U.S.News & World Report's World's Best Universities rankings, based on the QS World University Rankings, identified these to be the world's top universities in 2009.
- Harvard University, United States
- University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Yale University, United States
- UCL (University College London), United Kingdom
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom
- University of Chicago, United States
- Princeton University, United States
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States
- California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States