UB rises significantly in ranking of world universities

BUFFALO, N.Y. – QS World University Rankings, one of the most influential and widely observed international university rankings, has ranked the University at Buffalo as 302 out of the 800 top world universities considered in its 2013-14 rankings.

UB’s ranking has increased steadily since 2008. In the 2012-13 UB was number 313 in a list of 800 and in 2011-12, its score was 337.

The QS World University Ranking for 2013-14 is posted on its website, www.topuniversities.com, and on partner websites including The Guardian, Chosun Ilbo (a major South Korean daily) and other leading media around the world.

First compiled in 2004, the QS World University Rankings considers more than 2,000 institutions, and ranks 800. QS collected 90,000 survey responses to come up with its rankings. Eight thousand universities in nations throughout the world applied to be included in the rankings.

UB’s most notable scores were in the following areas:  academic citations of research conducted by UB faculty (Rank: 57), international students (Rank: 181), arts and humanities (Rank: 291), life sciences and medicine (Rank: 280), academic reputation (Rank: 431) and international faculty (Rank: 320).

The QS ranking is produced and published by British educational company Quacquarelli Symonds, and is one of the three most influential and widely observed international university rankings, along with the Academic Ranking of World Universities and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the latter of which jointly published the ratings with QS from 2004 to 2010.

According to QS, its key ranking system is based very loosely on the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education in the U.S., but operated on a much simpler basis.

Although institutions vary substantially in terms of funding, scale, location, mission, output and many other aspects, QS says that all of its ranked institutions have as their aim to teach students and produce research, and are compared within the categories of size, focus and research intensity.

UB was considered as a historic, large institution, fully comprehensive with a very high level of research intensity. 

Quacquarelli Symons specializes in education and study abroad and operates globally from offices in London, Stuttgart, Paris, New York, Singapore, Boston, Washington D.C., Sydney, Shanghai, Johannesburg and Alicante, Spain.