The primary objective of making a list of top-ranked universities is to serve students with a comprehensive list to take a proper decision. The search criteria for international universities should be on parameters such as research, teaching, employ ability and international outlook. Also a student needs to understand the methodical approach of each ranking so as to know that their basic objective is well served.

Global university ranking is done keeping in mind 5 parameters such as academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, international student ratio, and international staff ratio.

Academic Reputation

Academic reputation is measured using a global survey. During this process reputed academics are asked to identify institutions known for excellence of work in their field of expertise.

For the 2014/15 edition, the rankings draw on almost 63,700 responses from academics worldwide, collated over three years. Only participants’ most recent responses are used, and they cannot vote for their own institution.

This boosts up students with a consensus of opinions among experts. Academics may not be in a position to make any comment on teaching standards at institutions, but it is well within their purview to have a view on where the most significant research is currently taking place within their field.

Employer Reputation

In this, employers are asked to rank universities they perceive to be the best in producing best of the graduates. This indicator is unique among international university rankings.

The reason why employers are asked to do this ranking is because this directly tells a student about employment opportunities in the market and how the degree they want to pursue is valued in the market. A higher weightage is given to votes for universities that come from outside of their own country, so it’s especially useful in helping prospective students to identify universities with a reputation that extends beyond their national borders.

Student/Faculty ratio

This is a simple indicator that entails about the number of academic staff employed relatively to the number of students enrolled. In the absence of an international standard by which to measure teaching quality, it provides an insight into the universities that are best equipped to provide small class sizes and ensures a good level of personal supervision.

Citations per Faculty

This indicator tells about the research quality of a university that it produces. A ‘citation’ means a piece of research being cited (referred to) within another piece of research. Generally, the more often a piece of research is cited by others, the more influential the university is. So the more highly cited research papers a university publishes, the stronger is its research output considered.

International faculty ratio & international student ratio

The last indicator’s aim is to assess how popular a university has been in attracting students and faculty members from other nations. This is based on the proportion of international students and faculty members in relation to overall numbers.