U.S. News & World Report has released its newest ranking of the best global universities for 2026-2027, and California schools dominated the list.
While Harvard University took the first spot, Palo Alto’s own Stanford University was close behind at #3.
Next was UC Berkeley (go bears) at #7, which fell one slot from last year but still managed to stay ahead of UCLA, which came in at #13.
Three more California universities rounded out the top 25 in the world: UCSF ranked at #22, and CalTech and UC San Diego tied for #23.
More California schools, mostly UCs, appear further down the list in the top 100 of 2,250 global universities analyzed. They include USC at #74, UC Davis at #95, UC Irvine at #99, and UC Santa Barbara at #100.
A closer look at the top 25
U.S. News used 13 indicators to create the ranking, drawing data from Clarivate’s Web of Science and InCites databases. Much of the score came from how global experts rate each school’s research reputation, complemented by related data like total publications, citation impact, and the share of a university’s papers that rank among the most highly cited.
- 1. Harvard University (Global score: 100.0)
- 2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Global score: 97.0)
- 3. Stanford University (Global score: 94.4)
- 4. University of Oxford (Global score: 88.1)
- 5. University of Cambridge (Global score: 87.1)
- 6. Tsinghua University (Global score: 86.5)
- 7. University of California – Berkeley (Global score: 86.4)
- 8. Yale University (Global score: 86.0)
- 9. University College London (Global score: 85.3)
- 10. Columbia University (Global score: 85.0)
- 11. University of California – Los Angeles (Global score: 84.8)
- 12. University of Washington (Global score: 84.4)
- 13. Cornell University (Global score: 84.2)
- 14. Imperial College London (Global score: 83.9)
- 14. Princeton University (Global score: 83.9)
- 16. National University of Singapore (Global score: 83.8)
- 17. Johns Hopkins University (Global score: 83.4)
- 17. University of Pennsylvania (Global score: 83.4)
- 19. Peking University (Global score: 83.1)
- 20. University of Toronto (Global score: 82.8)
- 21. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (Global score: 82.5)
- 22. University of California – San Francisco (Global score: 82.1)
- 23. California Institute of Technology (Global score: 81.6)
- 23. University of California – San Diego (Global score: 81.6)
- 25. University of Chicago (Global score: 81.3)
Head to U.S. News & World Report to see the full list of 100 and learn more about the study.
