The World's Most Prestigious Universities

According to Times Higher Education's first-ever World Reputation Rankings, Harvard, MIT and the University of Cambridge are the most globally well-regarded universities.

Also in the top ten are the University of Oxford and the University of Tokyo -- the remaining five are American institutions.

To compile these rankings, Ipsos Media CT conducted an Academic Reputation Survey of 13,388 academics in 131 countries for THE, using 2010 data from Thomson Reuters. Responses to this survey are regularly considered in THE's world rankings, but the reputation rankings mark the first time these measures are used exclusively.

On average, the scholars questioned had spent at least 16 years working at a university and published at least 50 research papers. They were instructed to select the universities they believe to be the best in teaching and research, according to their own expertise. Rankings were then determined according to an overall reputation score, which was compiled according to which school got the most votes for "best" and weighed research over teaching at a rate of 2 to 1.

Below, see the 25 universities with the best reputations in the world, and check out THE for the full list.

Do you agree with THE's list? Let us know in the comments section.

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Harvard University, U.S.

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Comments

[GBO]

02:48 PM on 05/09/2011

Trump University?>

[massnana]

09:05 AM on 05/04/2011

U Mass #20 in the world. That is impressive for a state university in a little state. Numbers 1&2 of course go w/o saying.

[yannb]

11:16 AM on 04/10/2011

Got a PhD from one and got a job at another. Even though the latter placed ahead of the former on this list, I know for a fact this is very false. Whoever wrote this list has no clue.

[massnana]

09:06 AM on 05/04/2011

? very false

[sophiemaki]

07:47 PM on 04/02/2011

that photo looks like Trinity College in Hartford CT.?

[m1jones]

06:14 PM on 04/02/2011

This list must have been made before Scott Walker became Governor of Wisconsin and started to start firing university professors to create more tax breaks for the wealthiest companies and individuals in Wisconsin.

The Tea Party hates good education for reasonable cost. In fact the Tea Party hates good education even if its free, as it is for many poor people at prestigious universities.

[parags20]

06:35 AM on 03/28/2011

Have heard of most of those universities. Harvard is truly the best.
http://www.skokiecomfortinn.com/

[m1jones]

06:49 PM on 04/02/2011

The universities are very different and concentrate on different fields. Caltech and MIT, both private, are in a class by themselves in science, technology, and engineerng. Caltech has the lowest students per teacher (3), and the highest endowment per undergrad student (slightly more than 700 students).

Great public institutions like Berkeley, Michigan, and UCLA are hurting because of budget cuts imposed by short-sighted politicians, greedy administrators, and relatively low alumnae support.

Harvard has the greatest selection and depth of courses and spectacular faculty. Yale has some graduate programs that surpass Harvard's. Yale undergraduates can work with agreeable professors to create unique majors rather than taking required courses for BA degrees.

The best university is the one that has the best program for what you want to do. Peter Thiele, a wealthy venture capitalist (ran hedge fund in NYC, CEO Pay Pal, first major investor in Facebook, etc.) gives promising young high school graduates $100,0000 NOT to go to college and instead "create the future."

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg both left Harvard after one year to start Microsoft and Facebook respectively. Google founders were both grad students at Stanford. Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO and winner of the America's Cup, attend Berkeley for a year.

Universities are great. They are not the only avenue to success for brilliant people. They are much more helpful for those who are not geniuses.

[cliffhammond]

03:11 PM on 04/09/2011

And Rice University was left out of the mix.

[Howard53545]

05:52 AM on 03/25/2011

No French schools, get real.

[yannb]

11:13 AM on 04/10/2011

It's simply because they're not known in the US. But some French institutions are largely best in what they do. Especially in Mathematics (ENS, Polytechnique, which have won the largest number of Fields Medals) and in Medicine (Institut Pasteur). But in the anglophone world, the French are demons.

[Howard53545]

05:52 AM on 03/25/2011

What about Northwestern or Brown?

[m1jones]

06:53 PM on 04/02/2011

Why do you think they should be on the list?

[bolduc999]

08:13 AM on 03/23/2011

Reality check.

Unless one is pursuing a specialized graduate degree, an undergraduate student is much better off going to an affordable college or university. The days when research access for undergrads was an important factor in choosing a college are over.

"Prestigious" often means just plain old expensive and class conscious. It's often the case that a parent's ego is wrapped up in where their child is going to school, which is simply foolish.

It's also the simple truth that the "prestigious" schools are often a continuation of a playground for the offspring of the elite. Case in Point: George Bush went to Yale, and no one can seriously argue that he got there because of academic excellence.

[m1jones]

07:15 PM on 04/02/2011

Obviously, Bold didn't attend a prestigious university or he would know that most of the prestigious universities are needs blind - they provide the funds necessary for every student to attend who is accepted. The competition for these elite universities is so large, and their endowments are so substantial, that they can guarantee financial aid to all those accepted to enable them to attend. They also make special efforts to avoid disriminating against students with less mnoey for extracurricular activities - for example, they offer summer travel grants, tickets to cultural events, etc., etc. There is no more class consciousness (and often less) at prestigious unversities than local state institutions. Schools like Caltech will fund private research by students beginning the summer after their freshman year.

Mentoring by wonderful professors is key to success after college, especially for undergrads. Some private unversities (e.g. Academy of Art San Francisco, University of Phoenix via net) are more expensive than Harvard and Yale and lack scholarships.
Faculty at local community colleges is spotty - some wonderful, some not.

Students at elite universities don't have time to party. Universities realize and encourage creative play and sports. The days when someone like George W. Bush got an automatic acceptance and gentleman's C are long gone - that was 40 years ago - before women and minorities were commonplace on campuses.

Attending one of these universities is a life-altering privilege. They are national treasures and we must support them, especially our great public institutions.

[Clare53]

12:34 AM on 03/23/2011

Yay, my alma mater, UCLA is on the list!!

[gypsy508]

01:50 PM on 03/17/2011

I know they are rivals and I don't have a horse in the race but Cal is nowhere near Stanford. As for UMass, was party school part of the reputation rankings?

[m1jones]

07:22 PM on 04/02/2011

If you had a horse in the race, you would know that Cal is the best public university in the world, despite Ca. Governor Ronald Reagan's many efforts to destroy it. Stanford has a much great endowment and excells Berkeley in its class size, professor's salary, and professional schools like Management and Law. However, UC Berkeley still excells in some engineering and science fields. Berkeley is being destroyed by lack of funds and large class sizes due to state budget cuts.

UC Berkeley may have to be taken private to survive. That would be a tragedy for the State of California and public education. Stanford does have a better record in football - but football players in both universities are not admitted because they should spectacular intellectual promise.

[Leto II]

12:57 AM on 03/17/2011

How come the University of Phoenix isn't on here?

[saaba]

06:31 PM on 03/18/2011

LOL!

[m1jones]

07:23 PM on 04/02/2011

The University of Phoenix is too expensive compared with Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford.

[Leto II]

12:55 AM on 03/17/2011

Did they really forget the Sorbonne?

[m1jones]

07:23 PM on 04/02/2011

This article is not about the 19th century when the Sorbonne was still a major university.

[boscobear]

07:48 PM on 03/16/2011

Where is James Madison University and the University of Virginia?

[HAlexandria]

11:22 AM on 04/10/2011

bah, beneath notice

[KristiFree]

12:12 PM on 03/16/2011

Enormous fail. UMass? UMASS??? But not, say, Brown or Wellesley? Give me a break.

[Leto II]

12:54 AM on 03/17/2011

Even worse, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign? Serious?

[CharelG]

02:34 AM on 03/27/2011

UIUC has one of the top engineering and business undergraduate programs in the world (better than MIT in some cases)

[TrueChicagoan]

09:32 PM on 04/01/2011

Yes, serious.

UMass is definitely three-plus notches below UIUC. UIUC has some of the most prolifically published researchers/professors in the world. UIUC would rank higher in the U.S. News & World Report if the methodology awarded points to universities where awarding winning research was conducted (and not where the award winning researcher now teaches/works).

[m1jones]

07:25 PM on 04/02/2011

Brown and Wellesley are mostly small liberal arts colleges - ivies.

[Richard Paul Geer]

12:24 AM on 04/03/2011

'small liberal arts college' with a med school???? (Brown)