Article
The World's Top Universities
Author(s):
Several US universities with pharmacy schools are ranked in the annual Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Several US universities with pharmacy schools are ranked in the annual Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).
The ARWU was created by researchers at the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The center’s goal is to “build databases of major research universities in the world and clearinghouse of literature on world-class universities,” according to its website.
The first ranking of universities on a global scale was published in 2003, and since then, Harvard University has ranked No. 1 each time.
ARWU uses several factors to rank universities, including:
1. Number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals
2. Number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Reuters
3. Number of articles published in the journals Nature and Science
4. Number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index — Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index
5. Per capita performance
ARWU ranks 1200 universities but only publishes the top 500.
For 2015, 16 of the top universities in the world are from the Americas and 4 are from Europe. Looking at the top 500 schools, however, Europe has more top universities than the Americas.
The top 500 is made up of 176 schools in the Americas, 205 in Europe, 114 in the Asia/Pacific area, and 5 in Africa. The United States has 146 universities in the top 500 list.
The following is a list of the top 50 US schools included on ARWU’s list. The 16 universities with pharmacy schools have an asterisk.
US Rank
University
World Rank
1
1
2
2
3
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
3
4
University of California, Berkeley
4
5
6
6
California Institute of Technology
7
7
8
8
9
9
11
10
University of California, Los Angeles
12
11
13
12
University of California, San Diego*
14
13
15
14
16
15
17
16
University of California, San Francisco*
18
17
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor*
22
18
University of Wisconsin - Madison*
24
19
27
19
27
21
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
29
22
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities*
30
23
31
24
Washington University in St. Louis
32
25
33
26
University of Colorado at Boulder
34
27
The University of Texas at Austin*
37
28
University of California, Santa Barbara
38
29
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill*
39
30
University of Maryland, College Park
43
31
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
44
32
University of Southern California*
49
33
University of California, Irvine
50
34
53
35
University of California, Davis
57
36
Pennsylvania State University - University Park
60
37
61
37
Purdue University - West Lafayette*
61
39
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick*
64
40
The Ohio State University - Columbus*
67
41
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Campus*
70
42
73
43
75
44
83
45
84
46
90
47
93
47
University of California, Santa Cruz
93
47
93
50
99
