Harvard tops global universities' list

Harvard University led US News & World Report's first-ever global ranking of universities, as US schools took eight of the top 10 slots.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology came in second, followed by University of California at Berkeley, according to the list of 500 schools in 49 countries released on Tuesday. Stanford University was rated fourth, and two UK schools - University of Oxford and University of Cambridge - followed.

The magazine has published a ranking of US institutions for three decades, where the methodology focuses on undergraduate entrance exam scores, admissions and academic reputation. The worldwide rankings look at the importance of a school's research, global and regional reputation, international collaboration and the number of doctorates awarded, according to the statement.

"If you have a big footprint in all those areas, then you're going to do well in this ranking," Robert Morse, chief data strategist for the online magazine, said in an interview. "The methodologies in the two rankings are completely different and there is no overlap in the data."

That would explain why Princeton University, which topped the magazine's list of U.S. "best colleges" in the national category, didn't appear on the global list.

Princeton doesn't operate the scope of graduate and professional schools as Harvard, including medicine, public health, law and business.

Rounding out the top 10 are California Institute of Technology, known as Caltech; University of California at Los Angeles; University of Chicago; and Columbia University.

Regional Categories
The rankings also include regional categories. The University of Tokyo in Japan topped the list for Asia; University of Melbourne led in Australia and New Zealand; Oxford led Europe; and Universidade de Sao Paulo placed first in Latin America.

Earlier this month, London-based Times Higher Education World University Rankings put Caltech on top for the fourth straight year, followed by Harvard.

Part of the methodology used by U.S. News included a global reputation survey conducted by Thomson Reuters Corp. Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with Thomson Reuters in selling financial and legal information and trading systems.