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Best universities in the world for learning to code

A worldwide coding competition reveals the universities producing the very best coders

    Carly Minsky's avatar

    Carly Minsky

    December 9 2016
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    The universities with the best computer programmers are not the big names you might expect.

    After a worldwide coding competition, HackerRank has produced a ranking of the 50 universities or schools producing the best coders in the world – and the results are surprising.

    The top three institutions for coding are in Russia, China and Vietnam, while the top US university – the University of California, Berkeley – comes in fourth.

    More than 5,500 students from 126 institutions around the world took part in the coding competition, and universities in the ranking are scored based both on the number of participants and their competition scores.

    Only universities with at least 10 participants are included in the ranking.

    The top 10 universities cover Canada, Russia, Ukraine, India, Sweden, Vietnam, China and the United States.

    India is the best represented country in the ranking, with 22 individual institutions recognised for producing world-leading coders – making up almost half of the ranking. The US has only eight colleges in the ranking.

    Chinese student Wentao Weng, who ranked as the 13th best coder in the world, started learning when he was just 11 years old. He now practises for about four hours a day during the week and most of the day on weekends.

    Even though computer science isn’t on the curriculum at his school, he says: “We try to become one of the best coders among high school students to [get admission] into a good university.”


    Top universities for computer science degrees


    See the best 50 universities in the world and the best 20 colleges in the United States below:

    Which colleges have the best coders in the world?

    RankCollegeParticipant CountScoreCountry
    1ITMO University44407.39Russian Federation
    2Sun Yat-sen Memorial Middle School13387.18China
    3Ho Chi Minh City University of Science32321.99Vietnam
    4University of California, Berkeley23299.48United States
    5University of Waterloo, Waterloo50266.59Canada
    6St. Petersburg State University12260.68Russian Federation
    7National Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev11255.83Ukraine
    8IIT, Indore (Indian Institute of Technology)19254.26India
    9IIT, Kanpur (Indian Institute of Technology)27250.72India
    10KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm11231.23Sweden
    11DAIICT, Gandhinagar (Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology)56228.95India
    12NSIT, Delhi (Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology)27198.54India
    13Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta35195.25United States
    14University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC), Champaign26192.11United States
    15IIT BHU, Varanasi (Indian Institute of Technology)76189.54India
    16Czech Technical University of Prague22188.67Czech Republic
    17BITS, Pilani (Birla Institute of Technology & Science)25165.13India
    18Bilkent University, Ankara13157.56Turkey
    19Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca35153.72Romania
    20Highschool Grigore Moisil Iasi13149.18Romania
    21Almaty Kazakh-Turkish High School10138.87Kazakhstan
    22JIIT, Noida (Jaypee Institute of Information Technology)87132.73India
    23IIT, Roorkee (Indian Institute of Technology)53132.35India
    24University of Toronto, Toronto15132.21Canada
    25AGH University of Science and Technology, Cracow12130.34Poland
    26NIT, Surathkal (National Institute of Technology)25128.39India
    27Université de Mons15125.91Belgium
    28Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan10124.65South Korea
    29IIT, Patna (Indian Institute of Technology)26121.51India
    30DTU, Delhi (Delhi Technological University - formerly DCE)40121.23India
    31IIT, Kharagpur (Indian Institute of Technology)42115.89India
    32NIT, Kurukshetra (National Institute of Technology)52110.93India
    33Technical University of Cluj-Napoca10109.45Romania
    34ENES Unidad Morelia, UNAM15106.29Mexico
    35IIIT, Bangalore (International Institute of Information Technology)21101.92India
    36Ohio State University22101.14United States
    37NIT, Warangal (National Institute of Technology)35100.6India
    38University of Texas at Austin, Austin3494.86United States
    39University of Washington, Washington1288.52United States
    40NIT, Bhopal (Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology)2884.94India
    41IIIT, Hyderabad (International Institute of Information Technology)5283.98India
    42University of Tartu1183.33Estonia
    43IIITM, Gwalior (ABV Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management)2481.67India
    44Madan Mohan Malaviya University Of Technology, Gorakhpur1677.79India
    45NIT, Surat (Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology)1277.19India
    46IIIT, Allahabad (Indian Institute of Information Technology)2674.44India
    47University of California, Irvine2973.34United States
    48University of Sarajevo1271.91Bosnia and Herzegovina
    49NIT, Patna (National Institute of Technology)3469.04India
    50North American University1068.52United States

    Which colleges in America have the best coders?

    RankCollegeParticipant CountScore
    4University of California, Berkeley23299.48
    13Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta35195.25
    14University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC), Champaign26192.11
    36Ohio State University22101.14
    38University of Texas at Austin, Austin3494.86
    39University of Washington, Washington1288.52
    47University of California, Irvine2973.34
    50North American University1068.52
    55University of Southern California2460.08
    62University of California (UCLA), Los Angeles1549.95
    68North Carolina State University, Raleigh1940.1
    69University of California, San Diego (UCSD)1138.36
    81Northeastern University, Boston1227.06
    86University of Texas at Arlington1224.87
    92University of Texas at Dallas1722.73
    94Purdue University, West Lafayette1122.1
    95San Jose State University1622.04
    99California State Polytechnic University - Pomona2120.44
    103Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago1719.52
    108University of Florida, Gainesville1817.21
    110Arizona State University, Tempe1816.16
    111York University (NYU), New York1114.77
    119University of North Carolina at Charlotte1011.47
    121State University of New York at Binghamton1010.98
    124Concordia University Chicago119.12

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