QS ranking 2021: three French institutions in the Top 100!

The Quacquarelli Symonds Word University Rankings, is one the most popular international ranking with Shanghai’s the Times Higher Education’s (THE). The results have just been made available. Once more, three American universities took the lead. France is well represented with 28 institutions. Seven of them climbed ranks.

What ranks for French institutions?

The same three French institutions as last year lead the 2021 edition: PSL (Paris Sciences et Lettres) university, Ecole Polytechnique, and Sorbonne University.

The Top 10 of French institutions ranked also include seven other institutions already present in the past, but which were downgraded or upgraded. The Top 10 includes Ecole Centrale Supélec, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Sciences Po Paris, the University of Paris, the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Ecole Normale supérieure de Paris-Saclay, and the University of Paris-Saclay.

What method?

The ranking is designed by QS, an international firm specialised in analysis and counsel in higher education. The ranking ranks the 1,000 best universities in the world depending on a method using several criteria.

The six criteria are the following:

- academic reputation of the institution (40% of the score used for the ranking);

- reputation of the student’s employer after graduation (10%);

- faculty/students ratio (20%);

- institution’s citations per international research papers (20%);

- proportion of international faculty in the institution (5%);

- proportion of international students in the institution (5%).