Global Recognition

UC Santa Barbara has placed among the top 25 in U.S. News & World Report’s 2017 Best Global Universities rankings. The rankings, which are based on institutions’ academic research and reputation, evaluate 1,000 universities — up from 750 last year — across 65 countries.

UCSB is ranked number 24 overall, and number 7 among public universities in the United States.

“U.S. universities do especially well in the Best Global Universities rankings because they place an enormous emphasis on academic research — a key factor in our methodology since these are indicators that can be compared globally,” said Robert Morse, chief data strategist at U.S. News. “This methodology is different from that of Best Colleges, which measures the overall quality of undergraduate education and focuses on outcomes including graduation and retention rates.”

Best Global Universities also has rankings by country, region and subject. In the 2017 edition, U.S. News added six new country-specific rankings, including larger countries like Russia and smaller ones such as Poland and Egypt, bringing the total to 38. Institutions are assessed across 22 subjects in engineering and physical science; mathematics; biological, life science and environmental science; social science; and humanities and fine arts.

The methodology is based on Web of Science data and metrics provided by Clarivate Analytics InCites and weighs factors that measure each university’s global and regional research reputation and academic research performance using bibliometric indicators such as publications, citations and international collaboration. Each subject ranking has its own methodology based on academic research performance and reputation in that specific area.

The rankings were calculated using a set of defined indicators, including global research reputation; regional research reputation; publications; books; conferences; normalized citation impact; total citations; number of publications among the 10 percent most cited; percentage of total publications among the 10 percent most cited; and international collaboration.

This year, U.S. News slightly adjusted its overall methodology to further emphasize excellence in academic research by factoring in the total number of highly cited papers in the top 1 percent of their respective fields and the percentage of a university’s total papers that are among the top 1 percent of most-cited papers.

More information about the Best Global Universities rankings can be found at http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings.

UCSB has performed exceptionally well in a variety of other recent national and international rankings. It remains one of the world’s top 10 universities worldwide in terms of research impact, as listed by the 2016 Leiden Rankings, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2016-17 place UCSB at number 45 among 980 top universities. The Times Higher Education rankings judge institutions across all their core missions, including teaching, research and international outlook.

In U.S. News & World Report’s 2017 listing of the “Top 30 Public National Universities” in the country, UCSB was ranked number 8. Among the “Best National Universities” ranking, which includes both public and private institutions, UCSB placed number 37. Also, the 2016 Washington Monthly College Guide, which ranks the nation’s top universities, UCSB placed number 9 among public institutions and number 17 overall.

In other rankings, UCSB came in at number 25 among schools with 10,000 or more undergraduates in Teach for America’s 2016 Teaching Corps. In its College Salary Report for 2016, PayScale.com, the world’s largest online salary database, ranked UCSB number 9 among 207 engineering schools whose alumni earn the highest annual salary when it comes to mid-career median earnings (approximately $139,000 for graduates of UCSB’s College of Engineering).

And in the 2016 edition of The Princeton Review’s Guide to 361 Green Colleges, UCSB is ranked number 13. The guide profiles colleges and universities that demonstrate the most exceptional commitment to sustainability based on their academic offerings and career preparation for students, campus policies, initiatives and activities.