University of Edinburgh

ranked 24th in the world and 5th in the UK by the 2021 Aggregate Ranking of Top Universities, a league table based on the three major world university rankings, ARWU, QS and THE. In the 2022 U.S. News & World Report, Edinburgh ranked 32nd globally and 5th nationally. The 2022 World Reputation Rankings placed Edinburgh at 32nd worldwide and 5th nationwide. In 2023, it ranked 73rd amongst the universities around the world by the SCImago Institutions Rankings.
The disparity between Edinburgh's research capacity, endowment and international status on the one hand, and its ranking in national league tables on the other, is largely due to the impact of measures of 'student satisfaction'. Edinburgh was ranked last in the UK for teaching quality in the 2012 National Student Survey, with the 2015 Good University Guide stating that this stemmed from "questions to do with the promptness, usefulness and extent of academic feedback", and that the university "still has a long way to go to turn around a poor position". Edinburgh improved only marginally over the next years, with the 2021 Good University Guide still ranking it in the bottom 10 domestically in both teaching quality and student experience. Edinburgh was ranked 122nd out of 128 universities for student satisfaction in the 2022 Complete University Guide, although it was ranked 12th overall. The 2024 Guardian University Guide ranked Edinburgh 14th overall, but 50th out of 120 universities in teaching satisfaction, and lowest among all universities in satisfaction with feedback.
In the 2022 Complete University Guide, 32 out of the 49 subjects offered by Edinburgh were ranked within the top 10 in the UK, with Asian Studies (4th), Chemical Engineering (4th), Education (2nd), Geology (5th), Linguistics (5th), Mechanical Engineering (5th), Medicine (5th), Music (5th), Nursing (1st), Physics & Astronomy (5th), Social Policy (5th), Theology & Religious Studies (4th), and Veterinary Medicine (2nd) within the top 5. The 2021 THE World University Rankings by Subject ranked Edinburgh …