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Top 5 University Rankings Worldwide

We have listed some of the best university rankings sorted by a few qualifiers: teaching, outlook, and research.


Universities
OverallTeachingOutlookResearch
1.
University of Oxford86.8
77.6
74.1
52.4
2.
University of Cambridge85.7
77.4
73.5
55.2
3.
Stanford University85.1
77.2
56.3
58.9
4.
California Institute of Technology84.7
94.8
54.1
91.2
5.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology83.2
87.2
39.2
41.5

To learn more about the methodology we’ve used, you can go ahead and read here in more details.

University: Top 10 reasons to choose College

You’re considering going to college. Here are ten good reasons that will make you definitely want to join the schools of these establishments.

To find your way gradually

Getting into College is an opportunity to take the time to mature your career project, and therefore make a mistake, and start over. This is the whole point of reorientations between disciplines.

If universities themselves decide on these bridges, it is often the proximity between disciplines that will play a role in the process of equivalence and validation of prior learning. For example, changing from Applied Foreign Language to a Foreign and Regional Languages Literature and Civilizations would be possible, whereas if you want to change your field radically, you will probably have to start again in the first year of your studies.

On the other hand, if the gateway is not possible within the University, other solutions exist. Restart, Fast track, in recent years, the staggered revenues, in the course of courses in January, February, and even March, have grown notably in the universities of technology, the IUT (University institutes of technology).

To gain autonomy

Less teaching hours than in high school, more flexible schedules, no attendance check except for the TD (directed work) and TP (practical work), the University is the place where the learning of autonomy takes place.

More or less difficult to negotiate according to the students, this turn, is not necessarily negative. It also rhymes with the discovery of a new discipline, a new methodology in work, which can be very rewarding for the student.

You can also start a sports activity at a lower cost, find a student job in your faculty, and join a Student association. For those who manage to find the right rhythm, University is then synonymous with emancipation.

For the disciplines you learn in college

For some disciplines, the faculty is the compulsory passage. Whether in law, a subject that is not taught in high school, or in medicine with the PACES (first year common to health studies) for students who are destined to one of the four medical streams (dentistry, medicine, pharmacy or maieutic).

The University is also the place to study the Humanities (especially the Humanities and some social sciences) : 60% of students enrolled in 2016 were in a SHS (Humanities and Social sciences) stream.

For local studies

When you’re 18, you can dream of leaving the family cocoon… or not. Community College can then be a good card to play.

With some 80 institutions scattered throughout the country, the University is accessible wherever one lives. Moreover, in the 2017 list of cities where it’s good to study a student, we find middle-class cities popular by students themselves such as Chambéry, La Rochelle, Limoges, Pau, and Troyes. Closer University facilities, a pleasant living environment in human-sized cities, lower costs, less installation stress, that’s the advantage of proximity.

To make the research

Teachers are also researchers, students sometimes find out when they go to University! Their mission is twofold: Professor, he teaches a discipline to students and he also works on a research topic, gives lectures, writes articles. He, therefore, knows his subject well.

The affiliation of teaching to research can give rise to genuine vocations and desires of thesis subjects among students. While the number of Ph.D. students has been declining over the past decade [figures from the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, 2016], Master’s students in research are the most likely to register for a Ph.D. degree they accounted for 12% in 2014-2015. However, doctoral studies vary by discipline: 13% in science, 12% in health, followed by law, 6%, and Humanities, 4%.

For less expensive studies

University tuition fees remain relatively stable year after year. At the beginning of the 2017 school year, they were respectively 184 € in bachelor’s degree, 256 € in master’s degree and 391 € in doctorate. Please note, however, that students registering for a double degree will have to pay these fees twice : once at a full rate and a second time at a reduced rate (€122 for a second degree, for example).

As for health insurance contributions, the next school year will be the occasion for a major change : students will join the general social security scheme and will no longer contribute to student mutual societies, for which they paid € 217 in 2017. It will be replaced by an annual contribution of €90.

For excellence training

For students who hesitate with the preparatory classes, the choice of a selective course at the University can be a good solution. There are approximately 120 dual licenses.

Languages and Economics, history and Political Science, science and Social sciences, these very busy courses – at least 30 hours a week-enable the two degrees to be obtained at the end of the three years.

Read also: selection at the University: all about the double licenses

There are other selective university courses in vogue: for example, the International course, like the Bachelor of Economics and management at the University of Rennes 1, or the masters in the vine and wine sciences at the University of Bordeaux. The majority of courses are given in a foreign language, and a period of mobility abroad is often compulsory.

For educational innovation equipment

Alongside the development of the new generation of university libraries, the learning centers, the fact in recent years sprung up places aimed at developing alternative pedagogies such as the learning labs.

Some 30 of them now have learning labs, which provide students with flexible materials – mobile chairs and tables, Post-it, computers and tablets – and high-tech such as telepresence robots or Google Glass, such as the Catholic University of Lille or the University of Grenoble-Alpes. The fables – the manufacturing workshops that started at the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in the late 1990s-offer an arsenal of machines (3D printers, laser cutters, etc.), allowing a rapid transition from concept to prototyping.

For a stronger orientation

A new reform to reduce license failure will take effect in the fall of 2018. At the lycée, the orientation will be strengthened with the advice of the Class Council, and “attendances” will be set at the entrance of each license. The Travers platform will replace APB this year. License paths will also be customized. In this way, students will define, within a successful contract and with study Directors, a tailor-made course. It will then be possible to follow its license in two, three or four years, with the validation of modules.

To enter the labor market

If the failure rate in the first year of a bachelor’s degree is known, the University inserts well its holders of a bac+5. Thirty months after entering the workforce, 90% of 2013 graduates had found a job, an increase over the previous promotion, according to the department’s 2016 data. Jobs stable at 73% and with a median salary of € 1,900 net per month. These figures should not, however, hide the fact that there are significant differences between disciplinary fields, as the hard science degrees are better integrated into the labor market than their counterparts in the Humanities.