Studying Abroad

My oldest loves geography and is curious about the world. They are an exceptional student and should be able to do whatever they want in their educational career. They started their first year in high school, and while we have been looking at countries to move to, I decided to look at colleges they might want to attend.

I took the data from the top five Google results and was proud to discover that my alma mater (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) was the 59th-ranked global university. Of course, that is not the point of this post, but it feels nice to know that my son’s in-state option is exceptional.

This is not meant to be a definitive ranking but as an inspiration for possible universities to attend.

Top-10 Non-US Universities

Rank	University	Country
4	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
5	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
8	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
15	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	Switzerland
16	University College London (UCL)	United Kingdom
19	Tsinghua University	China
21	Peking University	China
23	University of Toronto	Canada
26	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
28	University of Tokyo	Japan

Top-10 “Happy” Nation Universities

Rank	University	Country
15	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	Switzerland
23	University of Toronto	Canada
33	University of Melbourne	Australia
34	McGill University	Canada
35	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)	Switzerland
36	Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich	Germany
38	University of British Columbia	Canada
39	Karolinska Institute	Sweden
47	Australian National University (ANU)	Australia
49	Heidelberg University	Germany

The “Others”

Here are the top universities for each happy nation outside the Top 50.

Rank	University	Country
51	University of Sydney	Australia
56	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
70	University of Zurich	Switzerland
71	University of Copenhagen	Denmark
88	Humboldt University of Berlin	Germany
89	University of Oslo	Norway
90	University of Helsinki	Finland
93	Lund University	Sweden
101	University of Alberta	Canada
135	University of Auckland	New Zealand
151	Trinity College Dublin	Ireland
156	Tel Aviv University	Israel
159	University of Vienna	Austria

The ranking data follows…

US News

Fortunately, we can remove all the United States colleges from our search criteria. So, according to US News, here are the top non-US universities.

1. University of Oxford (5) (United Kingdom)
2. University of Cambridge (8) (United Kingdom)
3. University College London (12) (United Kingdom)
4. University of Toronto (18) (Canada)
5. Tsinghua University (23) (China)
6. National University of Singapore (26) (Singapore)
7. University of Melbourne (27) (Australia)
8. University of Sydney (28) (Australia)
9. ETH Zurich (29) (Switzerland)
10. Nanyang Technological University (30) (Singapore)

Other universities should be considered based on my happy nation research.

• University of Amsterdam (38) (Netherlands)
• University of Copenhagen (42) (Denmark)
• Utrecht University (44) (Netherlands)
• University of Munich (47) (Germany)
• Karolinska Institutet (51) (Sweden)
• Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg (57) (Germany)
• Humboldt University of Berlin (61) (Germany)
• Erasmus University Rotterdam (65) (Netherlands)
• University of Zurich (67) (Switzerland)
• University of Oslo (89) (Norway)
• University of Helsinki (99) (Finland)
• Aarhus University (109) (Denmark)
• Lund University (112) (Sweden)
• University of Auckland (123) (New Zealand)

Top Universities

1. University of Cambridge (2) (United Kingdom)
2. University of Oxford (4) (United Kingdom)
3. Imperial College London (6) (United Kingdom)
4. UCL (8) (United Kingdom)
5. ETH Zurich (9) (Switzerland)
6. National University of Singapore (NUS) (11) (Singapore)
7. Peking University (12) (China)
8. Tsinghua University (14) (China)
9. The University of Edinburgh (15) (United Kingdom)
10. EPFL (16) (Switzerland)

And the other contenders are based on happy lands…

• Australian National University (ANU) (30) (Australia)
• McGill University (31) (Canada)
• The University of Melbourne (33) (Australia)
• University of Toronto (34) (Canada)
• The University of Sydney (41) (Australia)
• University of British Columbia (47) (Canada)
• Technical University of Munich (49) (Germany)
• University of Amsterdam (58) (Netherlands)
• Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (59) (Germany)
• Delft University of Technology (61) (Netherlands)

Times Higher Education

1. University of Oxford (1) (United Kingdom)
2. University of Cambridge (3) (United Kingdom)
3. Imperial College London (10) (United Kingdom)
4. ETH Zurich (11) (Switzerland)
5. Tsinghua University (16) (China)
6. Peking University (17) (China)
7. University of Toronto (18) (Canada)
8. National University of Singapore (19) (Singapore)
9. UCL (22) (United Kingdom)
10. University of Edinburgh (29) (United Kingdom)

and the others…

• Technical University of Munich (30) (Germany)
• LMU Munich (33) (Germany)
• University of Melbourne (34) (Australia)
• University of British Columbia (40) (Canada)
• École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (41) (Switzerland)
• Heidelberg University (43) (Germany)
• Monash University (44) (Australia)
• McGill University (46) (Canada)
• Karolinska Institute (49) (Sweden)
• The University of Queensland (53) (Australia)

Round Ranking

1. Karolinska Institute (5) (Sweden)
2. ETH Zurich (6) (Switzerland)
3. Imperial College London (8) (United Kingdom)
4. Peking University (11) (China)
5. University of Oxford (12) (UK)
6. Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne (14) (Switzerland)
7. University of Cambridge (16) (UK)
8. University College London (20) (UK)
9. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (21) (South Korea)
10. Technical University of Denmark (23) (Denmark)

Other happy nation options…

• University of Lausanne (41) (Switzerland)
• Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (43) (Germany)
• McGill University (49) (Canada)
• University of Helsinki (52) (Finland)
• Technische Universitat Dresden (54) (Germany)
• Wageningen University & Research Center (58) (Netherlands)
• University of Bern (59) (Switzerland)
• University of Geneva (60) (Switzerland)
• Australian National University (66) (Australia)
• Lund University (68) (Sweden)

CWUR

1. University of Cambridge (4) (United Kingdom)
2. University of Oxford (5) (United Kingdom)
3. University of Tokyo (13) (Japan)
4. PSL University (19) (France)
5. University College London (21) (United Kingdom)
6. University of Toronto (24) (Canada)
7. Kyoto University (26) (Japan)
8. McGill University (28) (Canada)
9. ETH Zurich (29) (Switzerland)
10. Imperial College London (30) (United Kingdom)

And the best from happy nations…

• University of Copenhagen (36) (Denmark)
• Karolinska Institute (37) (Sweden)
• Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (44) (Germany)
• University of British Columbia (49) (Canada)
• Free University of Berlin (56) (Germany)
• University of Melbourne (58) (Australia)
• Humboldt University of Berlin (61) (Germany)
• University of Zurich (64) (Switzerland)
• Hebrew University of Jerusalem (67) (Israel)
• Utrecht University (73) (Netherlands)

What’s Next?

I plan to consider how and if admission is possible in these foreign nations. For example, what are the qualifications for an international student, and what tests or grades would be necessary?