Peking University

How it scores

Research and Alumni outcomes are percentiles among 1,240 universities; alumni outcomes are counted per student. Admissions & earnings is the position among universities in the same country (mainland China).

Admissions, outcomes and alumni

Lowest admitted gaokao rank, Zhejiang 2025

100 src

Alumni founders of VC-backed companies (PitchBook)

383 src

Billionaire alumni

14 src

Alumni worth $30M+ (Altrata estimate)

1,200 src

Internationally notable alumni (Wikidata)

47 src

Heads of state or government (Wikidata)

2 src

Students (undergraduate / total)

18,147 / 52,880

Each figure links to its source. Admissions and earnings figures are comparable only within a country.

Research Index

Percentiles among 1,305 ranked universities. Rank on quality alone: =119. On strength alone: 10. The Research Index scores research only; admissions, earnings and alumni outcomes are scored in the overall ranking where data exists.

The numbers behind it (2020–2023)

Papers in the top 10% of their field

14.3% (13.9%–14.6%)

Papers in the top 1% of their field

1.5% (1.4%–1.6%)

Top-10% papers (fractional count)

3,980

All papers (fractional count)

27,880

International co-authored

31.7%

Open access

58.4%

Papers from 2020–23 since retracted

70 (1.01 per 1,000)

Core publications, fractional counting, field-normalised citation shares. Brackets show Leiden’s stability interval. Collaboration and open-access shares use full counting and aren’t field-normalised. Retraction counts come from the Retraction Watch database and include publishers’ mass retractions as well as honest-error retractions; a retraction is not by itself evidence of misconduct, and the count is never scored.

By field

Position over time

The same method applied to each 4-year publication window. The number of ranked universities grows from period to period, so position is shown as a share of the field.