A new global university ranking which lists the top 750 universities in the world contains three Romanian universities. The highest ranked Romanian university is the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, which finishes in 560th place with a global score of 40.7 out of 100, placing it just above Ankara University in Turkey and just below the UK’s Open University. The Babes-Bolyai University is also the largest in Romania with a student body of over 35,000, over 800 of which are international students.

The second highest ranked Romanian university is the University of Bucharest at 588th. Its global score of 39.8 ties it on points with the UK’s University of Portsmouth. It also finished just above the University of Kent. The University of Bucharest is Romania’s second-largest university with over 31,000 students. The lowest ranked Romanian university in this list is the Polytechnic University of Bucharest at 706th. Its global score of 34.8 places it just above Dublin City University. All three Romanian universities ranked here finish within the top 300 in Europe.

Overall, the US performed best at the top end of the rankings with 8 universities out of the top 10 being American. Only Oxford and Cambridge, ranked 5th and 6th respectively, broke the trend. Harvard University was the only institution to score a perfect 100 global score whiles the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of California-Berkeley took 2nd and 3rd place. The University of Maribor in Slovenia was the lowest performer at the bottom end of the table with a global score of only 32.8.

In contrast to this latest ranking, the 2014/15 edition of the ‘QS World University Rankings’ places the University of Bucharest in pole position for Romania within the ‘651-700’ category with Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iasi, Babeş-Bolyai University and West University of Timisoara featuring in the ‘701+’ category.

The ‘Best Global Universities’ rankings 2016 were compiled by U.S. News. Institutions from over 50 countries feature in the rankings. The institutions were ranked according to 12 indicators that measured their academic research performance and their global and regional reputations.

Over the last couple of weeks, students from across the country got the chance to talk to many well-ranked universities from the European Union and beyond at several education fairs that took place both within the capital and around Romania.

By Dale Harris, editorial intern