University Rankings Part 2: Top Phl universities on the Web

MANILA, Philippines — The University of the Philippines (UP) tops online rankings of Philippine universities in terms of academic reputation, faculty, research and even popularity among users.

QS 2014 World Rankings, a website rating higher education institutions in the globe, included only UP (380th), Ateneo de Manila University (501st to 550th), De La Salle University (601st to 650th) and University of Santo Tomas (701st) in the world's top 800.

Screenshot from QS World University Rankings

QS ratings consider research, teaching, graduates' employability, facilities, internationalization, innovation, engagement in the local community and accessibility to students as indicators for the rankings.

In its latest rankings for Asia, the site included the four schools as well as Ateneo's Davao campus in the top 300 universities in the region. Nine other Philippine universities, meanwhile, make the top 400 in Asia.

Philippine universities' rankings in Asia for 2014. QS screenshot

Higher education search engine and directory 4 International Colleges and Universities (4CU.org) ranking 11,307 of the world's colleges and universities by web popularity identified 223 Philippine institutions in its database.

UP Los Baños was identified the most popular university campus online, followed by DLSU, UP Diliman, UP System, Ateneo, UST, UP Manila, University of San Carlos, Aquinas University of Legaspi and Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), respectively.

4CU said the ranks are based on an algorithm culling data from "unbiased and independent web metrics," namely Google Page Rank, Alexa Traffic Rank and Majestic SEO. It also measures the online traffic, linkbacks and mentions of universities' websites and other Internet-based properties.

TheTopTens.com, meanwhile, ranked the ten "best" universities in the country through a popularity-measurement scheme where users can cast their votes and justify their choices by posting comments. Manila-based institutions currently dominate the list of 271 schools in the site.

Currently, UP ranked first place, earning 10 percent of user votes, closely followed by another state-run university PUP with 9 percent.

Far Eastern University is placed third, while UST, Ateneo, DLSU Manila, Lyceum University of the Philippines, Mapua Institute of Technology, University of the East and Adamson University complete the top ten.