Harvard: Prestigiously Number One

Harvard has once again ranked first on the 2012 World Reputation Rankings for universities by Times Higher Education magazine.

This ranking, which aims to order schools based on global academic prestige, is now in its second year. The opinion poll surveyed 17,554 individuals, many of whom were academics, from 137 countries. Respondents were asked about the academic reputations of institutions, the quality of teaching offered there, and the schools' contributions to research.

With more than just a city name in common, institutions in the American and British Cambridge also ranked high for best reputations. MIT came in second, and the University of Cambridge was third. Out on the west coast, Californian universities also did well with Stanford and U.C. Berkeley completing the top five. Other Ivies making it to the top 10 included Princeton and Yale, which came in at seventh and tenth, respectively. A notable change from last year's rankings was the improvement of Asian universities across the board.

Oh, and if ranking by prestige rings a bell, we too were reminded of the 2012 Housing Market, where poll results showing differences between "overall" and subjective rankings illuminated the fact that reputation alone can make or break a House (or, perhaps, a university).