"On any list of the top 50 universities on earth, the US will routinely take the top 40 or 45 slots."
Do you by any chance have a handy link to such a list, that was not compiled by Americans?
Do you by any chance have a handy link to such a list, that was not compiled by Americans?
http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2015.html
First page of Google.
(That is, if they are the same, then I would expect the US to have more occurrences in the highest levels simply due to statistics.)
In the top 50, 18 are US schools, 10 are in the UK, 11 are from other former British colonies (Hong Kong, Canada, Singapore, Australia).