Ambitious or not, we’ve all heard of these names: MIT, Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford.
And deep down inside, even when our grades are far from perfect, most of us dream of going to the best universities in the world.
We all want to be associated with their prestige and excellence — to be seen as the smart, successful one.
And so when it’s time to pick a university, we Google: “best universities for engineering,” “top law schools,” “best universities in the world for [your dream subject here].”
If that’s you, stop.
Finding the best education for you doesn’t depend on what someone else defines as “the best.”
It’s not as simple as that.
It takes a lot of hard work to get into these best universities in the world, but the real challenge comes when you start your studies. Source: AFP
Higher rankings ≠ The best university for you
Yes, university rankings like the QS World University Rankings (WUR) give you an overview of over 1,500 universities and 15,700 academic programmes spanning 104 locations.
They’re popular worldwide for many reasons — it’s easier to rely on a number given by an expert than to go into the details.
Which, by the way, is hard to do, especially for high schoolers. What info am I looking out for? What’s “methodology” and how important is it?
(FYI, methodology refers to the building blocks or recipe of rankings.)
And you’re not just dealing with QS — there are other rankings too, like the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, which covers the three main missions of university activity: research, teaching, and impact; or the US-specific rankings from the US News and World Report, which covers a myriad of topics, including but not limited to best online colleges, high schools, and grad schools.
Still, just because a university is on this list doesn’t mean they’re the best choice for you.
At the very least, we should first understand how any of these rankings work.
For years, one of the best universities in the world has been none other than MIT. Source: AFP
Top 10 vs top 100 vs top 1,000 best universities in the world
In June 2024, Imperial College London in the UK rose in the QS WUR 2025 and overtook Oxford and Cambridge as the best university in the country and on the continent.
By all means, it’s a deserving win.
The faculty, graduates, and students at Imperial are bending reality with metamaterials, improving patient care through the development of AI techniques and tools, and spearheading initiatives for women to join the male-dominated electronic engineering industry.
But Top 10 universities like Imperial aren’t the only ones doing all things good in the world.
Durham University, a Top 100 uni, follows closely with its share of achievements too.
Professor Ryan Cooke from the university’s Department of Physics was a recent joint recipient of the 2025 Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize, awarded for his groundbreaking work to perfect a method to measure the composition of the universe moments after the Big Bang. In April 2025, a team of enterprising students placed second in the prestigious Enactus UK & Ireland World Cup Qualifier, a competition that sees students and young people across the country engage in social action and social enterprise.
Yet for all its work, Durham is ranked #89 on the QS WUR 2025.
Way further down the ranks, you’ve got Birmingham City University (BCU) ranked within #1001-1200 on QS WUR 2025.
Again, these numbers only tell a part of any uni’s story — here, the faculty are receiving prestigious accolades thanks their innovative work on feminism and inequality issues in Europe, while BCU graduates and current students have come together to tackle a mentoring project to help vulnerable youth rediscover interest in education.
What this tells us is whether it’s a Top 10, Top 100 or Top 1,000, you can always find the thinkers and doers coming up with the next Alexa or cure for cancer.
And if we were fixated on their ranking, we would’ve missed out on other just as important ways to compare unis — such as what their graduates (read: future you) could go on to do.
Good news: you don’t have to graduate from the best universities in the world to secure your dream job. Source: AFP
What are graduate outcomes, and how are they calculated
Simply put, graduate outcome refers to the various experiences, achievements, and career paths of individuals after completing a higher education programme.
In most cases, the primary stat most people look at is how many of the graduating class have secured a job upon finishing their studies.
Let’s compare the three unis mentioned above on this basis:
It goes to show that opportunity is everywhere, and while some could argue that it’s not always equal, this might just make you think twice before you disregard the other institutions that don’t commonly pop up when you think of the best universities in the world.
Ask yourself this: would you like to study somewhere in the city, or out in the countryside? Source: AFP
3 other factors to consider when finding the best university for yourself
Just like how there are a thousand and one ways to choose how you enjoy your coffee or tea, there are also ways to decide on your own version of the best universities in the world.
Look at subject-specific rankings
While QS has the WUR, they also release an annual WUR by Subject too.
The 2025 edition features 55 individual subjects across five broad subject areas – arts and humanities, engineering and technology, life sciences and medicine, natural sciences, and social sciences and management.
You’ll see that the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US, which ranks #114 on the QS WUR, ranks #8 for the subject of Statistics and Operational Research.
The same goes for Canada’s University of Calgary, ranking #198 generally but shooting up to #29 for Petroleum Engineering.
Norway’s Norwegian University of Life Sciences, ranked between #691-700 worldwide, but is #10 for Agriculture and Forestry.
Just because you attend one of the best universities in the world doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed success in your future. Source: AFP
See where the graduates end up
In 2024, Forbes surveyed readers of their Future of Work newsletter and discovered that 33% of employers said they are less likely to hire Ivy League graduates than they were five years ago.
On the other hand, 42% were more likely to hire public university graduates, and 37% said they are more likely to hire grads of non-Ivy League private colleges than five years ago.
Part of that is to do with the fact that back in the day, hiring managers only had the names and reputation of schools to gauge how good their students are. The idea is, obviously, if you’ve come from a place of academic excellence, you have to be a great candidate, right?
These days, that equation isn’t so linear anymore.
“Once they’ve hired somebody and that graduate does well, now [that school] is fair game,” says Christine Cruzvergara, Chief Education Strategy Officer at Handshake, the largest career platform for Gen Z talent, in the article. “They’ll say, ‘We’re willing to go back to that school.”
Take Australia’s University of the Sunshine Coast, for example. Despite being ranked at #1001-1200 on the QS WUR, 87% of graduates are employed within four months of finishing their degrees. In particular, the university is ranked first in Australia for graduate employment (undergraduate) in engineering and technology – a notably competitive industry to get your foot in.
In Asia, the National Taipei University of Technology ranks #425 on the QS WUR, and it has a 22.5 out of 100 rating for Employment Outcomes. However, 10% of the founders, board directors, and CEOs of Taiwan’s listed stock companies are the school’s alumni.
Better yet, the university boasts a 95% employment rate and has been recognised for having the most employable graduates among technological universities in the country.
If you take anything away from this, take this: subpar rankings only tell you one small part of the story.
It’s not easy to find the support you need, so when you do, make sure you don’t take those moments for granted. Source: AFP
Find the student support you want
Aside from browsing the many programmes the universities have to offer, there’s one crucial question you need to ask yourself: How do I want to be supported?
For example:
- Technical University of Munich, #28 on the QS WUR, and Aalborg University, #306 on the QS WUR, have ongoing buddy programmes to help you make your transition to the school as seamless as possible.
- Seoul National University, #31 on the QS WUR, and Lund University, #75 on the QS WUR, offer several (sometimes free) ways for students to sharpen their knowledge of the local language.
- Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), #146 on the QS WUR, and the Memorial University of Newfoundland, #661-670 on the QS WUR, have established a campus food bank to support students and staff facing food insecurity.
