The Harvard law school area on the campus of Harvard University has been ranked as the top place in the world to study law. Photograph: Chitose Suzuki/AP
Harvard university has been ranked number one for economics, accounting and law amongst others in the latest world rankings for social sciences, featuring top for all apart from one of the disciplines.
It is another strong appearance for the American university which earlier this year topped rankings for biological sciences and for world reputation.
Stanford university come in top place for statistics and operational research, beating Harvard. The rankings show the best performers in the six disciplines; accounting and finance, economics and econometrics, law, politics and international studies, sociology and statistics and operational research. The Oxbridge universities are in the top ten for each subject.
London School of Economics (LSE) beat both Oxford and Cambridge universities for economics and econometrics in the rankings published by leading higher education and careers research company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). LSE are also placed ahead of University College London (UCL) for all of the disciplines.
The social sciences rankings are good news for UK universities with Oxford and Cambridge featuring heavily in the top ten for all the disciplines. Oxford university beats Cambridge at accounting and finance, economics, law and politics and international studies but comes in two places lower for statistics and operational research.
As part of the survey to compile the rankings, global graduate employers were asked to identify the universities they believe produce the best graduates overall and within a selected discipline. The results showed that graduates in business, accountancy and finance, and economics were the most sought after.
With the continuing focus on universities to bring value to the education market along with their increasing fees, graduate employability has become a growing worry for future students.
"Employability is by no means the only benefit of a university education, but with £9,000 per-year fees and 83 graduates now competing for every job, it is inevitably at the forefront of many prospective students' minds", says John O'Leary, Editor of the Times Good University Guide and member of the QS Academic Advisory Board. "The reality is that students will be paying the same amount for degrees that in practice have vastly different market values."
We have compiled these rankings and all the QS rankings so far into a spreadsheet which can be downloaded below. The university rankings feature country they are in and show the full 100 listed. Below is a table showing the top 10 in all six social sciences disciplines by subject.
Data summary
| Rank | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|
| SOURCE: QS Quacquarelli Symonds 2011 - www.topuniversities.com | ||
| 1 | Harvard University | United States |
| 2 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| 3 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | United States |
| 4 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
| 5 | Stanford University | United States |
| 6 | London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) | United Kingdom |
| 7 | University of California, Berkeley (UCB) | United States |
| 8 | University of Chicago | United States |
| 9 | University of Pennsylvania | United States |
| 10 | London Business School | United Kingdom |
| Rank | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|
| SOURCE: QS Quacquarelli Symonds 2011 - www.topuniversities.com | ||
| 1 | Harvard University | United States |
| 2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | United States |
| 3 | Stanford University | United States |
| 4 | London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) | United Kingdom |
| 5 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| 6 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
| 7 | University of California, Berkeley (UCB) | United States |
| 8 | University of Chicago | United States |
| 9 | Yale University | United States |
| 10 | Princeton University | United States |
| Rank | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|
| SOURCE: QS Quacquarelli Symonds 2011 - www.topuniversities.com | ||
| 1 | Harvard University | United States |
| 2 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| 3 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
| 4 | Yale University | United States |
| 5 | Stanford University | United States |
| 6 | University of California, Berkeley (UCB) | United States |
| 7 | London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) | United Kingdom |
| 8 | Columbia University | United States |
| 9 | The University of Melbourne | Australia |
| 10 | New York University (NYU) | United States |
| Rank | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|
| SOURCE: QS Quacquarelli Symonds 2011 - www.topuniversities.com | ||
| 1 | Harvard University | United States |
| 2 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| 3 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
| 4 | London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) | United Kingdom |
| 5 | University of California, Berkeley (UCB) | United States |
| 6 | Yale University | United States |
| 7 | Stanford University | United States |
| 8 | Columbia University | United States |
| 9 | Princeton University | United States |
| 10 | Australian National University | Australia |
| Rank | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|
| SOURCE: QS Quacquarelli Symonds 2011 - www.topuniversities.com | ||
| 1 | Harvard University | United States |
| 2 | University of California, Berkeley (UCB) | United States |
| 3 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| 4 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
| 5 | University of Chicago | United States |
| 6 | Stanford University | United States |
| 7 | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | United States |
| 8 | Yale University | United States |
| 9 | Columbia University | United States |
| 10 | London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) | United Kingdom |
| Rank | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|
| SOURCE: QS Quacquarelli Symonds 2011 - www.topuniversities.com | ||
| 1 | Stanford University | United States |
| 2 | Harvard University | United States |
| 3 | University of California, Berkeley (UCB) | United States |
| 4 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
| 5 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | United States |
| 6 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| 7 | National University of Singapore (NUS) | Singapore |
| 8 | University of Toronto | Canada |
| 9 | Imperial College London | United Kingdom |
| 10 | Princeton University | United States |
Download the data
• DATA: download the full spreadsheet
• DATA: download the arts & humanities 2011 rankings
• DATA: download the biomedical sciences 2011 rankings
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