Brainy Manchester placed fifth for academic excellence according to China

China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University have ranked the world’s universities according to academic excellence, and the University of Manchester came fifth in the UK.

This means that we’re one of the top institutions in the UK for providing top academic excellence beating the likes of King’s and Bristol.

Other than the obvious favourites Cambridge and Oxford who placed first and second respectively, Manc is the first uni outside of the capital to get ranked for being really clever.

Brains and beauty x

Not at all stirred by the results, fifth year Dan told The Tab: “It’s not surprising. We’re all pretty brainy.”

The ARWU, who gave us this academic glory, were only supposed to be deciding the global standing of top Chinese universities.

But it appears they got carried away. The ARWU now compiles a ranking of the top 500 universities in the world yearly after global attention from universities, governments, and media.

This comes after the news, from earlier this year, thatn Manchester has  three places from last 2015 to become the Guardian’s 29^th best university.

Last year we ranked 32^nd in The Guardian’s 2015 University rankings, and this year we’ve also been recognised as the third best university for Music and the fifth best for journalism studies.

In April we ranked ourselves the 26th best uni in the country, losing out to no-hopers like Loughborough, Swansea and Falmouth.

 Here’s the rest of the UK’s rankings: