SANTA BARBARA -- UC Santa Barbara received a global honor by being ranked seventh in the world's top 500 universities.
The Centre for Science and Technologies Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands ranked UCSB in the top ten universities in the world.
"We're competing with all the private universities so we're in fact the top public university in this ranking," said Vice Chancellor Michael Witherell, UCSB Research.
Only six other schools beat out UC Santa Barbara in the global ranking for research in science and technology; all of them private universities in the United States. MIT, Princeton and Harvard round out the top three. UC Berkeley came in at number eight just below Santa Barbara.
"It makes me really proud because I'm a biology major so my degree is actually going to get me somewhere I feel now," said Undergraduate Student Nicholas Fields. "I was a little bit worried about getting into grad school other places but coming from a number seven university, that feels really good."
In a statement, UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang said, "UC Santa Barbara's faculty and researchers are advancing the frontiers of knowledge and we are very proud that these contributions have been recognized with the number seven ranking among the top 500 world universities in the four-year study by Leiden University in the Netherlands."
Vice Chancellor of Research Witherell said one of the reasons UCSB is ranked so high is because the school recruits what he said are the best and brightest minds.
"We have to be very careful in selecting our faculty that they both are very, very good in their research and that they also like teaching students and do a good job at it," he said.
Some students on campus were pleased to hear about the high ranking, but weren't surprised.
"I've always known it's a good research institute that's why I'm here but it's nice to be validated, that other people are taking notice of what we're doing," said Graduate Student Jack Love.
"We're particularly proud about this and we look forward to staying there," said Witherell.
Top 25 Universities
1. MIT
2. Princeton University
3. Harvard University
4. Rice University
5. Stanford University
6. Caltech
7. University of California, Santa Barbara
8. University of California, Berkeley
9. Carnegie Mellon University
10. University of California, San Francisco
11. Yale University
12. Ecole Polytech Federale Lausan
13. University of Washington, Seattle
14. University of Chicago
15. Georgia Inst Technology
16. Northwestern University
17. Colombia University
18. ETH Zurich
19. University of California, San Diego
20. University of California, Los Angeles
21. University of California, Santa Cruz
22. University of Pennsylvania
23. Rensselaer Polytech Inst
24. University of Colorado, Boulder
25. Weizmann Inst Sci
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Leiden Ranking Website: http://www.leidenranking.com/ranking.aspx
