THE World University Reputation Rankings 2025 OUT; Harvard University Retains Top Position
THE World University Reputation Rankings 2025 OUT; Harvard University Retains Top Position
In the latest, THE World University Reputation Rankings 2025, Harvard University remained at the top for the 14th consecutive year. UK's Oxford University is now the joint second.
Study Abroad: Times Higher Education has released the THE World University Reputation Rankings 2025 based on the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey which includes the responses from over 55,000 scholars globally.
Harvard has remained on the top for the 14th consecutive year and Oxford is now joint second. Tsinghua has also maintained its eighth position in world for academic reputation. There are various universities which have joined the top 50 most powerful university brands including Sorbonne University, KU Leuven, LMU Munich, University of Hong Kong, the University of Melbourne, and the University of Manchester.
The latest ranking has also shown that the universities can improve their reputation which is evident by the University of Helsinki and UNSW Sydney entering the top 100 this year. University of Helsinki was at the 81st position and UNSW Sydney at the 97th place.
Top 50 Universities In THE World University Reputation Rankings 2025
| Rank 2025 | University Name |
|---|---|
| 1 | Harvard University |
| 2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 2 | University of Oxford |
| 4 | Stanford University |
| 4 | University of Cambridge |
| 6 | University of California, Berkeley |
| 7 | Princeton University |
| 8 | Tsinghua University |
| 9 | Yale University |
| 10 | The University of Tokyo |
| 11 | Peking University |
| 12 | ETH Zurich |
| 13 | California Institute of Technology |
| 14 | Imperial College London |
| 15 | University of California, Los Angeles |
| 16 | The University of Chicago |
| 17 | Columbia University |
| 18 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor |
| 19 | National University of Singapore |
| 20 | Cornell University |
| 21 | University of Toronto |
| 22 | University of Pennsylvania |
| 23 | Johns Hopkins University |
| 24 | Kyoto University |
| 25 | UCL |
| 26 | University of Washington |
| 27 | Technical University of Munich |
| 28 | New York University |
| 29 | Duke University |
| 30 | University of Edinburgh |
| 31 | Carnegie Mellon University |
| 31 | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne |
| 31 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 34 | University of British Columbia |
| 35 | University of Texas at Austin |
| 36 | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| 36 | University of California, San Diego |
| 38 | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 39 | Nanyang Technological University, Singapore |
| 40 | Delft University of Technology |
| 41 | LMU Munich |
| 42 | King’s College London |
| 42 | Northwestern University |
| 44 | McGill University |
| 45 | KU Leuven |
| 46 | Sorbonne University |
| 47 | University of Melbourne |
| 48 | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| 49 | University of Hong Kong |
| 50 | University of Manchester |
THE World University Reputation Rankings 2025: More Details
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Stockholm University, and the University of York have climbed between 101-150 bands from earlier in the 176-200 band.
Those who have fallen out of the top 100 include Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Bauman Moscow State Technical University.
“No one can rest on their laurels for very long or they’ll be overtaken,” said Tania Rhodes-Taylor, executive director for communications and external affairs at King’s College London.
“Reputation used to be something that institutions didn’t talk about – it was seen as a bit cringe. But a top 200 placing – certainly a top 100 placing – in the rankings makes a huge difference to international undergraduate and postgraduate recruitment. In some cases, governments won’t sponsor students unless it’s a top 100 university,” she said.
"Why does Cambridge or Oxford finish in the top two for the UK most years? Some will argue it’s heritage or history but there is still incredible science happening there, plus there are entirely new things like the spin-outs from innovative research happening in those areas. Academics notice these things too, even if these don’t strictly fall into their subjects,” she added.
Timothy Devinney, chair and professor of international business at the Alliance Manchester Business School said, “For junior people who have no personal reputation, where they graduated and who were their advisers matters a lot and those individuals might want to go to a place where they can ‘borrow’ the halo effect of the reputation of the institution."
”If no one knows Jane Smith, she will probably choose Harvard over the University of Massachusetts despite the fact that U. Mass might actually have better scholars in her area. She knows that she probably can leverage having been at Harvard when she goes back into the job market more readily than elsewhere – in the same way you see people say they worked for McKinsey or Google even if they only had some short-term minor role," he said.
“It takes ages to build up a good reputation, but an institution can lose it very quickly if it takes a wrong turn. And it seems to me that shortage of cash has made a lot of UK universities take really serious reputational risks. admitting overseas students who aren’t qualified, or packing classes with people who aren’t competent or whose language skills aren’t good enough," he added.
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