Important Rankings
Looking into popular Rankings can help you with your decision where to study in Germany.
CHE Ranking
The CHE ranking system only applies to German universities. The Center for Higher Education Development in Germany (CHE) releases both its ‘Excellence Rankings’ and ‘Research Rankings’ each year.
These rankings are released in Die Zeit newspaper and universities are ranked differently according to each subject.
These rankings are ideal for someone looking for the university for a certain subject, rather than more generally.
QS World University Ranking
Released annually by Quacquarelli Symonds, the QS rankings are the most commonly referenced university ratings in the world.
Based largely on peer reviews by scholars, academics and recruiters, the rankings also take student: teacher ratio into consideration.
According to the QS rankings, the top German universities are Munich’s two main institutions, the TMU (Technical University of Munich) and LMU (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich).
Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings 2019
Created by a leading UK newspaper, the Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings rates institutions according to 13 performance indicators, grouped into five key areas; teaching, citations, research, industry income and international outlook. There is much more weight given to teaching, citations and research.
According to the THE rankings, TMU, LMU and Heidelberg are the top German universities.
Academic Ranking of World Universities
One of the oldest ranking systems, these ratings are compiled by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.
These rankings are made according to numbers of published articles, Nobel prizes and Fields medals and do not use peer reviews, surveys or even the quality of teaching to assert rankings.
According to the Academic Ranking, the top German universities are University of Munich, Heidelberg and TMU, which both appear in the top 50.