P&Q’s Must Reads: Times Higher Ed’s 2025 World University Ranking

Hello everyone  — Welcome back to Poets&Quants’ Must Reads, a quick, digestible recap of the top business school news, sponsored by CentreCourt, P&Q’s virtual admission events.

I’m your host, Kristy Bleizeffer, and I’ll be highlighting the most important P&Q stories you might have missed. So, let’s get to it. 

No. 1: Times Higher Ed’s 2025 World University Ranking

The U.S. dominates the Times Higher Ed World University Rankings 2025 landing seven universities in the top 10, and has 23 in the top 50. But a U.S. school did not score the No. 1 spot.

That was UK’s University of Oxford, which repeated its best in the world finish from 2024.

For U.S. Schools, MIT Tech ranked second, Harvard ranked third, and Princeton fourth. Stanford University fell from second in 2024 to sixth in 2025.

You can find the full ranking, and our analysis of it, at poetsandquants.com.

No. 2: A First-generation Indian Student’s Path To London Business School 

Divya grew up in Rewa, in the heartlands of India, as the daughter of a single mother. In 2015, she became the first in her family to graduate as an engineer. At that time, she didn’t even know what GMAT or GRE was. 

Now, she is pursuing an MBA at London Business School. She leads student clubs and advocates for inclusivity.

In this personal essay, Divya describes her journey to LBS, a stop she describes as an “impossible dream.” You can find it in our trending tab.

No. 3:  Favorite MBA Professors Of The Class Of 2024 

Last spring, Poets&Quants asked its Best & Brightest MBAs to share which faculty member had the biggest impact on them (and why). We’ve compiled their favorites in one handy-dandy article.

Click to read about Matt Sopha and Arizona State’s W.P. Carey Business School whose dynamism always inspires innovation. Or, CMU Tepper’s Jim Foster who is able to push limits while making time to help students outside the classroom. Or Cornell Johnson’s Risa Mish who challenges students to approach problems from different perspectives to better navigate the complexities of diverse teams and industries.

You can find our compilation of favorite professors on our homepage.

No. 4: Our Weekly Round Up of  News You Can Use

No matter where you are in your MBA journey, we bring several helpful stories for you this week. 

First up: How To Get Into HBS?  The HBS essays are a make-or-break opportunity for applicants. Get advice in this article  from the HBS AdCom team at Stacy Blackman Consulting.You can find it on our homepage

Next: 10 Tough MBA Interview Questions & How To Handle Them  In this article, we offer the tips you need for meeting the unexpected with poise and confidence. Find it in our admissions hub.

Finally: How To Tackle Duke’s 25 Random Things Question. This article, also in our admissions hub, features an example essay to help guide you through.

And, that’s it for this week’s Must Reads recap. 

I also want to alert school seekers to our events tab from our main menu. There, you’ll find all the upcoming admissions events for a range of degrees and programs including full-time and online MBAs, specialized masters, entrepreneurship and more. Registration is free.

Again, I’m Kristy Bleizeffer, and you can join me next week, right here, for a recap of what’s important in the world of business education. Thanks for listening.