I came across some social media posts about an upcoming visa to the UK that would allow recent graduates from the world’s top colleges and universities-UK graduates are not eligible for this specific visa- to gain temporary 2-3 year visas to work in the UK. This program sounds a little bit like the OPT visa in the US which is only open to graduates of US universities. This new program for the UK opens officially in May of 2022, more info at the UK’s Immigration Barrister, but they haven’t posted an official list of which colleges and universities.
Based on the requirements that the colleges and universities must rank in the top 50 of 2 of the 3 college rankings (THE, ARWU, and QS), I compiled a list of the colleges that as of April 2022 are likely to make the cut.
The official list will likely be different depending on how the UK adjusts the rankings, because there are quite a few UK colleges in the top 50 on each list as well as grad school only universities. But I wanted to just share what I personally found as of April 2022 by comparing each of the 3 rankings. Only 37 colleges appear on 2-3 lists based on what I looked at, and 20 of them are in the USA followed by China (including Hong Kong) with 4 . Here is the alphabetical list followed by a summary of the number by country:
- California Institute of Technology in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Chinese University of Hong Kong in China qualified on 2 rankings: QS THE
- Columbia University in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Cornell University in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Duke University in USA qualified on 2 rankings: ARWU THE
- Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland qualified on 2 rankings: QS THE
- ETH Zurich in Switzerland qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Harvard in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Johns Hopkins University in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Karolinska Institute in Sweden qualified on 2 rankings: ARWU THE
- Kyoto University in Japan qualified on 2 rankings: ARWU QS
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- McGill University in Canada qualified on 2 rankings: QS THE
- Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in Singapore qualified on 2 rankings: QS THE
- National University of Singapore in Singapore qualified on 2 rankings: QS THE
- New York University in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Northwestern University in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL in France qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Peking University in China qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Princeton University in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Stanford in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- Technical University of Munich in Germany qualified on 2 rankings: QS THE
- Tsinghua University in China qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- University of British Columbia in Canada qualified on 2 rankings: QS THE
- University of California, Berkeley in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- University of California, Los Angeles in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- University of California, San Diego in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- University of Chicago in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- University of Hong Kong in China qualified on 2 rankings: QS THE
- University of Melbourne in Australia qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- University of Pennsylvania in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- University of Texas at Austin in USA qualified on 2 rankings: ARWU THE
- University of Tokyo in Japan qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- University of Toronto in Canada qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
- University of Washington in USA qualified on 2 rankings: ARWU THE
- Yale University in USA qualified on 3 rankings: ARWU QS THE
Country | Number of Colleges |
Australia | 1 |
Canada | 3 |
China (inc HK) | 4 |
France | 1 |
Germany | 1 |
Japan | 2 |
Singapore | 2 |
Sweden | 1 |
Switzerland | 2 |
USA | 20 |
Grand Total | 37 |