Shocker: Harvard Is the World’s Most Reputable University

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Harvard University

Institutions of higher learning wondering what the world thinks of them can now point to a new Top 100 list for potential validation.

The London–based Times Higher Education (THE) has ranked universities across the globe — according to their reputations for teaching and research. Harvard, which probably didn’t need a boost in self–esteem, takes the top spot, followed by MIT and Cambridge. Rounding out the top 10 are the University of California Berkeley, Stanford, Oxford, Princeton, Tokyo, Yale, and the California Institute of Technology.  Nearly half of those on the entire list are in the United States. The UK trails the U.S. with 12, while Japan has five.

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The new World Reputation Rankings are not to be confused with THE’s separate World University Rankings, which “included objective measures of research performance and funding.” The prestige rankings are based on a survey — conducted by Ipsos for THE’s rankings data provider, Thomson Reuters — of some 13,000 academics in 131 countries. The opinions were collected last year, and played a part in determining the University Rankings, which were published back in September. Schools that rank higher in reputation than they actually rank overall might have some soul–searching to do. (via Guardian)