Wits Academic Rankings

Wits University is more than an educational brand, it’s a time-honoured legacy that aims to educate and change through quality education and sound motivation to develop African societies.

For 100 years Wits has been known for and remembered through the caliber of graduates that it produces, and the footprints of change that they leave in the public and private sectors in all fields of industry.

This century-old legacy speaks volumes of our capabilities to transform and transcend, and is visible in all aspects of the South African society; in the public and private sectors, the roads we travel on and the books we read, the millionaires who lead businesses and the activists who challenge them, in the lawyers who represent us and the Judges who rebuke us. Wits graduates continue the legacy in global humanitarianism and in pushing African innovation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. From Rhodes Scholars to Mandela Scholars – Witsies are there making their mark in academics. Wits University and its people are cemented in everything around you.

Perhaps more than the University of the Witwatersrand extraordinarily being ranked in the top 1.3% of universities globally, our legacy equally requires that we continue to be positively ranked by the everyday impact we make to society, the quality of our goals and the lives we changes. 

This is how the we are ranked in and among the world’s universities.

Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), commonly known as Shanghai Ranking

2021

• 301-400 globally

*ARWU asseses more than 1800 universities and the results for the top 1000 are published.

Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR)

• 2021-2022 World Ranking: #292

US News Best global Universities Rankings

2021

• Ranked 2nd in Africa
• Global score 62.8
• Ranked 192 globally

Times Higher Education

2021

• Ranked 201-250 globally
• Ranked 9th in the world for affordability in 2019’s Best Student Cities

*1300 universities rankedQS World University Rankings

2022

• Ranked #424 globally
• #2 in Africa

*Over 1000 universities ranked

Wits University shines in Clinical Medicine

Subject area improves place in global ranking.

The Faculty of Health Sciences campus at the University of the Witwatersrand, showing a sculpture by surgeon Dr Laurence Chait

The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) has done well in the 2019 global ranking of academic subjects released by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.

The consultancy compares 4000 universities in 54 subject areas, taking into account the number of academic papers published, the citation impact of those papers, the quality of the journals, and awards made to university staff.

THE RESULTS

Wits is among the top 500 universities in the world in 15 subject areas – a proud achievement for an institution that is yet to celebrate its centenary. (This will take place in 2022.)

For Mining and Minerals, Wits is ranked 44^th.

In the Clinical Medicine subject area, Wits is in the group of universities ranked between 51st and 75th, an improvement from its 2018 position in the 101-150 group. In Public Health, too, Wits is ranked in the 51-75 group.

Wits is in the 151-200 group for Geography, Earth Science and Communication.

In Law, Political Science, Human Biological Science and Education, Wits is in the 201-300 range.

Wits University’s subject strengths arguably reflect its historical roots as a producer of skills and solutions for the South African context. At the same time, Wits graduates and researchers can hold their own anywhere in the world, judging by independent international rankings such as this one.