QS Stars is a new initiative that gives universities the opportunity to highlight their strengths via awarded recognition. It is an evaluation tool that evaluates universities using a broad set of criteria; universities are then awarded with a badge that displays their number of stars based on their audit.
“The new QS Stars rating system further recognizes NTU’s strengths as a world-class university across a broader set of criteria than can be measured in any ranking system and provides valuable information for our many stakeholders – current students, prospective students, parents, teachers, employers, fellow academics as well as our local community.”
“From now on all of our promotional material, our website, and our publications, will include both the QS Stars rating alongside the Australian government’s ERA analysis.”
“QS Stars is a mechanism for us to project our specific strengths to the world. It has given us a better understanding of what are our weaknesses, as well as our strengths, within the university.”
Edilio Mazzoleni
Head of Operations – International Office
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
What is QS Stars?
QS Stars is a complementary companion to rankings—a rating system that facilitates the evaluation of universities across a much broader range of criteria and with respect to established thresholds rather than the performance of others. The objectives are to allow institutions to shine, irrespective of their size, shape and mission and to shine a light on excellence that may otherwise remain in the shade.
Institutions would need to meet criteria requirements in order to earn the maximum number of points; they are then awarded with their star status -from one to five- depending on the number of points achieved through the evaluation.
Over 30 criteria contribute towards the overall assessment grouped into eight categories: research, employability, teaching, infrastructure, internationalisation, innovation, engagement and the institution’s standing in specialist subjects.
Click here to view the methodology
In addition to the QS Stars badge, which they can use for their own promotional purposes, institutions also receive an evaluation report once the audit has taken place; this is called “The Development Roadmap”. It highlights a university’s key strengths in the evaluation and areas for improvement. QS Stars gives institutions the opportunity to spotlight their strengths, efforts and specialist areas.
Click here to explore a sample roadmap.
Advantages to Institution
- Shines a light on the university’s excellence.
- Improves international recognition and allows the university to reach out to more students.
- Increased web presence
- The QS Stars badge will appear on the institutions profile pages on topuniversities.com which receives over 14 million visits a year.
- Increased media awareness
- Selected participating institutions can take part in the numerous QS Stars PR campaigns
- May be used as an auditing tool to help improve institution’s performance.
- Gives those institutions that are not highly ranked or do not appear in the rankings an opportunity to reach out to their prospect students, to stand out and to be recognised for their excellence.
Sales: Jason Newman 
General info: Deena Al Hilli
Or fill the following form:
We have devised a “QS Stars Pre-assessment Report”, that outlines your institution’s performance against the QS Stars criteria. Naturally, the audit process would fill in the gaps and result in a higher score and rating, but the pre-assessment gives you the means for a reasonable forecast. Please, complete the following form to request a free pre-assessment of your institution.
Announcing the launch of QS Five Stars +
We are pleased to announce the launch of the QS Five Star + award. Requiring a minimum of 900 points and a five-star performance in all evaluated categories, the Five Stars + badge is designed to identify elite institutions that are strong in all aspects. With recent refinements to the methodology, Five Stars + can apply equally to the world’s foremost comprehensive and specialist institutions.
Click here to see which universities have achieved this rating
