Top Universities in the World 2019

Updated on Oct 12, 2018 - 8:59 a.m. IST by Shivani Bhatt

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Top Universities in the World 2019 – Students from the world over aspire to study at the top universities. International universities have also made provisions to cater students from around the world. More than 5 million students each year vie to join the

With nearly 5 million students jumping on the study abroad bandwagon, universities across the world are engaged in a serious competition to attract international students to their classrooms. World university rankings, in this case, are a major focal point around which international students are increasingly basing their decisions.

The top universities in the world 2019 are ranked based on various parameters by three major ranking agencies; Times Higher Education (THE), Quacquarelli Symonds(QS) and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The various parameters on which these ranking engines. ARWU ranks the universities on academic or research performance, including alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, papers published in Nature and Science, papers indexed in major citation indices, and the per capita academic performance of an institution.

The USA, UK and Germany are the countries with most universities in the top 200. USA tops the top universities in the world 2019 list with 48, 60 and 79 universities in the QS 2019, THE 2019 and ARWU 2018 ranking tables. United Kingdom being the close second with 29 universities in each in QS and THE ranking tables and 21in the ARWU chart. While Germany has the third highest number of universities according to the QS (12) and ARWU(14) rankings, Netherlands beats Germany in the THE ranking where it has 24 universities as opposed to 23 by Germany. China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong maintain their last years number in all the three rankings.

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Countries and their number of universities within top 200, 2018 – 2019

Country	QS			THE			ARWU
Country	2019	2018	2017	2019	2018	2017	2018	2017	2016
Top universities in USA	48	47	48	60	62	62	69	70	71
Top universities in Canada	7	7	9	9	6	8	9	8	6
Top universities in UK	29	28	30	29	31	32	21	20	21
Top universities in France	5	5	5	4	6	4	8	9	9
Top universities in Switzerland	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	6
Top universities in Germany	12	11	11	23	20	22	14	15	14
Top universities in Netherlands	9	10	12	24	13	13	9	9	9
Top universities in Denmark	3	3	3	4	3	3	3	3	3
Top universities in Italy	4	4	1	3	2	2	1	2	2
Top universities in Spain	3	3	1	2	2	2	1	-	1
Top universities in Ireland	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1
Top universities in Russia	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Top universities in Japan	9	9	8	2	2	2	7	7	6
Top universities in South Korea	7	7	7	5	4	4	2	7	3
Top universities in China	7	7	7	7	7	4	12	9	9
Top universities in India	3	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-
Top universities in Malaysia	2	1	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
Top universities in Singapore	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Top universities in New Zealand	2	2	2	-	1	1	-	-	1
Top universities in Australia	9	9	9	9	8	8	9	10	8
Top universities in Hong Kong	5	5		5	5		-	-
Top universities in UAE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

QS Ranking Methodology

The ranking methodology for the top universities in the world 2019 are different for different ranking engines. The most well known ranking methodology, the QS 2019 ranking uses six metrics. The metrics are:

Metric	Weightage
Academic Reputation	40%
Employer Reputation	10%
Faculty/Student Ratio	20%
Citations per faculty	20%
International Faculty Ratio	5%
International Student Ratio	5%

Top Universities in the World 2019 by QS

S.No	University	Country	QS Rank
S.No	University	Country	2019	2018
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	United States	1	1
2	Stanford University	United States	2	2
3	Harvard University	United States	3	3
4	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	United States	4	4
5	University of Oxford	United Kingdom	5	6
6	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom	6	5
7	ETH Zurich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology	Switzerland	7	10
8	Imperial College London	United Kingdom	8	8
9	University of Chicago	United States	9	9
10	UCL (University College London)	United Kingdom	10	7
11	National University of Singapore (NUS)	Singapore	11	15
12	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU)	Singapore	12	11
13	Princeton University	United States	13	13
14	Cornell University	United States	14	14
15	Yale University	United States	15	16
16	Columbia University	United States	16	18
17	Tsinghua University	China	17	25
18	The University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom	18	23
19	University of Pennsylvania	United States	19	19
20	University of Michigan	United States	20	21
21	Johns Hopkins University	United States	21	17
22	EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne	Switzerland	22	12
23	The University of Tokyo	Japan	23	28
24	The Australian National University	Australia	24	20
25	The University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong	25	26
26	Duke University	United States	26	21
27	University of California, Berkeley (UCB)	United States	27	27
28	University of Toronto	Canada	28	31
29	The University of Manchester	United Kingdom	29	34
30	Peking University	China	30	38
31	King's College London	United Kingdom	31	23
32	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)	United States	32	33
33	McGill University	Canada	33	32
34	Northwestern University	United States	34	28
35	Kyoto University	Japan	35	36
36	Seoul National University	South Korea	36	36
37	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong	37	30
38	London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)	United Kingdom	38	35
39	The University of Melbourne	Australia	39	41
40	KAIST - Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology	South Korea	40	41
41	University of California, San Diego (UCSD)	United States	41	38
42	The University of Sydney	Australia	42	50
43	New York University (NYU)	United States	43	52
44	Fudan University	China	44	40
45	The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney)	Australia	45	45
46	Carnegie Mellon University	United States	46	47
47	University of British Columbia	Canada	47	51
48	The University of Queensland	Australia	48	47
49	The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)	Hong Kong	49	46
50	Université PSL	France	50	355

Source: Top universities

Times Higher Education Ranking methodology

The Times Higher Education Ranking methodology for the top universities in the world 2019 considers five indicators teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income. Universities not teaching undergraduate courses are excluded from the ranking.

Times Higher Education Ranking methodology

Indicator	Weight
Teaching (the learning environment)	30%
Research (volume, income and reputation)	30%
Citations (research influence)	30%
International outlook (staff, students, research)	7.50%
Industry income (knowledge transfer)	2.50%

Top Universities in the World 2019 by Times Higher Education (THE)

S.No	Universities	Country	2019	2018
1	University of Oxford	UK	1	1
2	University of Cambridge	UK	2	2
3	Stanford University	USA	3	3
4	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	USA	4	5
5	California Institute of Technology	USA	5	3
6	Harvard University	USA	6	6
7	Princeton University	USA	7	7
8	Yale University	USA	8	12
9	Imperial College London	UK	9	8
10	University of Chicago	USA	10	9
11	ETH Zurich	Switzerland	11	10
12	Johns Hopkins University	USA	12	13
13	University of Pennsylvania	USA	12	10
14	UCL	UK	14	16
15	University of California, Berkeley	USA	15	18
16	Columbia University	USA	16	14
17	University of California, Los Angeles	USA	17	15
18	Duke University	USA	18	17
19	Cornell University	USA	19	19
20	University of Michigan	USA	20	21
21	University of Toronto	Canada	21	22
22	Tsinghua University	China	22	30
23	National University of Singapore	Singapore	23	22
24	Carnegie Mellon University	USA	24	24
25	Northwestern University	USA	25	20
26	London School of Economics and Political Science	UK	26	25
27	New York University	USA	27	27
28	University of Washington	USA	28	25
29	University of Edinburgh	UK	29	27
30	University of California, San Diego	USA	30	31
31	Peking University	China	31	27
32	LMU Munich	Germany	32	34
33	University of Melbourne	Australia	32	32
34	Georgia Institute of Technology	USA	34	33
35	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland	35	38
36	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong	36	40
37	University of British Columbia	Canada	37	34
38	King’s College London	UK	38	36
39	University of Texas at Austin	USA	39	49
40	Karolinska Institute	Sweden	40	38
41	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France	41	72
42	The University of Tokyo	Japan	42	46
43	University of Wisconsin-Madison	USA	43	43
44	McGill University	Canada	44	42
45	Technical University of Munich	Germany	44	41
46	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong	46	44
47	Heidelberg University	Germany	47	45
48	KU Leuven	Belgium	48	47
49	Australian National University	Australia	49	48
50	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	USA	50	37

ARWU Ranking Parameters

Top universities in the world 2019 as ranked by the Shanghai Ranking takes similar metric as the above two but the percentage of weight allotted to each is different.

Criteria	Indicator	Code	Weight
Quality of Education	Alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals	Alumni	10%
Quality of Faculty	Staff of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals	Award	20%
Quality of Faculty	Highly cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories	HiCi	20%
Research Output	Papers published in Nature and Science*	N&S	20%
Research Output	Papers indexed in Science Citation Index-expanded and Social Science Citation Index	PUB	20%
Per Capita Performance	Per capita academic performance of an institution	PCP	10%
Total			100%

Source: shanghairanking.com

Top Universities in the World - ARWU Ranking 2018

S.No	University	2018	2017
1	Harvard University	1	1
2	Stanford University	2	2
3	University of Cambridge	3	3
4	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	4	4
5	University of California, Berkeley	5	5
6	Princeton University	6	6
7	University of Oxford	7	7
8	Columbia University	8	8
9	California Institute of Technology	9	9
10	University of Chicago	10	10
11	University of California, Los Angeles	11	12
12	Cornell University	12	14
13	Yale University	12	11
14	University of Washington	14	13
15	University of California, San Diego	15	15
16	University of Pennsylvania	16	17
17	University College London	17	16
18	Johns Hopkins University	18	18
19	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich	19	19
20	Washington University in St. Louis	20	20
21	University of California, San Francisco	21	21
22	The University of Tokyo	22	24
23	University of Toronto	23	23
24	Imperial College London	24	27
25	Northwestern University	25	22
26	Duke University	26	26
27	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	27	24
28	University of Wisconsin - Madison	28	28
29	University of Copenhagen	29	30
30	Rockefeller University	30	36
31	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	30	33
32	New York University	32	29
33	The University of Edinburgh	32	32
34	The University of Manchester	34	38
35	Kyoto University	35	35
36	Sorbonne University	36	--
37	University of Minnesota, Twin Cities	37	34
38	The University of Melbourne	38	39
39	University of Colorado at Boulder	38	43
40	The University of Texas at Austin	40	51
41	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	41	37
42	University of Paris-Sud (Paris 11)	42	41
43	University of British Columbia	43	31
44	Karolinska Institute	44	44
45	Tsinghua University	45	48
46	University of California, Santa Barbara	46	45
47	Heidelberg University	47	42
48	Technical University Munich	48	50
49	The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas	48	48
50	Vanderbilt University	50	52