*Data from 1999 questionnaires supplemented by updated numbers from other sources were used for these universities. Multi-disciplinary universities offer a broad spectrum of courses from arts to business to engineering. Science and technology schools have a more specialized focus.
Academic Reputation: Each university was asked to rate its peers on a scale of 1 to 5. Thirty Asian corporations and 11 foreign universities (among them Columbia University, University of California Los Angeles and University of Leicester) also gave ratings. The total score was divided by the number of responses.
Student Selectivity: Derived from 1) number of first-year students accepted compared with total applicants, 2) enrollees compared with accepted students, 3) median score of first-year students in the national or university entrance test. Extra 2 points were awarded to schools whose educational systems or individual policies severely restrict the number of university applicants.
Faculty Resources: Derived from 1) full-time teachers/researchers with PhD degrees, 2) full-time teachers/researchers with master's and PhD degrees, 3) median pay, 4) per-teacher university spending, and 5) student-teacher ratio. Extra 2 points were awarded to universities that grant non-monetary benefits such as free housing.
Research: Derived from 1) citations in academic journals as tracked by the Journal Citation Index, 2) articles in peer-reviewed journals, 3) papers presented in international conferences, 4) published books, 5) research funding, and 6) graduate students.
Financial resources: Derived from 1) total spending per student, 2) library spending per student, 3) Internet bandwidth and 4) public computers and connection points. A sixth attribute, laboratory spending, was added for science and technology schools.
Other Notes: Variables were ranked from highest to lowest, with the top university given 100 points. The others were assigned points as a percentage of the highest score. When a piece of data is not available, ratios from the 1999 survey or the lowest score of a school from the same country were used. All money figures were converted into Purchasing-Power Parity dollars, based on World Bank ratios.