Top 10 Universities in WUR 2024 – Predictions with Detailed Analysis

Preparations for the THE World University Rankings (WUR) 2024 are in order. Universities from 127 countries and territories have submitted their data to Times Higher Education (THE), as per a report released on the official website. Times Higher Education authorities will take time to process this data and the rankings are expected to be out by September 2023.

Meanwhile, looking at previous trends and the 13 evaluation parameters used by THE, we have curated a prediction of THE WUR for 2024.

THE WUR 2024 Predictions

It is evident from previous trends that the USA and the UK are the two countries duelling for the top 10 and top 100 list.

In WUR 2023, 7 institutions were from the USA whereas 3 were from the UK out of the top 10 and no major changes are expected this year.

WUR 2024 Predicted Rank	University Name
#1	Oxford University
#2	Harvard University
#3 – #7	Stanford University
#3 – #7	University of California
#3 – #7	Cambridge University
#5 – #7	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
#5 – #7	Princeton University
#8 – #10	Yale University
#8 – #10	Imperial College London
#8 – #10	University of Chicago

Universities from the USA are expected to dominate this year as well. 6-8 US universities are expected to feature in the top 10 of WUR 2024, followed by the UK with 3-4 universities expected to feature on the list.

As for universities, the University of Oxford ranked #1 in THE WUR 2023 for the seventh consecutive time last year. Most likely it is going to be the same this year because of the considerable gap in scores of universities in the #2 and #3 position. 

The university has received consistent competition from Harvard University for the past 3-5 years. Harvard University which ranked #2 last year is also most likely to retain its position. It has been on rank #3 in the 2021 and 2022 rankings. 

Harvard University jumped from the #7 position in 2020 to the #3 position in 2021 and has been making its way to the top of the list. It majorly falls back in Research and International Outlook as compared to the University of Oxford.

The other universities expected to make it to the top 5 are the University of California, Stanford University and Cambridge University. These universities have exchanged positions between #2 to #6 over the past few years and hence stand a great chance of making it to the top 5.

Also, if there is a chance for universities from other countries to break the top 10 barrier, it would be Switzerland or China which have been close to the mark for the past few years. ETH Zurich from Switzerland and Peking and Tsinghua Universities from China have been in the top 20 racing up the ladder.   

A comparison of WUR 2023 and 2024

The foremost thing to analyse in a ranking list is the application data. For THE World University Rankings 2023, 104 countries and regions sent applications in 2022, which has now jumped to 127 countries and territories participating in 2023. 

Last year, THE curated the data for more than 2,500 institutions. The number of institutions has grown to 2,673 this year. However, despite these changes, some trends remain the same as the USA is still the leading participant with 175 institutions participating in the rankings this year. 

The country is shortly followed by Japan with 169 submissions in 2023. Japan had around 150+ institutions participating in 2022, and two of its major institutions The University of Tokyo and the Kyoto University received ranks #39 and #68 respectively. 

The UK has the same number of institutions participating in 2023 as last year. In THE WUR 2023, 1,799 universities were ranked however, the rest were ‘reported’ under the THE list with respective scores. The number of ranked universities is also expected to increase this year as institutions are levelling up their game for global competition.

To get the actual THE WUR rankings 2024 let’s wait for the list to break in September 2023. If you want to read more such exciting information, make sure you follow Leverage Edu News Updates.