Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been declared the best university in the world for an eye-wetting seventh consecutive year, according to the fifteenth edition of QS World University Ranking 2019.
The private research university from the United States now holds the ‘fierce’ record that previously it shared with Harvard University – after QS Quacquarelli Symonds conducted research on universities from 85 countries.
Stanford (#2), Harvard (#3), and Caltech (#4) – all the top-4 positions were attached to the US institutions. The British global higher education analysis firm ranked United Kingdom’s Oxford and Cambridge at #5 and #6 respectively.
Two compatriot Singaporean universities – National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) – were tunefully the best schools in Asia, ranked #11 and #12 correspondingly.
A total of 12 universities from the United States occupied the top-25 slot. United Kingdom (5), Switzerland (2), Singapore (2), and one each from China, Japan, Australia, and Hong Kong also comprised the listing.
Seven Pakistani Universities Made to Top-1000, Two Through to Top-500
The compilation also includes seven universities from Pakistan as well which have been ranked amongst the top-1000 universities in the world for 2018-2019.
Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS=397) dethroned National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST=417) to emerge as leading Pakistani university in the latest periodical.
Beating the odds, PIEAS made to the top-1000 chronicle and outpaced all other competing universities from Pakistan to earn the top rank in the country. The contemporary institute has also topped in all three rankings conducted by Higher Education Commission (HEC) so far.
The analysis found that PIEAS ‘has excellent experimental and computational facilities for conducting research and development projects in cutting-edge technologies’. It has also the highest proportion of PhDs in its full-time faculty.
Established in 1997, PIEAS is the only Pakistani university which is ranked #47 in ‘Top 50 Under 50 2019 – a young universities’ cluster with the age of below 50 years since it was established. It was also ranked #128 in Asia in 2018.
NUST however also bettered its last year’s position and stepped-up to #417 from prior =431-440 bracket. Its rank in Asia was #91 in 2018.
As of 2018-2019, two universities from Pakistan bag the prestige of being placed in top-500 listing in the world.
The other five universities in the QS Top-1000 are: Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU=551-560), Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS=701-750), COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT=751-800), University of Engineering & Technology (UET=801-850), and University of Punjab (UOP=801-1000).
LUMS and NUST made to QS ‘Most Employable Graduates’ Listing
However when it comes to producing ‘most employable graduates’, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) takes the tethers and turns out to be the highest ranked Pakistani university in the slot =201-250, according to QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2018.
LUMS’ employability ranking sides with some world’s best universities such as George Washington University (USA), The University of Exeter (UK), Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin (Germany), and Hiroshima University (Japan).
Its employable graduates ranking is also very close to University of Oslo (Norway), University of Delaware (USA), University of Vienna (Austria), and India’s top university – Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB).
LUMS argues that 84% of its students are offered employments soon after they complete their graduation. The average salary of a LUMS business graduate is PKR 138,923 – mostly placed in FMCG, Conglomerate, Chemicals, Energy, and Financial sectors.
NUST is only the other Pakistani university which had appeared in the respective rankings =301-500, behind LUMS. It says that 92% of NUST graduates get an employment, go for further studies or start their own business.