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Top 100 University Ranking Excludes Otago ... Again

Times Higher Education has published its World Reputation Rankings for 2015, placing Harvard University in the US at #1 for the fifth year in a row. The rankings, published annually, show a list of the world’s 100 most prestigious universities. This is based on an invitation-only survey of senior academics across the globe.

Of the top five universities, three are from the United States and four from the United Kingdom. After Harvard, in second place, is the University of Cambridge, which has moved up two places from fourth in 2014. The University of Oxford came in third, also bumped up two places from fifth in 2015. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US is ranked at fourth, a drop from its second-place ranking in 2014. Stanford University in the US is fifth, a drop from its ranking of third in 2014.

The rest of the top ten is made up primarily of United States institutions: the University of California, Berkley, is sixth; Princeton University is seventh; Yale is eighth; the California Institute of Technology is ninth; and Columbia University is tenth.

26 of the top 50 universities are from the United States; eight are from the United Kingdom. Canada and Germany each have three, while Japan, Switzerland and China each have two. The Russian Federation, Singapore, Australia and Sweden each have one.

New Zealand is not featured in this year’s top 100. Five Australian universities made the cut. The University of Melbourne sits at 41st; this is up from a ranking of 43rd last year. The Australian National University in Canberra ranks at 52nd, and the University of Sydney sits at 61st. The University of Queensland is ranked at 85th, and Monash University in Melbourne, which did not make the top 100 in 2014, now sits at 97th.

The top performer in Asia this year is the University of Tokyo at 12th, followed by the National University of Singapore at 24th. Tsinghua University in China is ranked at 26th, and Kyoto University in Japan follows at 27th. China’s Peking University is ranked 32nd. Osaka University in Japan, which was ranked at 50th in 2014, did not make the top 100 this year.
This article first appeared in Issue 4, 2015.
Posted 2:32pm Sunday 15th March 2015 by Laura Munro.