QS World University Rankings 2025: Top Global Universities, Methodology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Cambridge, United States

#1

100

Imperial College London

London, United Kingdom

#2

98.5

University of Oxford

Oxford, United Kingdom

#3

96.9

Harvard University

Cambridge, United States

#4

96.8

University of Cambridge

Cambridge, United Kingdom

#5

96.7

Stanford University

Stanford, United States

#6

96.1

ETH Zurich

Zürich, Switzerland

93.9

National University of Singapore (NUS)

Singapore, Singapore

93.7

University College London (UCL)

London, United Kingdom

#9

91.6

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Pasadena, United States

#10

90.9

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, United States

#11

90.3

University of California, Berkeley (UCB)

Berkeley, USA

#12

90.1

The University of Melbourne

Parkville, Australia

#13

Peking University

Beijing, China (Mainland)

#14

88.5

Nanyang Technological University

Singapore, Singapore

#15

88.4

Cornell University

Ithaca, United States

#16

87.9

The University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

#17

87.6

The University of Sydney

Sydney, Australia

#18

87.3

The University of New South Whales (UNSW Sydney)

Kensington, Australia

#19

87.1

Tsinghua University

Beijing, China (Mainland)

#20

86.5

The University of Chicago

Chicago, United States

#21

86.2

Princeton University

Princeton, United States

#22

85.5

Yale University

New Haven, United States

#23

85.2

Universite PSL

Paris, France

#24

84.7

University of Toronto

Toronto, Canada

#25

84.1

EPFL – École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

Lausanne, Switzerland

#26

83.5

The University of Edinburgh

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

#27

83.3

Technical University of Munich

Munich, Germany

#28

83.2

McGill University

Montreal, Canada

#29

83

Australian National University (ANU)

Canberra, Australia

#30

82.4

Academic Reputation

The highest weightage to determine the best university in the world is allocated to the academic reputation of the university. In doing so, QS University Rankings takes into account the expert opinion of over 100,000 individuals who belong in the higher education space and are involved with teaching and research quality at world universities.

40%

Employer Reputation

University education has always boiled down to the effectiveness of being eligible for the job market. Hence, employment reputation looks at how successful a university is in providing this preparedness to the student for the employment market. The data for the employment reputation is collated based on almost 50,000 responses to the QS Employer Survey conducted by QS University Rankings. The QS Employer Survey asks employees to identify institutions from which they source the most capable, effective, and innovative graduates.

10%

Faculty/Student Ratio

For students, teaching quality is one of the most important determinants when choosing universities. Though it is extremely difficult to measure the same, however, QS University Rankings, believes that outlining the Faculty/Student Ratio provides an alternative to measuring teaching quality. This particular parameter takes into account the number of tutors or teaching professionals the institution can provide to students, as a higher number of faculty members per student would greatly unburden each individual academic.

20%

Citations per faculty

If teaching is important to establish university credentials so is research output. At QS University Rankings, university research quality is measured using the Citations per Faculty metric. The process includes taking the total number of citations received by all papers produced by a university across a five-year period by the number of faculty members at that institution.

20%

International Faculty Ratio /International Student Ratio

A highly recommended university comes with advantages, above all, it demonstrates the ability to attract international students and faculty from across the world, which suggests the strong international reputation the university enjoys. This particular parameter takes into account the global outlook that is essential for a university operating in the global education sector. Other factors that are calculated here are providing students with a multinational environment, exchanging best practices, and bringing about global awareness. The International Faculty Ratio and the International Student Ratio contribute 5% each to the total weightage of the QS World University Ranking.

10%