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So you’ve set your hopes on attending one of the most elite universities in the world?

You’ve heard of Harvard, Stanford and MIT of course.

But with a grand total of 147 US universities in the World University Rankings, there are plenty of options for a world-class education you may never have thought of.

For the fourth year running California Institute of Technology has reigned as the best university in the world.

Asian universities have collectively achieved a huge improvement in the 2015-16 Times Higher Education World University Rankings for physical sciences, released today.

More than half of Asia’s 15 universities in the top 100 for physical sciences are included for the first time this year.

These newly ranked institutions achieved an average position of 65, ranking on the whole significantly higher than the European, North American or Australian debutants in the 2016 table.

These are the results for 2015. View the 2016 results

UK employers from predominantly business, IT and engineering sectors have revealed which UK universities produce the best graduates for the workplace.

The universities of Oxford and Cambridge have taken the top spots in the UK ranking of the Global Employability University Survey 2015.

Thousands of major recruiters around the world have voted on which local and international universities produce the best graduates for their workplace.

The results are published in a Global Employability University Survey and Ranking, revealed exclusively by Times Higher Education today.

Although many of the universities that received the most votes, and are therefore at the top of the employability ranking, are recognised as world-leading institutions, there are a number of surprises.

Asia claims a quarter of the best 100 universities in the world for engineering and technology in the 2015-16 subject ranking.

Universities in Singapore, Hong Kong and China are among the best 25 in the world for engineering degrees, directly competing with rivals in the US, UK, Sweden and the Netherlands.

For the first time, an Indian university is included in the Technical University of Darmstadt, in Germany, in 100th place.

US universities count for almost half of the top 100 for social sciences in the 2015-16 ranking released by the Times Higher Education today.

What makes one university better than another?

More often than not, the answer from students, academics and other higher education professionals has been some quality test of university teaching or research.

But the Social Mobility Index aims to shift the focus to access and outcomes for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The 2016 university ranking for life sciences subjects, released today, once again shows the universities of Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford and Caltech leading the way.

But in spite of US, and, to a lesser extent, UK domination in the highest ranks, German, Australian and Swiss universities have racked up an impressive performance.

Twenty-one universities in the top 100 for life sciences are in Germany, Australia or Switzerland – more than the UK’s 18 universities in the same range.

The economic value added to students’ lives by attending specific US colleges has been calculated for a non-profit organisation’s university ranking system.

Educate to Career (ETC), a non-profit that provides data resources relating to education and career outcomes, used a variety of metrics to measure the improvement in earnings and employability of graduates against the total cost of their education.

European universities are beginning to compete with North American institutions in the arts and humanities, as revealed by the 2016 subject ranking released today.

Many of the highest-placed European universities in the ranking have moved into the top 20 for the first time this year. In total, 13 of the top 20 are in North America and seven are in Europe.