University rankings decoded: Is there a difference between ranking #50 vs #100?

It’s a universal experience that the first time you look up global university rankings is when you’re looking for schools to apply to.

For those of us who didn’t end up in the best-ranked universities in the world, like the uncontested #1, MIT, or some British titans like Oxford and Cambridge, you end up pretty curious about where your university ranks academically amongst the thousands of other higher education institutions in the world. 

The thing is, most of the time, we take one look at the general number tacked on before the university and forget to look at the rest.

University of Ottawa is ranked #189 on the QS World University Rankings 2025? Neat – that’s within the top 200.

Cardiff University is ranked in the 201-250 position of the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2025? Okay, great.

Ohio State University ranks #61 on the US News and World Report’s Best Global Universities Rankings 2024-2025? Now that ain’t bad at all.

But honestly, what do these numbers even mean? 

If only global university rankings were as straightforward as the scoreboards in sport competitions. Source: AFP

Breaking it down: Global university rankings

Many sites share their global university rankings, but today we’ll cover five of the most popular ones:

• Quacquarelli Symonds, better known as QS
• Times Higher Education (THE) 
• US News and World Report
• Shanghai Ranking
• Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR)

QS and THE were founded in the UK, US News is from the US, Shanghai Ranking is from China, and CWUR is from the United Arab Emirates.

Despite where they were created, all of these rankings cover schools and universities worldwide. Their methodology, and therefore their actual global university rankings, however, is where things start looking (very) different.

For example, UCL ranks #9 on QS, #22 on THE, #7 on the US News, #16 on the Shanghai Ranking, and #20 on CWUR. 

Here’s why it’s such:

Not all lists have the same universities 

In 2025, QS featured over 1,500 universities, THE had more than 2,000, US News had 2,250, Shanghai Ranking had 2,500+, and CWUR looked at over 21,462 institutions but ranked only the top 2,000.

QS states on its site that not all higher education institutions are eligible to be included and not all eligible institutions are ranked.

To be eligible for the global university rankings, the institution must meet all the following criteria:

• Offer full-degree programmes at BOTH undergraduate and postgraduate levels
• Offer full-degree programmes in at least TWO faculty areas
• Offer full degree programmes in at least TWO subjects in each faculty area
• Have at least THREE graduated classes in each subject
• Deliver all or part of each programme on campus
  

Then, to be included in the global university rankings, they must also:

• Be in the top 20% of institutions globally for Academic Reputation (an indicator measuring the reputation of institutions and their programmes by asking academic experts to nominate universities based on their subject area of expertise)
• Have at least 100 papers indexed and published by Scopus (an abstract and citation database curated by independent subject matter experts who are recognised leaders in their fields) over a five-year period
• Be ranked in its respective regional ranking (Asia, Arab Region, Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean only)

Meanwhile, CUWR considers every university with Nobel laureates, Fields Medallists, Highly Cited Researchers selected by analytics company Clarivate, or papers published in Nature or Science. Universities with a significant number of papers indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) in the Web of Science are also included. 

A lot of numbers and metrics go into calculating the global university rankings. Source: AFP

The math behind how these global university rankings are calculated

The biggest reason these lists of global university rankings can vary so much is due to how the rankings are calculated.

Some universities will favour certain metrics or indicators more than others, as you’ll see below.

QS World University Rankings

Source: Screenshot taken from QS World University Rankings in June 2025.

QS uses five “Lenses” and 10 “Indicators”.

Lens refers to a group of Indicators related to the same theme, like how the Indicators for Employer Reputation and Employment Outcomes fall under the Lens of Employability and Outcomes. An Indicator is a measurement of one aspect of an institution’s performance. 

For example, the Indicator with the heaviest weighting, at 30% in 2025, is Academic Reputation.

To calculate this, QS collects and distils the opinions of academics worldwide via their Academic Survey, asking them, “Which universities are demonstrating academic excellence?”, and evaluates the nominations for approximately 7,000 institutions each year.

The indicator not only highlights the quality of a university’s research but also its approach to academic partnerships, strategic impact, educational innovativeness, and impact on education and society at large.

THE World University Rankings

Source: Screenshot taken from Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025: methodology in June 2025.

THE uses 18 performance indicators grouped into five areas:

• Teaching (the learning environment); 
• Research environment (volume, income, and reputation); 
• Research quality (citation impact, research strength, research excellence, and research influence); 
• International outlook (staff, students, and research); 
• Industry (income and patents).
  

Here, the most prominent indicator is the Research Reputation under the Research Environment area. It looks at a university’s reputation for research excellence among its peers, based on the responses to THE’s annual Academic Reputation Survey

This annual survey keeps a balanced spread of responses across disciplines and countries. THE notes that for the disciplines or countries that were over- or under-represented, the data team weighted the responses to reflect the global distribution of scholars fully.

US News and World Report Best Global Universities

Source: Screenshot taken from “How US News Calculated the 2024-2025 Best Global Universities Rankings” in June 2025

For US News, their biggest indicator is shared between Global Research Reputation, Regional Research Reputation, and, most different from the rest of the other global university rankings, the number of publications that are among the 10% most cited.

This indicator, as its name suggests, reflects the number of papers acknowledged as being in the top 10% of the most highly cited papers in the world for their respective fields. 

According to their site, each paper is given a percentile score that represents where it falls, in terms of citation rank, compared with similar papers such as having the same publication year, subject, and document type. 

And since the number of highly cited papers depends on the university’s size, this can be considered a robust indication of how much excellent research the university produces.

Shanghai Ranking’s Academic Ranking of World Universities

Source: Screenshot taken from Shanghai Ranking’s Academic Ranking of World Universities Methodology 2024 in June 2025.

Compared to the rest of the global university rankings, the methodology used for the Shanghai Rankings is more evenly spread out. However, it remains quite different from the others too, choosing to focus on the achievements made by the graduates and staff of the universities instead.

For each indicator, the highest-scoring institution is assigned a score of 100, and other institutions are calculated as a percentage of the top score.

Centre for World University Rankings World University Rankings 

Source: Screenshot taken from Centre for World University Rankings World University Rankings in June 2025.

CUWR looks at four areas – Education, Employability, Faculty, and Research – through seven indicators to determine its global university rankings list.

Most notably, it is the only site, along with QS, that considers Employability as an indicator, which may be important if you’re hoping to land yourself in a university that has good graduate outcomes as a way to secure your own future. 

Ultimately, there is no right or wrong way to browse these lists, but it is definitely a way to scope out how well a university is doing when compared to the thousands of others worldwide.

That said, we suggest not giving these numbers too much weight. 

Reasons why you shouldn’t trust the global university rankings

Even some of the best universities in the world disagree with how the global university rankings are decided. Source: AFP

Even (some) universities don’t like the rankings

In 2022, Yale University and Harvard University announced that their law schools would withdraw from the US News rankings.

Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken, who announced the news in a blog post, said the rankings discourage universities from admitting low-income students and supporting those who wish to pursue careers in public service.

This is particularly so when US News discounted the fellowships offered by the school, classifying graduates as unemployed. The same applied to students training themselves for academia or pursuing postgraduate degrees.

“Both of these tracks are a venerable tradition at Yale Law School, and these career choices should be valued and encouraged throughout legal education,” wrote Gerken.

“While I sincerely believe that US News operates with the best of intentions, it faces a nearly impossible task, ranking 192 law schools with a small set of one-size-fits-all metrics that cannot provide an accurate picture of such varied institutions.”

Dean of Harvard Law School John Manning echoed similar sentiments.

“Done well, such rankings could convey accurate, relevant information about universities, colleges, and graduate and professional schools that may help students and families make informed choices about which schools best meet their needs,” wrote Manning.

“However, rankings can also emphasise characteristics that potentially mislead those who rely on them and can create perverse incentives that influence schools’ decisions in ways that undercut student choice and harm the interests of potential students.”

Since then, 14 law schools, 12 medical schools, and five undergraduate schools have withdrawn from US News.

It’s important to note that US News has revised its methodology, but the schools remain excluded from the list.

You could be the happiest you’ve ever been in one of the lowest-ranked schools possible. Source: AFP

Rankings don’t show you the big picture

What is student life like? What sort of support can you get from the university? What is it like living in the city where the university is located?

A big part of your experience at university will be impacted by those (and many other) factors – answers that can’t be received simply from looking at the global university rankings.

After all, most of these top-ranked universities are known for their academic rigour and competition amongst peers, and while that can be beneficial in many ways, it’s also an added pressure if you’re looking for a place that is less intense.

A lower-ranked university never mean lower quality teaching too. Look at graduate lists and you’ll see many from lower-ranked universities ending up at the top-ranked companies or high positions in the government:

Joe Biden

The 46th and former president of the US, Joe Biden graduated from the Syracuse University College of Law in 1968, and became one of the youngest people in history to be elected to the US Senate.

He earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968, however he was never a standout student. In fact, he graduated 76th in a class of ’85.

Years later, Biden is the first Syracuse University alumnus to become president and was awarded the George Arents Pioneer Medal, the university’s highest alumni award, in 2005.

Sir Paul Nurse

An English geneticist, former President of the Royal Society, and Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research centre in London.

He received his bachelor’s degree in Biology in 1970 from the University of Birmingham and then pursued a PhD from the University of East Anglia.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Nurse has received numerous awards and honours, including over 60 honorary degrees and fellowships from universities such as the University of Bath, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and more.

Jo Horgan

Founder of Australian beauty retailer Mecca Brands, which is worth 287 million Australian dollars (US$223 million).

After graduating from school in Perth, she studied English literature at the University of Western Australia, before doing a master’s in communication at Boston University.

At 29, she famously quit her project management job at French cosmetics giant L’Oreal, and launched her own company, which she called Mecca.