Ranking methodology

Our “top” and “best” lists are designed to help students shortlist universities — they are editorial guides, not a substitute for official global rankings or accreditation.

Our composite ranking score

Every institution gets a 0–100 composite score built only from figures someone else published. The default ordering on our “top” pages uses it. The inputs and weights:

• Global reputation — 40%. The institution’s QS World University Rankings position, where we have a sourced one. If no institution in the dataset has a QS position, this input is dropped for everyone and the other weights are rescaled; today most Dutch institutions in our data have none.
• Academic breadth — 20%. The number of recognised programmes in the DUO CROHO register, compared with the institution that has the most.
• English-taught share — 20%. The share of an institution’s programmes taught in English or in English and Dutch, among the programmes where DUO records a language. A missing language is treated as “not recorded”, not as “Dutch”.
• Scale — 20%. The institution’s enrolment count from DUO, on a log scale, so the gap between 500 and 5,000 matters more than between 40,000 and 50,000. It is a sum of programme enrolments, not a count of individual students.

If an input is missing for one institution, that input is left out of its score and the others are rescaled to 100. We do not use an international-student share or student-support score because no open national source publishes them per institution. This is a scale-and-breadth score: it tells you which institutions are big and varied, not which teaches better.

The Dutch system has its own quality checks, which we do not replace: programmes are accredited by the NVAO, and student satisfaction is surveyed in the Nationale Studenten Enquête and published on Studiekeuze123.

What we do not do

• We do not invent or calculate our own numeric rankings.
• We do not sell placement — no university can pay to rank higher.
• We do not present editorial ordering as an official global ranking.

A note on accuracy

Ranking positions and ratings shown across the site are indicative and provided for general guidance. They can change year to year — always verify current positions with the official ranking bodies and the university.