U.S. News & World Report, 2025-26 Best Global Universities Rankings:
These institutions from the U.S. and more than 100 other countries have been ranked based on 13 indicators that measure their academic research performance and their global and regional reputations. Students can use these rankings to explore the higher education options that exist beyond their own countries’ borders and to compare key aspects of schools’ research missions. These are the world’s 2,250 top universities.
1. Harvard (100.0)
2. MIT (97.2)
3. Stanford (94.5)
4. Oxford (88.3)
5. Cambridge (86.8)
6. UC-Berkeley (86.4)
7. University College London (86.2)
8. University of Washington (86.1)
9. Yale (86.0)
10. Columbia (85.8)
11. Imperial College London (85.2)
11. Tsinghua University (85.2)
13. UCLA (84.9)
14. Johns Hopkins (84.4)
15. Penn (84.0)
16. Cornell (83.6)
16. Princeton (83.6)
16. UC-San Francisco (83.6)
16. Toronto (83.6)
20. National University of Singapore (83.4)
21. UC-San Diego (83.2)
21. Michigan (83.2)
23. Cal-Tech (82.9)
24. Northwestern (81.5)
25. Peking University (81.1)
| Global research reputation | 12.5% |
| Regional research reputation | 12.5% |
| Publications | 10% |
| Books | 2.5% |
| Conferences | 2.5% |
| Normalized citation impact | 10% |
| Total citations | 7.5% |
| Number of publications that are among the 10% most cited | 12.5% |
| Percentage of total publications that are among the 10% most cited | 10% |
| International collaboration – relative to country | 5% |
| International collaboration | 5% |
| Number of highly cited papers that are among the top 1% most cited in their respective field | 5% |
| Percentage of total publications that are among the top 1% most highly cited papers | 5% |
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