UP jumps 28 spots in world rankings

MANILA, Philippines — The University of the Philippines has climbed 28 spots and secured its highest rating yet in the latest list of best universities in the world released by international higher education information provider Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).

UP ranked 356th in the list released this week, up from last year’s 384th.

For the first time since it entered the list in 2014, the university – which is coincidentally celebrating its 111th founding anniversary this week – broke into the top 33 percent of the over 1,000 higher education institutions included in the rankings.

Three other Philippine universities were in the list.

Ateneo de Manila University also improved its ranking from last year’s 651st to 700th to 601st to 650th.

Meanwhile, both De La Salle University and the University of Santo Tomas retained their 801st to 1000th rank.

The ranking is based on six key indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio and international student ratio.

Compared to last year, UP improved its scores in faculty-student ratio and academic reputation, while it declined in the other indicators. 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States retained the top spot, followed by fellow US-based institutions Stanford University and Harvard University.

In fourth was the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, followed by the California Institute of Technology in the US and the ETH Zurich-Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland.

Completing the top 10 are UK-based institutions University of Cambridge, University College London and Imperial College London, followed by the University of Chicago in the US.

Singapore-based Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore, which tied at 11th spot, were the highest ranking universities from Asia.