Harvard University was ranked the top university in the world for the ninth consecutive year by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR). The CWUR bills its rankings as the largest academic ranking of global universities. Their rankings are based on four criteria that are weighted as follows. Quality of education receives a 25% weighting. Alumni employment is also weighted 25%. The faculty quality is weighted 10% and the remaining 40% weight goes to research performance. That is comprised of research output, quality of publications, influence, and citations.
MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, and Oxford rounded out the top five, respectively. Sixteen of the top twenty were US universities.
As always, we strongly encourage you to take this and every other ranking with a big proverbial ‘grain of salt’ and, instead, focus on your personal fit factors. While we’re happy CWUR publishes their criteria, we still see a lot of room for subjectivity within them and we hope you see that too.
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