QS World University Rankings 2020

Globally recognised and produced by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education publisher, the QS World University Rankings has consistently based its ranking methodology on six key metrics.

They include Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation, Faculty/Student Ratio, Citations per faculty, International Faculty Ratio and International Student Ratio. Each metric contributes a percentage towards an institution’s final score.

Academic Reputation (40%)

With a weightage of 40%, the Academic Reputation metric is based on the Academic Survey - a collation of expert opinions from 94,000 higher education individuals regarding teaching and research quality - and is touted as the world’s largest survey of academic opinion.

Faculty/Student Ratio (20%)

QS considers measuring faculty/student ratio as the most effective proxy metric for teaching quality, as it relates to how institutions are able to facilitate meaningful access between students and lecturers. The ranking methodology also recognises that a high number of faculty members will represent a lower teaching burden.

Employer Reputation (10%)

This metric is based on responses to the QS Employer Survey, where employers are asked to identify institutions from which they source “the most competent, innovative and effective graduates.”

Citations per faculty (20%)

In order to calculate the Citations per Faculty metric, QS quantifies the total number of citations received by all faculty member-produced papers from an institution - across a five-year period.

QS performs a normalisation of citations as well, given that different academic fields have variant publishing cultures. This year alone, the ranking provider assessed 74 million citations from 13.5 million papers (excluding self-citations).

International Faculty Ratio and International Student Ratio (5% each)

Institutions that score well for these metrics are those that are capable of attracting faculty members and students from all over the world. An internationalised higher education sector provides the community with a multicultural environment, allowing for exposure to cultures and beliefs, besides raising students to develop international sympathies and global awareness.

Below, we’ve compiled the top universities in each destination - Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, the UK and USA. If you’re keen to find out more on what it means to study abroad in any of these countries, fill in your details and make a free appointment with one of our friendly counsellors!

QS Top 10 Universities in Australia 2020

Rank	University	Global Rank
1	The Australian National University	29
2	The University of Melbourne	38
3	The University of Sydney	42
4	The University of New South Wales (UNSW)	43
5	The University of Queensland	47
6	Monash University	58
7	The University of Western Australia	86
8	The University of Adelaide	106
9	University of Technology Sydney	140
10	The University of Newcastle, Australia (UON)	207

QS Top 10 Universities in New Zealand 2020

Rank	University	Global Rank
1	The University of Auckland	83
2	University of Otago	176
3	Victoria University of Wellington	215
4	University of Canterbury	227
5	University of Waikato	266
6	Massey University	287
7	Lincoln University	356
8	Auckland University of Technology (AUT)	442

QS Top 10 Universities in Canada 2020

Rank	University	Global Rank
1	University of Toronto	29
2	McGill University	35
3	University of British Columbia	51
4	University of Alberta	113
5	Université de Montréal	137
6	McMaster University	140
7	University of Waterloo	173
8	The University of Western Ontario	211
9	University of Calgary	233
10	Queen’s University at Kingston	239

QS Top 10 Universities in the UK

Rank	University	Global Rank
1	University of Oxford	4
2	University of Cambridge	7
3	UCL	8
4	Imperial College London	9
5	The University of Edinburgh	20
6	The University of Manchester	27
7	King’s College London	33
8	The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)	44
9	University of Bristol	49
10	The University of Warwick	62

QS Top Universities in Ireland

Rank	University	Global Rank
1	Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin	108
2	University College Dublin	185
3	National University of Ireland Galway	259
4	University College Cork	310
5	Dublin City University	429
6	University of Limerick	521-530
7	Maynooth University	701-750
8	Dublin Institute of Technology	751-800

QS Top 10 Universities in USA

Rank	University	Global Rank
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	1
2	Stanford University	2
3	Harvard University	3
4	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	5
5	University of Chicago	10
6	Princeton University	13
7	Cornell University	14
8	University of Pennsylvania	15
9	Yale University	17
10	Columbia University	8