NUS, NTU shoot up global university rankings

They broke into the Top 15 for the first time.

Singapore’s two premier universities bagged the distinction of being Asia’s best higher education institutions in the Quacquarelli-Symonds World University Rankings 2015.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) made huge leaps to rank 12th and 13th, respectively.

NTU also managed to close its wide gap between with NUS by making the bigger leap, climbing 26 notches up from 39th last year, while NUS escalated 10 spots from 22nd.

Asia's next best university, China's Tsinghua University, ranked 25th.

According to QS, 76,798 academics and 44,226 employers contributed to the rankings through the QS global surveys and QS analyzed 11.1 million research papers. 3,539 institutions were considered for inclusion for the ranking and 891 were ranked.

"A modified approach to ‘citations per faculty,’ a measure of research impact, has delivered fairer evaluations for universities with a strong profile in areas with lower research activity, such as arts, humanities and social sciences," QS said.

"These latest results reveal more diversity than ever in the distribution of world-class universities at the highest levels. We're providing prospective students with the richest picture yet," said Ben Sowter, QS head of research.