Penn ranks No. 13 in U.S. News and World Report's 2022 ranking of Best Global Universities

Penn was ranked No. 13 in the U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 ranking of the Best Global Universities, up one spot from No. 14 in last year’s ranking. 

Among the Ivy League, Penn ranked in the middle of the pack, with Harvard ranked No. 1, Columbia ranked No. 6, and Yale ranked No. 12. The top 20 included 15 American universities, with the University of Oxford being the highest-ranking institution outside of the United States.

The Best Global Universities ranking is based on schools’ overall reputation and their academic research performance — a different methodology than the one used for the Best National Universities ranking. According to the U.S. News and World Report website, U.S. News determined if a school was eligible for ranking based on criteria such as a minimum threshold of papers published from 2015 to 2019. 

Each eligible university was then assigned a global score, which U.S. News said on its website was calculated based on 13 indicators that were given different weights. Global and regional research reputation, for example, are each given 12.5% weight in the ranking formula. The number of books published and conferences held are each given 2.5% weight.

Penn earned a global score of 84.8 out of 100, up from 84.2 last year. The University ranked No. 18 in global research reputation and No. 11 in total citations of its research.

A total of 1,750 institutions in 90 countries were ranked in the Best Global Universities ranking, according to the U.S. News website, up from around 1,500 institutions in 86 countries last year. The 2022 ranking is the eighth annual Best Global Universities ranking published by U.S. News.

In the U.S. News 2022 ranking of the Best National Universities, Penn ranked No. 8, unchanged from last year. Penn recently ranked No. 9 in Forbes college rankings, a drop of three spots from 2019, the last year Forbes released its Top Colleges list.