Stanford was ranked fourth in the annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings, trailing behind the number one Caltech and the tied Harvard and Oxford at second.
The World University Rankings employ 13 criteria centered mostly on teaching, research and citations (30 percent each) with 7.5 percent coming from international outlook of its people and research, and 2.5 percent coming from the income a university receives from industry for its research.
The first-ranked Caltech has a score of 94.9/100, while Stanford’s score was 93.8, trailing behind Harvard and Oxford by 0.1 points.
By subject, Stanford placed first in arts and humanities and social sciences, second in engineering and technology (behind MIT), and fifth in clinical, pre-clinical and health, physical sciences and life sciences.
In the World Reputation Ranking, another ranking by the same group which instead considers the opinion of academics around the world, Stanford placed third, behind Harvard in first and MIT in second.