QS World Ranking 2025

The QS World University Ranking list is determined by six factors. Let’s discuss them in detail below.

• Academic Peer Review/Academic Reputation - The first and foremost criterion considered while ranking the world universities is their academic reputation. The academic reputation is judged based on the university’s teaching and research qualities and the impact they make on the students. In a nutshell, the QS publication requests the opinions of over 1,30,000 people across the education sector, which is considered the largest survey in the world.

• Employer Review/Reputation - The second factor considered is the Employer's reputation. The term indicates the reputation of universities among employers in their countries. The reputation is decided on the basis of the universities’ competency to provide skilled graduates who are innovative, creative and effective.

• Faculty/Student Ratio - The Faculty to Student Ratio is one of the most crucial factors in determining the world rank of a university. A university is given a fair mark if they have adequate academicians or lecturers for a group of students in a class. On the contrary, if a university possesses only a few lecturers for a big group of students in a class, its reputation will fall short, affecting its ranking.

• Citations Per Faculty - Citations Per Faculty’ is considered important for a research-based university. To get more recognition for their university, it must have submitted thesis papers of its lecturers with maximum citations in five years. This factor tests the knowledge of the university’s lecturers and their efforts to provide a strong proof-backed thesis.

• International Student Ratio and International Faculty Ratio - A university is ranked based on this factor because the QS system thinks it is one of the crucial requirements, and a university should excel at it to get ranked high. Attracting a high number of international students and faculties demonstrates that the university provides its best in terms of teaching, infrastructure, facilities and employment opportunities.

Each factor is allocated a certain weightage to help students understand its importance. The weightage allotment is purely done by the QS’ Intelligence Unit by considering the most crucial thing for students in their pursuit of higher education.