The global ranking of Africa’s top university, the University of Cape Town (UCT), has dropped two times in a row over the past two years. According to the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings, UCT is currently number 126 in the world, down 13 positions from last year.

In 2012 and 2013, UCT was ranked number 103 and 113 respectively. However, despite the drop, it remains the only African university in the top 200. Behind UCT is the University of Witwatersrad (Wits), whose position is estimated to be around 226 – 250. The University of Stellenbosch, which is ranked number 3 in Africa, is around number 301-350 in the world. The rankings show only the top 400 universities in the world. The top three African universities that appeared on the list are all from South Africa. No other African university made it to the top 400.

The first position was taken by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) (Sheldon Cooper‘s university 🙂 ) for the third time in a row. The University of Oxford and Harvard University shared the second position while Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took the 4th and 5th positions respectively. These rankings are said to be objective and based on carefully measured overall performances of universities. They take into consideration the quality of teaching, research output, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

However, Harvard University remains the world’s most reputable university, according to the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, which rank the top 100 universities based on the opinions of reliable academics. MIT, Stanford University, University of Cambridge and University of Oxford took positions two to five respectively. Harvard has held position 1 since the reputation rankings were introduced in 2011.