U.S. News global Top 500 universities

U.S. News and World Report on Tuesday released a list that it calls the “Best Global Universities.” Using data from Thomson Reuters InCites, U.S. News sorted schools worldwide on various measures related to research. The factors analyzed include academic reputation surveys, scholarly publications, paper citations, international collaboration and doctoral degrees. The research-heavy methodology differs significantly from what is used to produce the annual U.S. News domestic college rankings. Factors such as undergraduate admissions selectivity and graduation rates, which play a key role in the domestic rankings, are absent from the global formula. Still, like the domestic version, the global list is bound to be controversial among academics who consider the formula and the data underlying it flawed. The global list is at www.usnews.com/education.

Related rankings: U.S. News national university rankings

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