D

o you know which university is the best in the world?

The answer is the United Kingdom’s University of Cambridge, according to the 8th annual 2011/2012 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings.

For a second consecutive year, Cambridge retained its premier status by defeating Harvard University.

Harvard, which topped QS’ list from 2004 to 2009, was rated the world’s richest university.

QS released its top 300 global universities list on Monday.

Cambridge scored an overall 100 of 100, while Harvard just missed perfection with a score of 99.3. Another US institution, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), jumped to third with a 99.2 score, ahead of Yale University and Oxford University.

“The gap between Cambridge and Harvard is very small, but Cambridge’s superior student/faculty ratio helped tip the balance. Individual attention is one of the key attractions of the Oxbridge tutorial system,” QS head of research Ben Sowter said on Monday at a press release.

The rankings were compiled based on scores in six areas, including academic reputation (40 percent), employer reputation (10 percent), student/faculty ratio (20 percent), citations per faculty (20 percent), international faculty (5 percent) and international students (5 percent).

Indonesia had only one institution on the list: the University of Indonesia (UI) in Depok, West Java. With a score of just 45, UI was ranked 217th, up from 236th place in survey last year.

East Asian nations made significant gains in the rankings.

The University of Hong Kong with a score of 87, stood in 22nd place, the highest ranking in Asia. The National University of Singapore (NUS) earned a rank of 28th with a score of 84.

Several top universities from Hong Kong, Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan also featured prominently on the table.

Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Mahidoi University in Thailand and the University of Malaysia also jumped in the rankings.

Other top performing Indonesian universities on QS’ Asia ranking included the University of Indonesia (50th place), Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta (80th), Airlangga University in Surabaya, East Java (86th), and the Bandung Institute of Technology (98th) and Padjadjaran University (128th) in Bandung, West Java.

Universities from the UK and US have dominated the list due to superior standards and academic excellence.