Bestunis.comIB, A-levels and beyond

The best universities in the world, in one place

Everything a family needs to choose well: where each university is, what it costs, how hard it is to get in, who teaches there and who studied there.

universities
200universities
countries
37countries
notable people
178notable people
teachers
108teachers
Photo: Marco Almbauer, Harvard Yard
How to read the cards
  • United StatesQS #1

    MIT

    Cambridge, Massachusetts

    Engineering, computing and physics; QS world No. 1 for fourteen consecutive years

    EngineeringComputer sciencePhysics
    Tuition per year$67kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years15 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United KingdomQS #2

    Imperial

    London, South Kensington

    Science, engineering, medicine and business only, and second in the world for all of it

    EngineeringMedicineComputer science
    Tuition per year$57k–79kOver $55k a year
    IB 38–423 years5 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #2

    Stanford

    Stanford, California (next to Palo Alto)

    Computer science, engineering and the start-up culture of Silicon Valley

    Computer scienceEngineeringBusiness
    Tuition per year$68kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years14 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United KingdomQS #4

    Oxford

    Oxford, England

    Teaching since 1096, and still the world's most demanding undergraduate tutorial

    HumanitiesMedicinePhysics
    Tuition per year$53k–89kOver $55k a year
    IB 38 · A-level AAA3 years12 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #5

    Harvard

    Cambridge, Massachusetts

    America's oldest university: law, medicine, business and eight US presidents

    LawMedicineEconomics
    Tuition per year$62kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years20 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United KingdomQS #6

    Cambridge

    Cambridge, England

    Newton, Darwin, Turing and the structure of DNA, all from one small town on the Cam

    PhysicsMathematicsEngineering
    Tuition per year$41k–95kOver $55k a year
    IB 41–42 · A-level A*AA3 years23 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #7

    Caltech

    Pasadena, California

    A 1,000-undergraduate science institute that runs NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    PhysicsEngineeringChemistry
    Tuition per year$69kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years11 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • SwitzerlandQS #8

    ETH

    Zurich

    Continental Europe's top university, at a fraction of the price of the Ivy League

    EngineeringComputer sciencePhysics
    Tuition per year$5kUnder $10k a year
    IB 38/423 years6 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United KingdomQS #8

    UCL

    London, Bloomsbury

    London's first university to admit students of any religion, and now its broadest

    EngineeringMedicineArchitecture
    Tuition per year$45k–80kOver $55k a year
    IB 34–403 years5 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • SingaporeQS #10

    NUS

    Singapore, Kent Ridge

    Asia's strongest university, taught in English, two hours' flight from Phuket

    Computer scienceEngineeringBusiness
    Tuition per year$14k–69kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years5 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • Hong KongQS #11

    HKU

    Hong Kong Island, Pok Fu Lam

    Hong Kong's oldest university, on a hillside above the harbour, taught in English

    MedicineLawBusiness
    Tuition per year$32k–75kOver $55k a year
    IB 34–43 · A-level A*AA4 years4 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • SingaporeQS #12

    NTU

    Singapore, Jurong West

    A tropical garden campus built around engineering, computing and design

    EngineeringComputer scienceBusiness
    Tuition per year$14k–71kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years3 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • ChinaQS #13

    Peking University

    Beijing, Haidian District

    China's first national comprehensive university, taught in Chinese

    HumanitiesMathematicsPhysics
    Tuition per year$4k–5kUnder $10k a year
    A-level 34 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • ChinaQS #14

    Tsinghua

    Beijing, Haidian District

    China's engineering flagship, with a few fully English-taught undergraduate programmes

    EngineeringComputer scienceArchitecture
    Tuition per year$4k–15k$10–30k a year
    Own entry route4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #15

    Penn

    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    Franklin's university: Wharton, Penn Medicine and four schools you can mix freely

    BusinessEconomicsMedicine
    Tuition per year$66kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years6 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #16

    Cornell

    Ithaca, New York

    The Ivy League's broadest undergraduate menu: engineering, agriculture, hotel management and arts under one roof

    EngineeringComputer scienceBusiness
    Tuition per year$74kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #16

    Yale

    New Haven, Connecticut

    Law, humanities, politics and the arts; Harvard's rival with a residential-college soul

    LawHumanitiesPolitics
    Tuition per year$73kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years7 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • Hong KongQS #18

    CUHK

    Hong Kong, Sha Tin

    Hong Kong's bilingual collegiate university, with a medical school and a broad base in business and science

    MedicineBusinessEngineering
    Tuition per year$29k$10–30k a year
    IB 30 · A-level 34 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • AustraliaQS #19

    UNSW

    Sydney, New South Wales

    Sydney's engineering, business and medicine university, admitting by published IB score

    EngineeringBusinessLaw
    Tuition per year$35k–73kOver $55k a year
    IB 28–41 · A-level 10–173 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #20

    Johns Hopkins

    Baltimore, Maryland

    America's first research university: medicine, biomedical engineering and public health

    MedicineBiologyEngineering
    Tuition per year$69kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #20

    UC Berkeley

    Berkeley, California

    The world's top public university, a 30-minute BART ride from San Francisco

    Computer scienceEngineeringChemistry
    Tuition per year$57kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years12 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • SwitzerlandQS #22

    EPFL

    Lausanne, on Lake Geneva

    Engineering by Lake Geneva: world-class labs, lectures in French, a brutal first year

    EngineeringComputer sciencePhysics
    Tuition per year$5kUnder $10k a year
    IB 38/423 years4 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • AustraliaQS #22

    Melbourne

    Melbourne, Victoria

    Australia's best, with a curriculum that makes you choose your profession after the degree

    MedicineLawBiology
    Tuition per year$31k–60kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route3 years4 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #24

    UChicago

    Chicago, Illinois

    Economics, physics and the social sciences, taught in discussion-heavy seminars

    EconomicsPhysicsMathematics
    Tuition per year$76kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • GermanyQS #25

    TUM

    Munich

    Germany's engineering powerhouse in the city of BMW, Siemens and the Alps

    EngineeringComputer sciencePhysics
    Tuition per year$5k–8kUnder $10k a year
    Own entry route3 years5 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • ChinaQS #26

    Fudan

    Shanghai, Yangpu District

    Shanghai's flagship comprehensive university, with a handful of English-taught bachelor's programmes

    MedicineChemistryEconomics
    Tuition per year$4k–6kUnder $10k a year
    Own entry route4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #27

    Princeton

    Princeton, New Jersey

    Physics, mathematics and public affairs on the most undergraduate-focused Ivy campus

    PhysicsMathematicsEconomics
    Tuition per year$68k–69kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years14 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • AustraliaQS #28

    Sydney

    Sydney, New South Wales

    Australia's first university, in a sandstone quadrangle half an hour from the Opera House

    MedicineLawEngineering
    Tuition per year$36k–49k$30–55k a year
    IB 24–453 years5 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • AustraliaQS #29

    ANU

    Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

    Australia's national university in the capital, built around research and public policy

    PoliticsHumanitiesEconomics
    Tuition per year$34k–45k$30–55k a year
    IB 31–41 · A-level 13–173 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • CanadaQS #30

    McGill

    Montreal, Quebec

    A stone campus at the foot of Mount Royal, in North America's most European city

    MedicineLawEngineering
    Tuition per year$23k–51k$30–55k a year
    Own entry route4 years6 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • AustraliaQS #31

    Monash

    Melbourne, Victoria

    Melbourne research university with a long menu of double degrees and rolling international applications

    MedicineEngineeringBusiness
    Tuition per year$28k–71kOver $55k a year
    IB 25–39 · A-level 7–153 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • CanadaQS #32

    Toronto

    Toronto, Ontario

    Insulin, stem cells and deep learning all came out of the same campus

    MedicineEngineeringComputer science
    Tuition per year$36k–54k$30–55k a year
    Own entry route4 years8 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • Hong KongQS #33

    HKUST

    Hong Kong, Clear Water Bay

    Founded in 1991 and already among Asia's best, on a campus that faces the sea

    EngineeringComputer scienceBusiness
    Tuition per year$33k$30–55k a year
    IB 35–41 · A-level AAA–A*A*A*4 years2 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • FranceQS #34

    PSL

    Paris, Île-de-France

    A federation of elite Paris schools (ENS, Mines Paris, Dauphine and others) with small, selective undergraduate programmes

    PhysicsMathematicsHumanities
    Tuition per year$200–22k$10–30k a year
    Own entry route3 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United KingdomQS #35

    Edinburgh

    Edinburgh, Scotland

    Dolly the sheep, the Higgs boson and Britain's largest school of informatics

    Computer scienceMedicineBiology
    Tuition per year$40k–80kOver $55k a year
    IB 30–43 · A-level A*A*A*–BBB4 years8 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • ChinaQS #36

    Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU)

    Shanghai, Minhang District

    Shanghai's engineering university, with an English-taught engineering cluster for foreigners

    EngineeringComputer scienceMedicine
    Tuition per year$4k–23k$10–30k a year
    Own entry route4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United KingdomQS #37

    King's

    London

    Photo 51, Florence Nightingale and five campuses along the Thames in central London

    MedicineLawHumanities
    Tuition per year$41k–90kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route3 years7 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • South KoreaQS #38

    SNU

    Seoul, Gwanak-gu

    Korea's flagship national university, with a document-review route for non-Korean applicants

    EngineeringPhysicsChemistry
    Tuition per year$4k–8kUnder $10k a year
    Own entry route4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • JapanQS #39

    UTokyo

    Tokyo, Bunkyo and Meguro wards

    Japan's flagship national university, with admission and teaching mainly in Japanese

    EngineeringPhysicsMedicine
    Tuition per year$4kUnder $10k a year
    Own entry route4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • AustraliaQS #40

    UQ

    Brisbane, Queensland

    Queensland's research university, with a single published entry score for each degree

    BiologyMedicineEngineering
    Tuition per year$34k–77kOver $55k a year
    IB 263 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United KingdomQS #40

    Manchester

    Manchester

    Where the atom was split, the stored-program computer was born and graphene was found

    PhysicsChemistryEngineering
    Tuition per year$39k–82kOver $55k a year
    IB 30–393 years6 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • South KoreaQS #42

    Yonsei

    Seoul, Seodaemun-gu (Sinchon); first year at Songdo, Incheon

    Seoul private research university whose English-taught Underwood International College is the usual route for IB students

    BusinessEconomicsEngineering
    Tuition per year$11k–12k$10–30k a year
    Own entry route4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #43

    Columbia

    New York, Manhattan

    Ivy League rigour and the Core Curriculum, ten minutes from Midtown Manhattan

    HumanitiesJournalismEconomics
    Tuition per year$73kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years9 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • FranceQS #43

    IP Paris

    Palaiseau, Île-de-France

    Six engineering schools around École polytechnique, with an English-taught bachelor for school-leavers

    EngineeringMathematicsComputer science
    Tuition per year$22k$10–30k a year
    Own entry route3 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • United StatesQS #45

    Northwestern

    Evanston, Illinois

    A lakeside research university near Chicago, known for journalism, economics and an interdisciplinary quarter-system curriculum

    JournalismEconomicsEngineering
    Tuition per year$72kOver $55k a year
    Own entry route4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • CanadaQS #45

    UBC

    Vancouver, British Columbia

    A forest campus on a headland, with the ocean on one side and ski slopes an hour away

    EnvironmentEngineeringComputer science
    Tuition per year$35k–48k$30–55k a year
    Own entry route4 years4 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • ChinaQS #47

    Zhejiang University (ZJU)

    Hangzhou, Zhejiang

    A large comprehensive university in Hangzhou, taught mostly in Chinese

    EngineeringComputer scienceMedicine
    Tuition per year$3k–30k$30–55k a year
    IB 34 · A-level AAB4 years
    Read fullNo reviews yet
  • NetherlandsQS #48

    TU Delft

    Delft

    The Netherlands' oldest technical university, where students build solar cars and hyperloops

    EngineeringComputer scienceArchitecture
    Tuition per year$23k$10–30k a year
    Own entry route3 years4 studied here
    Read fullNo reviews yet

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