What are the most prestigeous universities in Australia?

Answer 1

University of Sydney (Australia's first), closely followed by University of Melbourne would be the most widely (globally) regarded as prestigious.

It's not necessarily an indication of teaching excellence, but .
if it is straight up prestige (perception) and global acceptance you are asking about, then those two definitely lead the pack.

Answer 2

There are several but the ones that really jump out as 'prestigious' are Sydney, Melbourne and Australian National (Universities).

But then a whole series of Universities are very well regarded and each capital will be biased towards their own of course (I'm an ANU graduate so I'll rabbit on about ANU) but Queensland, Uni of New South Wales, RMIT (Melbourne), University of Adelaide, Curtin (Perth), Deakin (Melbourne) Uni of Tasmania (for example) ... wow they're all good. See Australia doesn't have a few Uni's that are outstanding and rolling in money and others that struggle to educate the poor kids. All are very good.

There's a publication called the Australian Universities Guide that I think is available on-line that rates all universities using student ratings and outcome ratings. It's very good as just about all Unis have strengths and weaknesses.

Edit: I just went looking to see if I could find ANY authoritative list that put Sydney above ANU or Melbourne. The simple answer is 'No'. This is a fairly typical list (in this case the first number is Asia region ranking, the second is world ranking):

1 Australian National University 3 54
2 University of Melbourne 7 78
3-5 University of Queensland 10-19 102-150
3-5 University of Sydney 10-19 102-150
3-5 University of Western Australia 10-19 102-150
6 University of New South Wales 20-24 151-200
7-9 Macquarie University 25-40 201-300
7-9 Monash University 25-40 201-300
7-9 University of Adelaide 25-40 201-300
10-11 University of Newcastle (Australia) 41-63 301-400
12-16 Flinders University 64-92 401-500
12-16 James Cook University 64-92 401-500
12-16 Murdoch University 64-92 401-500
12-16 University of New England (Australia) 64-92 401-500
12-16 University of Tasmania 64-92 401-500

Looks like I may have done UQ a disservice by not mentioning it up front.

Answer 3

Australian's as a whole are not into snobbery so we don't really regard any uni as being more prestigious than another. WHat we do look at instead, are academic standards. The unis with the best in terms of academia, in my opinion, would be The University of New South Wales, Sydney University, Australian National University, Monash University, Macquarie University and University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).
As some one else said, most Australians usually just choose a Uni that is close to where they live or easy to get to by transport. Most degrees are comparable with all the other institutions and people are allowed entry based upon their academic results as opposed to the money their family has or whether or not their grandfather made donations to the uni or whatever, as i know happens in some "prestigious" institutions around the world.

Answer 4

The oldest, best known and most prestigious university in Australia is Sydney which has the motto Sidere mens eadem mutato (roughly: the same mind under different stars) and is based on Oxford and Cambridge universities in England. Melbourne runs a close second with the ANU in Canberra probably third.

As far as academic excellence is concerned, the top schools would be UNSW, Monash and ANU but all the others are close. A degree from any Australian University is a good degree (except, perhaps, macrame and aromatherapy at Southern Cross).

Answer 5

For Sydney, definitely University of Sydney. For Melbourne, definitely Melbourne University. And for Canberra, definitely Australian National University (ANU).

Although there are plenty of other universities in Australia.

Unlike America, which has Stamford, Harvard etc or Britain which has Oxford and Cambridge etc, there are no institutions that have unanimous prestige. If you lived in Perth, for example, you'd be much happier going to a university in Perth. It's not like Sydney, Melboure or ANU are exclusive and reserved for the best of the best. The education system is much fairer in Australia than in America.

As a general rule, you don't have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to be educated at Australian universities, and neither do you have to live on campus. In fact, particularly with the larger universities in Australia, the majority of their students still commute to uni every day from where they live and take public transport, walk or drive. But there are colleges (the Australian name for university dorms) if you want to live on campus, but that's generally extra money.

All Australian universities are of a high standard.

Answer 6

G'day,

As you can see, every ppl will have different answers to your questions. The alumni and current students will definitely choose their own uni/almamater :)

Some may argue that the university belongs to The Group of 8 (www.go8.edu.au) are the 'famous' one. However they group was formed just to unify the promotional effort. The members cannot claim that they are the best at everything that they offers.

There are plenty of organisations tried to make ranks of Australian universities and the world, however they do have their own share of criticisms and none of them are recognised by the Australian government. An example is the world university ranks created yearly by Shanghai Jiaotong University.

There used to be the Australian of the Year award, but for some unknown reasons, it was stopped in year 2001.

Hope this helps. Good luck :)

Answer 7

The university of Sydney is the most prestigious. If you check the top 100 universities in the world in a university league table, Sydney comes before any of the other Aussie unis.
BTW, Western Sydney is NOT comparable to Oxford and Cambridge!! I don't know where that info came from, but it's so far from being true, I can't even laugh hard enough!! There's nothing wrong with it, and it's a reputable place, it's just not the same as Oxbridge.

Answer 8

Australian National University, Canberra and Monash University, Melbourne are generally regarded as the "best", however the other universities in the state capitals are more than adequate.

Answer 9

University of Western Sydney-the best university in Australia and comparable with Oxford and Cambridge.