“World-leading” is no exaggeration. Only the US and UK have more universities in the top 100 of the QS World University Rankings®, and both have significantly larger populations and therefore more universities to start with.
Australia’s equivalent to the US Ivy League and UK Russell Group is the Group of Eight (Go8), a collective of comprehensive, research-intensive universities which consists of: Australian National University, University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, University of Queensland, University of New South Wales, Monash University, University of Western Australia and University of Adelaide.
These eight are the country’s strongest performers in the QS World University Rankings® - in the 2013/14 edition, four are ranked within the world’s top 50, and all but one within the top 100 (Adelaide just misses out by a few places). Beyond the Go8, Australia offers many more world-leading universities to choose from, with a total of 25 universities in Australia ranked among the world’s top 500.
Student life in Australia
Often referred to as the world’s largest island, Australia is known for the grand scale of its natural features – the Great Barrier Reef, Ayers Rock, the Great Dividing Range of mountains, and that huge, dry central area known as “the outback”.