U.S. institutions dominate the list of world 's best universities leaving other countries trailing far behind in terms of numbers . Harvard takes the top spot for the fifth year running . Oxford and Cambridge are the only non-American universities in top ten . The University of California is at number one, followed by Stanford, MIT, Caltech, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Duke, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Washington State, Boston College
U.S. institutions dominate the list of world 's best universities leaving other countries trailing far behind in terms of numbers . Harvard takes the top spot for the fifth year running . Oxford and Cambridge are the only non-American universities in top ten . The top 20 is rounded out by universities from Japan , Switzerland and Canada joining those from the U.S. and U.K .