A continuación se muestran los listados de los rankings más conocidos que clasifican a universidades de todo el mundo, el QS World Rankings (o US News) y el Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU o Ranking de Shanghai). Además, se incluye el ranking Forbes de las mejores universidades estadounidenses.

QS World University Rankings® 2011/2012

1. University of Cambridge – Reino Unido
2. Harvard University – Estados Unidos
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – Estados Unidos
4. Yale University – Estados Unidos
5. University of Oxford – Reino Unido
6. Imperial College London – Reino Unido
7. UCL (University College London) – Reino Unido
8. University of Chicago – Estados Unidos
9. University of Pennsylvania – Estados Unidos
10. Columbia University – Estados Unidos
11. Stanford University – Estados Unidos
12. California Institute of Technology (Caltech) – Estados Unidos
13. Princeton University – Estados Unidos
14. University of Michigan – Estados Unidos
15. Cornell University – Estados Unidos
16. Johns Hopkins University – Estados Unidos
17. McGill University – Canada
18. ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) – Suiza
19. Duke University – Estados Unidos
20. University of Edinburgh – Reino Unido
21. University of California, Berkeley (UCB) – Estados Unidos
22. University of Hong Kong – Hong Kong
23. University of Toronto – Canada
24. Northwestern University – Estados Unidos
25. The University of Tokyo – Japón
26. Australian National University – Australia
27. King’s College London (University of London) – Reino Unido
28. National University of Singapur (NUS) – Singapur
29. The University of Manchester – Reino Unido
30. University of Bristol – Reino Unido
31. The University of Melbourne – Australia
32. Kyoto University – Japón
33. École Normale Supérieure, Paris – Francia
34. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) – Estados Unidos
35. Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne – Suiza
36. École Polytechnique – Francia
37. The Chinese University of Hong Kong – Hong Kong
38. The University of Sydney – Australia
39. Brown University – Estados Unidos
40. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology – Hong Kong
41. University of Wisconsin-Madison – Estados Unidos
42. Seoul National University – Corea del Sur
43. Carnegie Mellon University – Estados Unidos
44. New York University (NYU) – Estados Unidos
45. Osaka University – Japón
46. Peking University – China
47. Tsinghua University – China
48. The University of Queensland – Australia
49. The University of New South Wales – Australia
50. The University of Warwick – Reino Unido
….
176. Universitat de Barcelona – España
194. Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona – España
222. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid – España
253.Universidad Complutense de Madrid – España
308. Universitat Pompeu Fabra – España
347. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid – España
373. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – España
374. Universidad de Navarra – España
401-450. Universidade de Santiago de Compostela – España
401-450. Politécnica de Madrid – España
401-450. Universidad de Salamanca – España
401-450. Universidad Politecnica de Valencia – España
401-450. Universitat de Valencia – España

Ranking completo: Ranking QS World Rankings / US News

Academic Ranking of World Universities 2012

1. Harvard University
2. Stanford University
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
4. University of California, Berkeley
5. University of Cambridge
6. California Institute of Technology
7. Princeton University
8. Columbia University
9. University of Chicago
10. University of Oxford
11. Yale University
12. University of California, Los Angeles
13. Cornell University
14. University of Pennsylvania
15. University of California, San Diego
16. University of Washington
17. University of California, San Francisco
18. The Johns Hopkins University
19. University of Wisconsin – Madison
20. University College London
21. The University of Tokyo
22. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
23. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
24. The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
25. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
26. University of Toronto
27. Kyoto University
28. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
29. New York University
30. Northwestern University
31. Washington University in St. Louis
32. University of Colorado at Boulder
33. Rockefeller University
33. University of California, Santa Barbara
35. Duke University
35. The University of Texas at Austin
36. University of British Columbia
37. The University of Manchester
38. University of Maryland, College Park
38. University of Paris Sud (Paris 11)
39. Pierre and Marie Curie University – Paris 6
40. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
41. University of Copenhagen
42. Karolinska Institute
43. Pennsylvania State University – University Park
44. University of Southern California
45. Technical University Munich
48. University of California, Davis
48. University of California, Irvine
48. Utrecht University

Ranking completo: Ranking de Shanghai

Ranking Forbes Top America’s Colleges 2012

1. Princeton University
2. Williams College
3. Stanford University
4. University of Chicago
5. Yale University
6. Harvard University
7. United States Military Academy
8. Columbia University
9. Pomona College
10. Swarthmore College
11. Massachussetts Institute of Technology
12. University of Notre Dame
13. Amherst College
14. Bowdoin College
15. Washington and Lee University
16. Wellesley College
17. University of Pennsylvania
18. California Institute of Technology
19. Brown University
20. Vassar College

Ranking completo: Ranking Forbes 2012