There are many organizations out there that rank schools in many ways – and we know that these rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. But for a bit of fun, we took the latest ‘Best Global Universities Rankings‘ from the US News and World Report, to see if we could find ways that each one is using WordPress.

What we have listed is just one example WordPress site from each school – in all cases, there are significantly many more.

This job was made easier because we host sites for or provide plugins to most on the list! 🙂

#1 – Harvard University – Harvard Law School Student Orgs  Sites

#2 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT Libraries

#3 – Stanford University – Stanford Main Website

#4 – University of California – Berkeley – Cal Parents

#5 – University of Oxford – University of Oxford IT Services Blogs

#6 – California Institute of Technology – Engineering and Science Magazine

#7 – University of Cambridge – Clinical School Computing Service

#8 – Columbia University – EdBlogs Course Blogs *Hosted by CampusPress

#9 – Princeton University – Sites for Departments and Groups

#t10 – Johns Hopkins University – Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

#t10 – University of Washington – UW Sites *Hosted by CampusPress and Main Website

#t10 – Yale University – Yale CampusPress *Hosted by CampusPress

#13 – University of California – Los Angeles – UCLA Branded WordPress Theme

#14 – University of Chicago – UChicago Voices *Hosted by CampusPress

#15 – University of California – San Francisco – UCSF Prevention Research Center

#16 – University of California – San Diego – KSDT Student Radio Station

#t17 – Imperial College London – ICL Main Website

#t17 – University of Michigan – Ann Arbor – LSA Sites

#19 – University of Pennsylvania – Penn EnerFront *Hosted by CampusPress

#20 – University of Toronto – Life at U of T

#21 – Duke University – Interdisciplinary Studies

#22 – University College London – City Blogs *Hosted by CampusPress

#23 – Cornell University – Emergency Site *Hosted by CampusPress

#24 – Northwestern University – NUsites *Hosted by CampusPress

#25 – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich – Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

#26 – University of Melbourne – 3010 Unimelb Alumni Magazine *Hosted by CampusPress

#27 – University of British Columbia – Teaching With WordPress

#t28 – New York University – NYU Web Publishing Platform

#t28 – University of California – Santa Barbara – UCSB Sustainability

#30 – University of Edinburgh – Centre for Language Evolution

#31 – University of Wisconsin – Madison – Branded Themes

#t32 – University of Texas – Austin – Texas MBA Insider *Hosted by CampusPress

#t32 – Washington University in St. Louis – Human Resources *Hosted by CampusPress

#t34 – University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill – Main Website

#t34 – University of Sydney – Environment Institute 

#36 – École Polytechnique Federale of Lausanne – EPFL Innovation Park

#37 – University of Copenhagen – Andersson Lab

#38 – Pierre and Marie Curie University – Sciences of the Universe, Ecology, and Environment

#39 – Boston University – BU Study Abroad

#40 – University of Munich – Behaviour and Speciation

#41 – King’s College London – King’s Blogs

#42 – University of Minnesota – Twin Cities – College of Design Sites *Hosted by CampusPress

#43 – National University of Singapore – Blog.nus *Hosted by CampusPress

#44 – University of Colorado – Boulder – Bursar’s Office

#45 – University of Queensland Australia – Emmanuel College Home Page

#46 – Ohio State University – Columbus – The Lantern Student News *Hosted by CampusPress

#47 – University of California – Santa Cruz – WordPress For Faculty *Hosted by CampusPress

#48 – University of Pittsburgh – Be Fit Pitt

#49 – McGill University – Students’ Society of McGill University

#50 – University of Maryland – Deep Brain Neurotechnologies *Hosted by CampusPress

It was interesting searching each of these university websites. For starters, we were surprised that only 4 on the list use WordPress for their main top-level website. In a few cases, the only implementations we could find were one-off sites by a faculty or staff member and not part of the institutions’ systems. And quite a few use WordPress Multisite for faculty, department, student, course, and other sites.

But if nothing else, it is clear that the use of WordPress in higher education is strong and pervasive!