UCLA has been named the No. 2 public university in the United States and the 11th best in the world — public or private — by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy in its 2018 Academic Ranking of World Universities. The overall ranking is up one place from No. 12, a position UCLA has held since 2011.
The rankings, issued today, use six criteria to measure excellence, including number of alumni and faculty winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, papers published in the journals Nature and Science, papers listed in major citation indices and the per capita academic performance of an institution.
Besides UCLA, two University of California campuses placed in the top 15 overall: UC Berkeley (No. 5) and UC San Diego (No. 15).
The top 10 in order were Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UC Berkeley, Princeton University, University of Oxford, Columbia University, California Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago.
Regardless of methodology, UCLA consistently performs well in multiple rankings that use a wide range of criteria.
In May, UCLA was ranked No. 2 public in the U.S. and No. 9 overall in the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings. In April, UCLA topped Forbes’ Best Value Colleges ranking. In addition, UCLA was named the No. 1 public institution in the nation in three separate assessments last fall: U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges rankings, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education Top Colleges rankings.
