Three California universities rank in top 10 for world’s best colleges

Three Golden State universities have cracked the top 10 of a new global college ranking — with Stanford University, the California Institute of Technology and UC Berkeley all making the list of the world’s best schools.

Stanford tied for third place with Princeton University, while Caltech landed at No. 7 and UC Berkeley tied for ninth with Yale University, according to the 2027 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The annual rankings evaluated 2,297 universities across 118 countries and territories.

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Six University of California campuses and three private California colleges were ranked among the world’s top 100.

The University of Oxford claimed the top spot worldwide, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The University of Cambridge ranked fifth, Harvard University sixth and Imperial College London eighth to round out the top 10.

UCLA ranked 20th globally on the list and 12th among US universities, followed by UC San Diego at No. 37 worldwide and UC Davis at No. 65.

UC Santa Barbara and the University of Southern California tied at No. 71 globally, while UC Irvine rounded out the California contingent in the top 100 at No. 97.

Stanford, founded in 1885, is renowned for its connections to the technology industry and has educated prominent figures in science and innovation. Caltech, in Pasadena, is known for its focus on science and engineering and manages NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

UC Berkeley, the University of California system’s oldest campus, has a long history of scientific research and is recognized for its contributions across numerous academic fields.

Times Higher Education assessed universities across five main categories: teaching, research environment, research quality, international outlook and industry.

The methodology uses 17 performance indicators, including academic reputation, student-to-staff ratios, research income, citation impact, international collaboration and patents.

Research and teaching reputation carried significant weight in the overall scores.

The rankings draw on institutional data, an academic reputation survey and research publication and citation data supplied by Elsevier.

The methodology also considers how universities transfer knowledge to industry, including research income from businesses and patents citing their published work.

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