A few months ago, the Times Higher Education (THE) charts ranked Oxford as the best place on Earth to study medicine. But, as it turns out, not everyone agrees.
The QS World University Ranking is one of THE’s main competitors. Both rankers come up with well-respected charts which are generally pretty similar, but never exactly the same. Variety is the spice of life, as they say.
And now, QS has relegated Oxford’s medical school to second place, giving the title of world’s best uni medicine department to Harvard.
Although Oxford is not number one in medicine according to QS, it does have an excellent score of 95 out of 100. Cambridge also makes an appearance in the top 10, coming in 5th with a score of 90.3. Imperial College London and University College London (UCL) also have some of the best doctors-in-training, coming 7th and 8th in the ranking respectively.
QS ranks medical schools, and all other subjects, on three key criteria: employability, research & discovery, and global engagement. Oxford’s strongest suit was in global engagement, where its ‘international research network’ scored 98.1 out of 100, and it also did very well in employability, earning an impressive 97.1. This still wasn’t enough to beat Harvard, which got a perfect 100 in both categories. You can’t win ‘em all.
Oxford also placed second in the arts and humanities, once again being narrowly beaten by Harvard. In this category Cambridge came third, and the University of Edinburgh came 10th.
In engineering, Oxford once again came 2nd, this time losing out to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). So close yet so far once again.
There is a saving grace though: Oxford and Cambridge tied for first place in English literature, both beating Harvard this time. It’s important to focus on the wins.
Being the second best university in the world in loads of subjects is no mean feat, even if you feel like you should’ve been the best. Oxford medics, we’re still impressed by you, and would trust you to give us open-heart surgery if the day ever comes.
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