Aug 18, 2016 11:43 AM EDT By Leah NY, UniversityHerald Reporter

UCLA recently took the second spot on the best public universities in the United States and sat in the 12th place among the public universities around the world.

The rank results were based on the August 15 released The Academic Ranking of World Universities as compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Berkeley University claimed the third spot while San Diego University made it at the 14th spot.

The ranking results were based on the universities' compliance with the six criteria for excellence. The criteria include researchers who are highly cited, papers listed and cited in the major citation directories, Nature and Science published papers, faculties winning Nobel prizes and medals, the number of alumni gaining Fields Medals and per capita academic performance.

This is not the first time that the university has been recognized for its excellence. University of California Los Angeles was recognized in May as the second among all of US public universities in the London's Times Higher Education's World Reputation Rankings assessing the international prestige of higher learning institutions.

The university was ranked number eight at the 2016 Best Global Universities as recognized by the U.S. News and World Report. UCLA's service in public interest received recognition as number six in the Washington Monthly College Guide and Rankings.

The top 11 United States public universities are as follows. Harvard University at number one, Stanford University at number two, UC Berkeley at third, fourth is the University of Cambridge, fifth the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sixth the Princeton University, seventh the University of Oxford, eighth the California Institute of Technology, ninth the Columbia University, tenth the University of Chicago and Yale University at the 11th spot, The UCLA News Room reported.

Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, a China-based independent research organization for higher education is responsible for publishing the annual rankings.

The ranking started being published and is conducted among 500 universities around the world, The Daily Bruin reported.
Take a quick trip to UCLA, the world's 12th best public university through this video.

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