World's Best Universities: Employer Review Survey

U.S.News & World Report's World's Best Universities rankings, based on the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings, identified these to be world's top universities in 2009.

Schools by Location The Top 200 Asian and Middle Eastern Australian and New Zealand British and European Canadian Schools by Subject The Top 200 Arts and Humanities Engineering and IT Life Sciences and Biomedicine Natural & Physical Sciences Social Sciences Methodologies World's Best Universities Methodology Subject Area Rankings Methodology Academic Peer Review Citations per Faculty Member Student-to-Faculty Ratio Employer Review Survey International Student and International Faculty Factors Weightings and Statistical Scores About the World's Best Universities Rankings

How is the employer review indicator determined for the 2009 U.S. News World's Best Universities rankings, which are based on data from the THE-QS World University Rankings produced in association with QS Quacquarelli Symonds? The employer review survey score accounts for 10 percent of the overall ranking.

Introduced in 2005, the employer review is a key factor in evaluating institutions from the perspective of graduate employability. In our U.S. News America's Best Graduate Schools rankings and in other national rankings around the world, a variety of indicators have been used—such as the percentage of graduates employed after getting a degree or starting salaries of recent graduates—but these are subject to significant local influence and can't be used to compare schools globally.

The employer review is based on a global online survey and represents a true cross section of employers and employer types. Respondents are sourced through three key channels. First, QS has an extensive corporate database. Second, the powerful network of partners with which QS cooperates on its events around the world covers a range of job sites and media focused on the private sector. And finally, beginning in 2007, participating institutions were invited to submit a list of contacts from companies with which they work. Schools typically supplied names of employers that are known to have hired graduates from the given institution. Both domestic and international employers can be included, multiple contacts from the same organization can be included, and public- and private-sector employers can be included.

In addition, a regional weighting was applied to ensure equal representation from the three "super-regions" in the rankings—the Americas; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; and the Asia Pacific.

In 2009, the respondents were asked to rate separately universities inside and those outside their own country. The ratings were recombined after the responses were submitted, using methods designed to reduce any response bias by country. The final employer review scores were compiled based on three years' worth of responses. The total number of respondents considered for the 2009 results (including those from 2007 and 2008 who have not updated their responses) was 3,281.