The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), known for graduating some of the world’s greatest minds in physics, biology and economics, has been rated as the top university in the world.

All of the balance of the top 10 are based in either the United States or United Kingdom, according to the QS University World University Ranking 2014/2015. These are, in order, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College of London, Harvard University, University of Oxford, University College of London (UCL), Stanford University, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Princeton University and Yale University.

For some reason, few Asian schools of higher education made the list, with the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 22nd place, the University of Hong Kong in 28th place and University of Tokyo in 31st place. China has only one university on the list, Tsinghua University in Beijing, which ranked 47th.

The ratings were based on six measures, not all of which were weighted equally:

• Academic reputation, 40%
• Employer reputation, 10%
• Faculty to student ratio, 20%
• Citations per faculty, 20%
• International student ratio, 5%
• International staff ratio, 5%

A total of 800 schools were compared.

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The study and its results are subjective, as are all of the well-known measures of universities, many of which are covered by magazines like BusinessWeek and U.S. News & World Report. By its nature, the QS University World University Ranking is biased. The oldest universities tend to do better than newer ones. The research shows that, at the highest level, Asia lags the West considerably. The research firm is based in the United Kingdom. That may say something all by itself. Also, “independent” is, in and of itself, a matter of opinion.

QS Quacquarelli Symonds was founded in 1990 and has established itself as the leading global provider of specialist higher education and careers information and solutions. At QS we believe that education and career decisions are too important to leave to chance, we want to ensure candidates have access to the best tools and the best independent expert information before making a decision.

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