The World's Top Ten Universities

World's top 10 universities, Harvard leads again
from the Christian Science Monitor

Times Higher Education, the United Kingdom's leading higher education news publication, today released its first-ever international university rankings. American universities dominate the top of the Times list, faring much better than in rankings released last week by former Times partner Quacquarelli Symonds. The disparate results have already prompted debate about the criteria for evaluating and ranking universities.

By Ariel Zirulnick, Contributor
posted September 16, 2010 at 5:47 pm EDT

#10 Yale University – New Haven, Conn.
Yale University ranks 10th in the world on the Times list, with highest marks for its teaching and often-cited research. America’s third-oldest university has produced 17 Supreme Court justices and five US presidents, including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and George H. W. Bush, ranked it third in the world in both 2009 and 2010.

#9 Imperial College London – London, UK
Times lists Imperial College London as ninth in the world, with highest marks for research and industry income – a new category that measures how much money a college gets to do research for corporations. ranked Imperial College London No. 7 in 2010 and No. 5 in 2009.


#8 University of California, Berkeley – Berkeley, Calif.
The University of California, Berkeley, is the highest-ranking US public university on the Times list and placed eighth in the world, with highest marks for its research program and for the number of times its published work is cited by academics. The list ranked Berkeley at No. 28 in 2010 and No. 39 in 2009.

#7 University of Oxford – Oxford, UK
Oxford, the destination for Rhodes Scholars, ties for sixth place on the Times list with the University of Cambridge. Oxford got high marks for its research program and for the number of times its published work is cited by academics. According to Times, 26 British prime ministers, at least 30 other world leaders, 12 saints, and 20 archbishops of Canterbury have been Oxonians.
ranked it at No. 6 in 2010 and No. 5 in 2009.

#6 University of Cambridge – Cambridge, UK
The University of Cambridge, which ties for sixth place with the University of Oxford on the Times list, stole the top spot from Harvard University on the QS rankings. It was ranked second in 2009. Cambridge is noted for its many famous scientists, including Newton, Rutherford, and Darwin.

#5 Princeton University – Princeton, N.J.
Princeton University, which has battled with Harvard for the top spot in US rankings, ranks fifth on the Times list. It got high marks for its research program and for the number of times its published work is cited by academics. Its past faculty and alumni include 32 Nobel laureates.
The list put Princeton at No. 10 in 2010 and No. 8 in 2009.

#4 Stanford University – Palo Alto, Calif.
The Times list puts Stanford University at No. 4 in the world, with one of the highest marks for its quality of teaching. According to Times, Stanford is said to be, after Harvard, the US’ most selective university, accepting only 7.1 per cent of applicants.
On the rankings, Stanford doesn't make the top 10 – it came in at No. 13 in 2010 and No. 16 in 2009.

#3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Cambridge, Mass.
MIT, only a mile away from fellow top 10 school Harvard, comes in at No. 3 on the Times list. MIT had a near-perfect score – 99.9 out of 100 – for the number of times its published work is cited by academics. In 150 years, according to Times, the school has produced 73 Nobel laureates, eight of whom are faculty members.
ranked MIT fifth in 2010, up from ninth in 2009.

#2 California Institute of Technology – Pasadena, Calif.
Caltech overcame its East Coast counterpart, MIT, coming in at second in the world in the Times rankings. Like MIT, Caltech got a near-perfect score for the number of times its published work is cited by academics. Caltech alumni include movie director Frank Capra; former faculty include Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman (himself an MIT graduate).
The list ranked Caltech No. 9 in 2010 and No. 10 in 2009.

#1 Harvard University – Cambridge, Mass.
Times Higher Education caused a minor uproar when it released its rankings last week, bumping Harvard out of the No. 1 spot and below University of Cambridge. But Times' puts Harvard back in its standard spot at the very top of university rankings.

Harvard gets a near-perfect score on the quality of its teaching, along with high marks for its research program and the number of times its published work is cited by academics. Harvard's $27.4 billion financial endowment is the largest in the world, rising 11 percent over the past year.

Times Higher Education had Harvard at No. 1 in 2009.