Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2023

Harvard University was the top-ranked university in the world in 2023 with a score of 100 according to the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy group. Out of the top 30 ranked universities, the United States had 20 different universities on the list.

An American legacy

Harvard University is by far the most prestigious university in the United States. Founded in 1636, it is the country’s oldest institution of higher learning. Harvard is a member of the Ivy League, which is a group of eight private colleges in the Northeastern United States. Ivy League colleges are known in the U.S. for being highly selective while providing top education.

The top of the top

Out of thousands of higher education institutions in the United States, Harvard is even more exceptional for producing both the most presidents and the most billionaires. Attending college is typically seen as giving attendees a leg up in society, although the high cost of attendance can sometimes negate this effect.

The 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy

Characteristic	Shanghai Ranking Score
Harvard University	100
Stanford University	74.8
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	69.1
University of Cambridge	67.9
University of California, Berkeley	63.4
Princeton University	60.1
University of Oxford	59.5
Columbia University	55.3
California Institute of Technology	54.5
University of Chicago	53.8
Yale University	52.2
Cornell University	50.5
University of California, Los Angeles	48
University of Pennsylvania	47.7
Paris-Saclay University	47
Johns Hopkins University	46.8
University College London	45.9
University of Washington	45.4
University of California, San Diego	44.8
ETH Zurich	44.1
University of California, San Francisco	44
Tsinghua University	40.4
Imperial College London	39.9
University of Toronto	39.7
Washington University in St. Louis	39
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor	37.8
The University of Tokyo	37.7
New York University	37.3
Peking University	36.7
Northwestern University	35.8

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Release date

August 2023

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

2023

Supplementary notes

Several indicators are used to rank the universities. Number of alumni and academic staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, papers published in Nature and Science, papers indexed in major indices and the per capita academic performance of the institution.
The highest scoring institution is assigned a score of 100 and other institutions are calculated as a percentage of the top score.
Detailed information about the methodology can be accessed here.

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