Find out which universities came out tops overall and who are the best in the five faculty areas of arts & humanities, engineering & technology, life sciences & medicine, natural sciences, and social sciences & management. Also, which cities in the world are best for international students? You'll be surprised - four Asian cities made it to the top 10!
In this year's QS World University Rankings® 2015/16, a total of 82 countries were represented with the largest shares claimed by the US (154), UK (71), Germany (43) and France (41). There were 38 entries from Japan, Australia 33, China 30, Canada and Italy 26 apiece, Brazil 22 and Russia 21.
This is the 12th edition of QS's annual ranking of the world's top universities, which uses six performance indicators to assess universities in four areas: research, teaching, employability and internationalisation. The six performance indicators are: academic reputation (40%), employer reputation (10%), student-to-faculty ratio (20%), citations per faculty (20%), international faculty ratio (5%), and international student ratio (5%).
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) tops the list, a position it has defended since 2012. The top 10 universities are:
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US
- Harvard University, US
- University of Cambridge, UK
- Stanford University, US
- California Institute of Technology (Caltech), US
- University of Oxford, UK
- University College London (UCL), UK
- Imperial College London, UK
- ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Switzerland
- University of Chicago, US
Universiti Malaya (UM) made it to the top 200 this year with a ranking of 146. Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) was ranked 289, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia 303, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) 312, and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) 331.
The results also include the QS World University Rankings by Faculty, which highlight the world's top universities in five individual faculty areas, namely:
- University of Oxford, UK in arts and humanities
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US in engineering and technology
- Harvard University, US in life sciences and medicine
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US in natural sciences
- Harvard University, US in social sciences and management
In Asia, the top 10 universities are:
- National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
- The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
- KAIST – Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology, South Korea
- Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore
- The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
- The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
- Peking University, China
- Seoul National University, South Korea
- City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
- Pohang University of Science And Technology (POSTECH), South Korea
In the top universities in Asia category, Universiti Malaya (UM) emerged at 29, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) 49, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) 56, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia 61, and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) 66.
Also included in the rankings was the QS Best Student Cities 2016 – a ranking of the world's leading urban destinations for international students – measured using a score that reflects a university's rankings, student mix, desirability, employer activity, and affordability. Kuala Lumpur was ranked 53.
The top 10 best student cities are:
- Paris, France
- Melbourne, Australia
- Tokyo, Japan
- Sydney, Australia
- London, United Kingdom
- Singapore, Singapore
- Montreal, Canada
- Hong Kong, Asia
- Berlin, Germany
- Seoul, South Korea
Source: QS Top Universities