5 Korean Universities Scrape into World's Top 100

Five Korean universities have made it on the world's top 100 list in this year's rankings released by Quacquarelli Symonds of the U.K. on Thursday.

Seoul National University ranks 36th, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology 40th, Pohang University of Science and Technology 83rd, Korea University 86th, and Sungkyunkwan University 100th. Sungkyunkwan is a new entrant by rising eight notches from last year.

Fifteen Korean universities are in the top 400, with Hanyang University moving up four notches to 151st and Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology 24 places to 315th. But no Korean university reached the top 30.

Korean universities still fare poorly in academic reputation, employer reputation and international faculty and student ratios, even though they are improving every year, QS said.

SNU placed 41st in employer reputation, down from 31st last year, and ranked outside the top 500 in international faculty ratio and outside the top 600 in international student ratio.

KAIST came in at 81st in employer reputation and 473rd in international faculty ratio, despite its outstanding performance at 16th in citations per faculty.

Overall, Massachusetts Institute of Technology topped the list, followed by three other American universities -- Stanford, Harvard and California Institute of Technology. Next came Oxford and Cambridge in the U.K.

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