| Rank in USA | Top Universities in USA | QS World University Rankings 2021 | THE World Rankings 2021 |
| 1 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | 1 | 5 |
| 2 | Stanford University | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | Harvard University | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | 4 | 4 |
| 5 | University of Chicago | 9 | 10 |
| 6 | Princeton University | 12 | 9 |
| 7 | University of Pennsylvania | 16 | 13 |
| 8 | Yale University | 17 | 8 |
| 9 | Cornell University | 18 | 19 |
| 10 | Columbia University | 19 | 17 |
| 11 | University of Michigan | 21 | 22 |
| 12 | Johns Hopkins University | 25 | 12 |
| 13 | Northwestern University | 29 | 24 |
| 14 | University of California, Berkeley (UCB) | 30 | 7 |
| 15 | New York University (NYU) | 35 | 26 |
| 16 | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | 36 | 15 |
| 17 | Duke University | 42 | 20 |
| 18 | Carnegie Mellon University | 51 | 28 |
| 19 | University of California, San Diego (UCSD) | 54 | 33 |
| 20 | Brown University | 60 | 61 |
