Five Korean universities made it to the top 100 in the latest global rankings released by U.K. firm Quacquarelli Symonds on Wednesday. 

In the QS World University Rankings for 2024, 1,500 universities were ranked, including 43 in Korea. Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology and Soonchunhyang University were included in the rankings for the first time.

But only five — Seoul National University (41st), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) (56th), Yonsei University (76th), Korea University (79th), and Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) (100th) — made it into the top 100, one fewer than last year as Sungkyunkwan University dropped out. 

SNU slipped dramatically from 29th last year, KAIST from 42nd, Yonsei from 73rd, Korea from 74th, and POSTECH from 71st as new indexes such as “international research network” and “employment outcomes” were newly included in the criteria.

Despite this, Korea has more universities in the top 100 than France, Germany and Japan (four each) and is tied with China and Hong Kong.

SNU came seventh in Asia and eighth globally in terms of “employment outcomes,”  which means that employers look favorably on its graduates. 

Overall Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the list for the 12th year in a row, followed by Cambridge University and Oxford University of the U.K. and Harvard University and Stanford University of the U.S.

National University of Singapore ranked eighth this year, pushing University College London to ninth place and the first Asian university to make it into the top 10.

ETH Zurich of Switzerland (seventh) and University of California, Berkeley (10th) rounded out the top 10.

In Asia, the second-highest ranking university was Peking University (17th), followed by Tsinghua University (25th), Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (26th), University of Hong Kong (26th), and University of Tokyo (28th).