QS World University Rankings 2019: Coming Soon

On June 6, the 2019 edition of the QS World University Rankings® will be released, featuring 1,000 of the world’s top universities.

As ever, institutions will be ranked according to six different criteria: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty to student ratio, citations per faculty, ratio of international faculty members and ratio of international students. More information about the methodology can be found here.

Ahead of the full results being released, here’s a closer look at what to expect.

MIT going for a record

Predicting which university will be ranked as the best in the world hasn’t been much of a competition for a while, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topping the table in each of the last six years. In the years since QS first started publishing a world ranking, no institution has managed to be top for seven straight years. Can MIT pull it off?

As ever, their biggest competitors are likely to be the other top US universities: Stanford, Harvard and Caltech. Will any of them have what it takes to climb to the top spot? We’ll have to wait and see.

Trying to make sense of Brexit

Given the fact even the UK’s top politicians can’t agree on what form Brexit will take, it’s no surprise students remain confused as to whether they should still be traveling to study at the top British institutions based in Cambridge, Oxford and London.

Last year, UK universities just about held onto their places, with four institutions continuing to rank within the world’s top 10 and it would be a surprise to see any big collapses this year. However, as uncertainty about Britain leaving the European Union continues, it’s hard to see some of the UK’s less celebrated universities continuing to lure students from abroad with the same levels of success. Given our ranking’s focus on international representation, this could spell trouble in future years.

Australia fighting to be noticed

Last year, the Australian National University climbed two places to be the only institution from Down Under to be featured in the global top 20. With Australian universities often overlooked compared to their more illustrious counterparts in the English-speaking world, this marked a momentous moment for the country’s institutions.

However, the only thing harder than climbing up the table is staying there, and the Australian National University will need to have maintained its impressive performance to avoid being overtaken by the universities below. Elsewhere, Australians will be hoping the universities in Sydney and Melbourne also begin to challenge with the world’s finest.

Want to find out the full results of this year’s ranking? Check out the QS World University Rankings® 2019 from 21.00 BST on June 6.