QS World University Rankings 2026: Top Global Universities, Methodology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

1

100

Cambridge, United States

Imperial College London

2

99.4

London, United Kingdom

Stanford University

3

98.9

Stanford, United States

University of Oxford

4

97.9

Oxford, United Kingdom

Harvard University

5

97.7

Cambridge, United States

University of Cambridge

6

97.2

Cambridge, United Kingdom

ETH Zurich

7

96.7

Zürich, Switzerland

National University of Singapore (NUS)

8

95.9

Singapore, Singapore

University College London (UCL)

9

95.8

London, United Kingdom

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

10

94.3

Pasadena, United States

The University of Hong Kong

11

94.2

Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

Nanyang Technological University

12

93.7

Singapore, Singapore

University of Chicago

13

93.0

Chicago, United States

Peking University

14

92.6

Beijing, China (Mainland)

University of Pennsylvania

15

92.5

Philadelphia, United States

Cornell University

16

91.6

Ithaca, United States

Tsinghua University

=17

91.2

Beijing, China (Mainland)

University of California, Berkeley (UCB)

=17

91.2

Berkeley, United States

The University of Melbourne

19

90.8

Melbourne, Australia

The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney)

20

90.7

Sydney, Australia

Yale University

21

90.4

New Haven, United States

EPFL – École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

=22

90.2

Lausanne, Switzerland

Technical University of Munich

=22

90.2

Munich, Germany

Johns Hopkins University

24

89.7

Baltimore, United States

Princeton University

=25

89.4

Princeton, United States

The University of Sydney

=25

89.4

Sydney, Australia

McGill University

27

88.9

Montreal, Canada

Université PSL

28

88.6

Paris, France

University of Toronto

29

88.5

Toronto, Canada

Fudan University

30

88.4

Shanghai, China (Mainland)

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%