Arguably one of the most prestigious university listings was just released and in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2016-2017 – their 13
th publication – Australia is making waves. With 6 universities in the esteemed top 100, we have generated some fantastic results from our universities, leaving high school leavers no shortage of choice to continue their study. So now it’s your turn to rank Australia’s universities as you decide where you want to begin your career. This blog is here to try and help you make sense of these newest results so that they can better guide you in decision making.
Overall the list looks at a total 980 institutes worldwide from 79 countries. In Australia, there are 35 top universities that got a mention in
THE World university rankings. According to them, 6 of them are good enough to compete in the top 100 with universities such as Harvard, Princeton, Cambridge and even Kings College in London with University of Melbourne ranking 3 places higher than that!
A brief snapshot of what you’re obviously dying to know, where do they all sit in relation to each other:
| Australian Ranking |
THE World University Ranking (2016-2017) |
University |
State |
| 1 |
=33 |
University of Melbourne (UMelb) |
VIC |
| 2 |
47 |
Australian National University (ANU) |
ACT |
| =3 |
=60 |
University of Queensland (UQ) |
QLD |
| =3 |
=60 |
University of Sydney (USyd) |
NSW |
| 5 |
74 |
Monash University |
VIC |
| 6 |
=78 |
University of New South Wales (UNSW) |
NSW |
| 7 |
125 |
University of Western Australia (UWA) |
WA |
| 8 |
142 |
University of Adelaide |
SA |
So you can see by these results that we have a pretty wide and far spread range in the Times University Rankings.
It’s important to keep in mind what is actually being considered in this ranking system. There are four broad performance ‘pillars’ used to assess each university – Teaching, Research, citations and International Outlook. So that you’ve got a good idea of why universities are ranked where they are, you can use this table to compare these four pillars.
| University |
Teaching |
International Outlook |
Research |
Citations |
| UMelb |
65.4 |
88.3 |
73.6 |
88.1 |
| ANU |
54.0 |
93.9 |
73.9 |
81.7 |
| UQ |
49.7 |
88.6 |
60.1 |
86.1 |
| Usyd |
51.3 |
83.7 |
63.2 |
83.2 |
| Monash |
49.5 |
87.1 |
57.4 |
78.5 |
| UNSW |
43.2 |
91.0 |
58.6 |
81.4 |
| UWA |
32.3 |
92.9 |
44.9 |
49.7 |
| Adelaide |
37.1 |
86.3 |
43.9 |
78.8 |
So this might just look like a lot of numbers, but what’s important to take away from this table is how the numbers compare across the universities. For example, although USyd and UQ are tied at =60
th place, if teaching is what’s more important, you might lean more towards USyd as its Teaching indicator is higher.
But what do these numbers mean? They are not rankings, they are scores out of 100 that indicate how well a university has performed in that particular area. Basically, the way that these scores are attained is through a survey released at the beginning of the year targeting esteemed, experienced and published scholars. So these ranks are not indicative of student opinion, but are taken from a professional academic standpoint. This is important to consider also as it could represent a very biased sample population as academics will of course promote their own university over others and if there is a greater response rate from particular universities, this could also influence the data. If you would like a detailed and complete breakdown of factors contributing to each score, click the link
here.
University by Subject
THE World University Rankings also gives you a breakdown on how well each university is performing subject-wise. There are 6 broad subject choices that group the common degrees such as business, commerce, engineering etc. by similar study focus. Below is a table of subjects and universities with their ranking (in the top 100) worldwide.
| University |
Physical Sciences |
Engineering & Technology |
Social sciences |
Life Sciences |
Arts & Humanities |
Clinical, pre-clinical & health |
| UMelb |
65 |
56 |
22 |
36 |
38 |
=15 |
| ANU |
51 |
90 |
27 |
28 |
43 |
- |
| UQ |
- |
54 |
90 |
32 |
- |
43 |
| Usyd |
- |
73 |
=52 |
65 |
29 |
33 |
| Monash |
- |
53 |
=76 |
- |
- |
35 |
| UNSW |
96 |
68 |
86 |
=71 |
- |
=94 |
| UWA |
- |
- |
- |
60 |
- |
- |
| Adelaide |
- |
95 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Important to note for this table is that within each subject choice, there are a variety of degrees. For example, Clinical, pre-clinical & health includes degrees such as medicine, dentistry, medical science, exercise physiology and nursing and any other health related degrees also. So if one university has an excellent medical degree but the rest of their health courses are average, this will bring their ranking down. So don’t be confused by these rankings! They can be used loosely to help guide your decision, but there are lots of variables that play into their ranking and which may not necessarily reflect the universities’ full potential.
Essentially, all the information you need from the
THE World University Ranking is right here! In Australia, we are in a very privileged position where we have such a diverse choice of world-class organizations. Here we have only focused on the top 8 Australian universities but there are multiple other universities that were further down the ranking. Whether this influences your choice of university or not, make sure you pick a university that suits you! You will be spending at least the next 3 years there. Good luck and Happy Studying!
