Imperial ranks 2nd in the world [2025 QS Ranking]
2025 QS World University Rankings are out, and for the first time ever, Imperial College London is ranked as the 2nd best university in the world, ahead of Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard!
The top 10 features 4 universities from the UK and 4 from the US, with a strong focus on STEM schools like MIT, Imperial, Stanford, and ETH Zurich.
What do you think about this? Is Oxbridge’s reign in the UK over? Are STEM universities set to take over the world?
1. MIT
2. Imperial
3. Oxford
4. Harvard
5. Cambridge
Great news for Imperial and the UK in general. As for Oxbridge, I think they’ll always have a prestigious reputation, but this definitely shows how much the focus on STEM is growing. The world is increasingly driven by science & technology, so it makes sense that universities excelling in these areas are climbing the ranks
yeah a lot of non-stem universities fell in the rankings (Yale at 23?), I dont think they matter too much anyway
how much do these rankings really matter though? surely like the top 30 ish sort of pick themselves. still surprised that specialist unis especially LSE are ranked so low
del
hahahahaha nah im UCL but still gotta support lse when somehow kcl is ranked 10 places above it
LSE kids try not to be insufferable human beings for one moment. Difficultly level: impossible
congrats on kcl!
Only matters to chuds with no personality outside of the school they want to go to. You can find em in the “applyingtocollege” reddits
its funny seeing them fight and cry over shitty Rankings.
like bro uc davis, uc san diego and uc irvine are not better/equal business schools to usc just bcs the usnews rankings had them all tied for 28th.
No one will ever care or choose Imperial over Oxbridge unless for very specific personal reasons. LSE regularly ranks way below Loughborough for Econ and no one ever cared
Agree with the overall sentiment (i.e. Imperial is a top uni but will never have the sheer gravitas of Oxbridge) but your second statement seems off. LSE ranks 7th worldwide for Econ, according to QS, and Loughborough somewhere around 300-350.
i think he meant in the uk rankings, not QS . because eg UCL is only ranked like 8-9th in the UK with loughborough and sometimes even lancaster being ahead or other times when for econ the guardian had uni of suffolk above LSE.
These rankings are mostly based on research output. While I agree that Imperial is insane and has some of the brightest minds in the world, no student is picking it over Oxbridge/HYP. The name just carries harder.
That said - Imperial is really as good as it gets and I'm glad to see it be recognised everywhere.
agreed, it's the reason that universities in the UK like LSE, Warwick, and St Andrews which don't focus as much on research output tend to rank worse for international rankings than national rankings.
WARWICK 69th LMAOOOOOOOO
Nice
del
Oh god. QS World Uni Rankings. Not sure what kind of methodology they use but it sure isn't reflective of student preferences. You'd have to be utterly deranged to choose Cornell over Yale and Princeton, or (to a lesser extent) ICL over Oxford and Cambridge.
QS is just losing credibility by doing what it's doing and creating these mind bogglingly dumb rankings.
pretty sure its based on research expenditures. So its not a good assessment on top schools as most top schools do alot less research than what you’d expect them to do compared to say public state flagship schools. ( not to say their research numbers are low, they can be alot higher they just choose not to, look at princeton for example, they could get a medical school and boost its research but they dont)
Student preference isn’t what makes a school good or bad.
I’d rather party it up with hot blondes at USC than shiver my dick off with a bunch of weirdos at UChicago but that doesn’t mean USC is a better school than UChicago.
Not sure which Cornell/ICL student is out here throwing MS but anyone worth their salt knows the QS rankings are terrible.
Didn’t throw MS but your comment is generally pretty dumb.
Is there really a ranking out there that’s good? I’m pretty sure they all suck. USNews for example has used shit like alumni giving, faculty pay (wtf?), Pell Grant recipients (wtf?) in their methodology. Just because you don’t like a ranking doesn’t make it bad.
Also student preference doesn’t make a school good or bad - see my comment about USC vs UChicago.
Coming from someone who did not go to Cornell or ICL.
QS ranking is absurd and I'm surprised anyone takes it seriously.
McGill better than Columbia?
Kings better than LSE?
Cornell better than Princeton and Yale?
Rankings are basically subjective because you can tweak methodology to show a final result. There’s no true objective ranking so I don’t know why people are talking about lack of credibility or whatever. USNews has just as many questionable placements but people are just more familiar with it. There have traditionally been several schools in the middle of nowhere with no global presence that are ranked in the T20 over research powerhouses with a global presence like a Berkeley, Cornell, NYU, UCLA, or UMich.
Generally, you just take an average of ARWU, Forbes, QS, Times Higher Education, and USNews to get a general idea of how strong a school is. At least on a global basis.
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