Estonia's oldest university earned its highest spot in the rankings, 285th, two years ago, according to a TÜ press release.

QS uses six indicators for ranking the universities: academic and employer reputation of the university (40 percent and 10 percent of the total, respectively), faculty-to-student ratio (20 percent), research impact indicated by the number of citations to research articles published by the university's academic staff per academic staff member (20 percent), and the ratios of international students and international staff (5 percent each).

Compared with last year, TÜ improved its position in two of these six indicators: the university rose from 676th to 405th in its international staff ratio, and for the fourth year in a row, TÜ improved its academic staff to student ratio, rising from 95th to 91st. QS uses the latter ratio as an indirect indicator of the quality of instruction, and TÜ noted that it has been a key strength of the school over the years.

"TÜ's strong international position gives students the assurance that they can receive high-quality and competitive higher education in Estonia," said TÜ development director Taivo Raud, adding that this is a good reason for future students to choose to study there.

"On the other hand, it also sends an important message to policymakers: to maintain and improve the current level, the state needs to consistently invest in the teaching and research work of universities so that Estonian higher education remains viable in the face of intense global competition," he added.

Top-ranked university in the Baltics

This year, international higher education consulting firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) considered a total of 2,462 universities and ranked 1,422 of them; this year's ranking included 124 new universities.

Of Estonian schools, Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) was included in the 701-750 range and Tallinn University (TLÜ) in the 1,001-1,200 range.

Of neighboring countries, Riga Technical University (751-800) was the highest ranking of three Latvian universities, and Vilnius University (tied for 400th) was the top ranking of four Lithuanian universities.

A total of nine Finnish universities were included in this year's QS rankings, the top ranked of which was the University of Helsinki, which tied for 106th place overall. The University of Turku, Finland's third-best school after the University of Helsinki and Aalto University, was ranked 291st, just a few spots ahead of TÜ.

Click here for a searchable version of the full list as well as more information about the QS World University Rankings.

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