US News & World Report ranked Cornell University 13th best university in the world, according to its annual Best Global Universities Rankings, released on Tuesday.
At No. 13 out of 2,250 ranked universities, Cornell received a global score of 84.2.
Cornell rose by three places since the 2025-2026 global rankings, overtaking Dartmouth at No. 331, Brown at No. 144, Penn at No. 17 and Princeton at No. 16 — which Cornell tied with last year. Harvard, MIT, Yale and Columbia ranked at No. 1, No. 2, No. 8 and No. 10, respectively.
At No. 10, Columbia beat Cornell as the top-globally-ranked university in New York State this year.
In a Sept. 22 statement released prior to the 2025-2026 rankings, U.S. News & World Report acknowledged that Columbia falsely reported information in previous years, writing that in 2025, it would rank Columbia “but will continue to assess on an ongoing basis Columbia’s inclusion in the Best Colleges rankings.”
The U.S. News & World Report uses 13 indicators and weights, with global research reputation, regional research reputation and number of publications among the 10% most cited making up the top three most weighted indicators. The report chooses an initial pool of 2,438 universities, then ranks from the top 2,250.
This year, the included universities spanned 105 countries.
Clarivate’s academic reputation survey is then used to determine both global and regional research reputation. The survey, conducted from 2021 to 2025, asks academics from around the world to provide opinions on programs and disciplines with which they are familiar.
Data from Clarivate’s web of science, which measures the total number of research papers published in acclaimed journals, is used for the “publication” indicator according to the U.S. News.
The U.S. News & World Report released its 2025-2026 Global University Rankings in June 2025. Its best college rankings are scheduled to be published this September.
Everett Chambala is an assistant news editor for the 144th board. He is working as the primary summer reporter for The Cornell Daily Sun through The Sun’s summer fellowship program
Everett Chambala is a member of the Class of 2027 in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He is a staff writer for the News department and can be reached at echambala@cornellsun.com.
