UCLA has been named the No. 2 public university in the United States and the 12th best in the world — public or private — in the Academic Ranking of World Universities compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The rankings, which were issued Aug. 15, 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: UC Berkeley (No. 5), the only U.S. public university ranked higher than UCLA; and UC San Diego (No. 15).
The top 11 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, University of Chicago and Yale University.
UCLA consistently performs well in multiple rankings that use a wide range of criteria.
In June, UCLA was ranked No. 2 among all U.S. public universities and No. 13 among all universities worldwide in the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings. In January, UCLA was ranked No. 3 by the Princeton Review in its annual national ranking of best-value public universities. In October, U.S. News and World Report’s Best Global Universities rankings placed UCLA second among American public universities and 10th overall.
In addition, U.S. News and World Report ranked UCLA No. 2 among the country’s national public universities and No. 24 overall in its 2017 Best Colleges rankings. UCLA also received the highest score for economic diversity among top universities in those rankings.
