Award-winning television host Stephen Colbert, Gone Girl bestselling author Gillian Flynn, Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin.
29th – University of Washington, US
This University of Washington has three campuses that offer over 531 degree options across 294 programs, so the 44,000 students are spoilt for choice. The 700-acre campus is home to a highly respected medical school, training dentistry, medicine and public health to serve medical centers across the Pacific North West and Alaska.
28th – Duke University, US
Located in Durham, North Carolina, Duke University has just over 15,000 students. Sports and performance art both thrive at Duke University, which is a big player in athletics, football and basketball, and hosts more than 60 art events a year. Notable alumni include Apple CEO Timothy Cook and 37th President of the United States Richard Nixon.
27th – Kyoto University, Japan
Founded in 1897, Kyoto University is home to nearly 23,000 students with an impressive student/teacher ratio of 5:6. The school has state-of-the-art laboratories and research facilities allowing students to continue their research on major world issues like climate change and economics crisis. It is seen as one of Asia’s leading research-orientated institutions.
26th – National University of Singapore, Singapore
Founded in 1980, the National University of Singapore is relatively young compared with the other institutions on this list. Despite that, it still scored highly with academics. With just over 31,000 students enrolled, 34% are international. The school is well known for research strengths in engineering, life sciences and biomedicine.
25th – New York University, US
NYU, as it’s often referred to, founded in 1831 and located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood, is home to 42,000 students. Although it has a number of schools within the campus, the College of Arts and Sciences is the largest. The Tisch School of Arts is renowned for those interested in film or drama with A-list graduates including Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee.
24th – London School of Economics and Political Science
Of the 9,000 odd students at the London-based school, a whopping 70% are international. That’s probably because it’s heralded as a leading school for social studies. The most popular subjects include anthropology, criminology, international relations, social psychology and sociology. The school has also produced 35 world leaders and heads of state, and 16 Nobel Prize winners in economics, peace and literature.
23rd – University of Toronto, Canada
The Canadian school has the largest student population of the top 30 schools, with a whopping 66,000, with around 15% international. The school has a proud and long history of innovation and research. It was where Banting and Best first used insulin to treat diabetes and where Ernest McCulloch and James Till discovered stem cells.
22nd – Johns Hopkins University, US
The school, located in Maryland, was founded in 1876. With over 15,000 students, 23% are international. The university is known for its excellent medical program and research facilities and counts 36 Nobel Laureates among past and present faculty and students.
21st – Peking University, China
Located in the Haidian District in the western suburb of Beijing, the university is popular for applied sciences, social sciences, medicine and humanities with a large health science center. The school has around 40,000 students with a student/teacher ratio of 8:3.
20th – University College London, UK
Nearly half of the university’s 26,000 student population are international. The reason? The top-rated research programs draw in people from all corners of the globe. It has a student/teacher ratio of 10:7 and a female to male student ratio of 56:44 – which isn’t surprising considering it became the first university in England to admit female students on equal terms with men in 1878.
19th – ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland
ETH Zurich is one of the leading international universities for technology and the natural sciences, known for its groundbreaking fundamental research. ETH Zurich currently has more than 18,000 students from more than 110 countries, including 3,900 doctoral students. Previously 22 Nobel laureates have studied, taught or conducted research at ETH Zurich.
18th – Tsinghua University, China
Established in 1911, but founded as a university in 1928, this school has grown at a remarkable pace. With just under 40,000 students, it has faculties in science, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, education and art to name a few. The location of the school is pretty impressive too, situated on the former imperial gardens of the Qing Dynasty and surrounded by a number of historical sites in Beijing.
17th – Cornell University, US
This private Ivy League school is home to 21,000 students. Founded in 1865, the school, although based in Ithaca, New York, has a medical college in Doha, Qatar and a base in Rome for students to study art. The school boasts a number of firsts including awarding the world’s first degree in journalism. There are also 45 Nobel laureates affiliated with Cornell alumni.
16th – University of Pennsylvania, US
Penn is one of the oldest schools on the list, founded in 1740 by Benjamin Franklin. Given its long history it’s not surprising the school is home to a bunch of notable “first” landmarks including the country’s first student union, double-decker college football stadium, and the world’s first collegiate business school – The Wharton School. It currently has 20,000 students and a student/teacher ratio of 6:5.
15th – Imperial College London, UK
Of the Imperial College’s 15,000 student population, over half are international. Students at this inner-city school also enjoy a student/teacher ratio of 11:7. The school focuses entirely on science, medicine, engineering and business and boasts 14 Nobel prizes – including Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin – and 81 Fellowships from the Academy of Medical Sciences.
14th – University of Michigan, US
If you enroll at this school, don’t be surprised if you bump into a famous face or two among the 41,000-strong student body. The alumni is packed with celebrities including actress Lucy Lui, NFL football star Tom Brady and Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps.
13th – University of California, Los Angeles, US
Often referred to as UCLA, this school is known for its high quality libraries and laboratories. The prestigious school, which has 38,000 students, consistently ranks highly across all of its graduate programs and that’s probably down to the expert teaching – the faculty include seven Nobel Laureates, 225 members of the Academy of Arts & Sciences and 87 members of the National Academy of Engineering.
12th – University of Tokyo, Japan
Established in 1877 UTokyo, as it’s often referred to, was the first national university in Japan. Here, every student enrolled in the four-year undergraduate program is required to complete the school’s two-year unique liberal arts course before deciding on a major. The school believes this gives its 26,000 students the right base for their future.
11th – University of Chicago, US
Founded in 1980 by John D. Rockefeller this school is steeped in history. Located in Chicago’s picturesque Hyde Park, the university is renowned for its highly ranked Booth School of Business, Pritzker School of Medicine and Harris School of Public Policy Studies. The institution has a student/teacher ratio of 6:9 and 89 Nobel Prize winners to its name, six of which are currently employed there.
10th – California Institute of Technology, US
Located in Pasadena, the private school is the smallest on the list with just over 2,200 students and specializes in science and engineering. It’s home to some seriously impressive labs including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, founded by Caltech in the 1930s and managed for NASA since 1958, and the Caltech Seismological Laboratory which has been internationally recognized for excellence in geophysical research.
9th – Columbia University, US
Founded in 1754 as the King’s College by Royal Charter of King George II of England, this Ivy League school is one of the oldest in the US. As well as the Manhattan campus, Columbia also has the Nevis Laboratories, a center for the study of high-energy experimental particle and nuclear physics in Irvington, New York, and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. The 25,000 students study across 20 different schools and have access to 23 libraries.
8th – Yale University, US
Founded in 1701, Yale’s Connecticut campus is home to stunning buildings that date back to the mid-18th century, it also houses the famous Peabody Museum of Natural History. Made of up 14 schools, there are nearly 12,000 students enrolled with one in five international. Yale has an endowment that exceeds $25 billion, making it the second-richest educational institution in the world. It’s educated five US presidents and has the third largest library in the world with more than 15 million volumes.
7th – Princeton University, US
The New Jersey-based Ivy League school is heralded for its beautiful campus spanning 500 acres and its high level of teaching. It prides itself on its research with connections to more than 40 Nobel laureates, 17 winners of the National Medal of Science and five recipients of the National Humanities Medal. Famous alumni include the US first lady Michelle Obama, Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
6th – University of California, Berkeley, US
Berkeley, a public university, is considered one of the most prestigious state schools in the US. Located in San Francisco’s Bay Area, the school enrolls over 36,000 students. Berkeley’s faculty have won 19 Nobel prizes, mostly in physics, chemistry and economics. The university also boasts an excellent sporting prowess. In the 2012 Olympics its graduates won 17 medals including 11 gold, one silver and five bronze.
5th – University of Oxford, UK
The University of Oxford holds the prestigious title of the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s second oldest surviving university. Located in the beautiful medieval city center of Oxford, it’s thought teaching took place as early as 1096. It has just under 20,000 students, 34% from overseas. While Oxford excels across many areas, the school is particularly sought after for its science programs and was recently ranked number one in the world for medicine.
4th – University of Cambridge, UK
The highest-ranking UK university on this list was founded in 1209 and comprises six schools: Arts and Humanities, Biological Sciences, Clinical Medicine, Humanities and Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and Technology. The institution, which has 18,000 students, is home to over 100 libraries – between them holding more than 15 million books. The school’s strengths are varied with 92 affiliates of the university having been awarded Nobel Prizes covering every single category.
3rd – Stanford University, US
Located in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, Stanford is known for its entrepreneurial spirit. In fact, companies founded by Stanford affiliates and alumni include Nike, Netflix, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Instagram, Snapchat, PayPal and Yahoo. And the alumni include 30 living billionaires and 17 astronauts! There are 15,000 students at the sprawling 8,180-acre campus which houses 700 major buildings.
2nd – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US
While MIT, as the school is commonly called, is home to five different schools, including humanities and architecture, it has a strong focus on science and technology. Scientific discoveries and technological advances accredited to MIT include the development of radar and the invention of magnetic core memory, which enabled the development of digital computers. The school currently has just over 11,000 students on its Cambridge campus.
1st – Harvard University, US
When it comes to reputation no one can quite match the prestige of Harvard. Dating back to the 1600s, the school is the oldest in the US. The private, Ivy League school in Massachusetts is spread over 5,000 acres and houses 12-degree granting schools, two theaters, five museums and the largest academic library in the world. The institution, which has 20,000 students, is brimming with talent, having connections to more than 45 Nobel laureates, over 30 heads of state and 48 Pulitzer prizewinners.
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