According to the 2011 university rankings for English Language and Literature published on Thursday by
British consulting firm Quacquarelli Symonds, eight Korean universities ranked in the top 200.

Seoul National University came 46th, and Korea University, Sogang University, and Yonsei University between 51st and 100th. Ewha Womans University and Hanyang University were in the third 50, and Sungkyunkwan University and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in the fourth.

In the category of other modern languages such as Spanish and French, six Korean universities were in the top 200, followed by China and Hong Kong (five each) and Singapore (two). SNU ranked in the second 50, and Korea University, Sogang, Yonsei, Ewha, and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in the third.

Harvard University topped the list in both, followed by Oxford, Cambridge, the University of California at Berkeley, and Yale.

The rankings were given based chiefly on academic review (70-90 percent), rather than on publications and citation of papers per faculty or employer review, because it is difficult to quantify universities in the humanities.