Moscow State University - Location and Academic Reputation

Location and Academic Reputation

Since 1953, most of the university's faculties have been situated on Sparrow Hills, in the southwest of Moscow. Considered to be the outskirts of Moscow at the time of its construction, the location of the main building is about half-way between the center of Moscow at the Kremlin and the city's current limits.

The university includes a number of faculty buildings located near Manege Square in the center of Moscow and a number of campuses abroad in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.

A few more narrowly specialized Moscow colleges, including the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations were split off from MSU at one time or another and have since established strong reputations of their own, arguably even surpassing their parent in terms of prestige and quality of education.

The university has well-established contacts with the most distinguished universities in the world, exchanging students and lecturers with the leading international institutions of higher education. It houses the UNESCO International Demography Courses, the UNESCO Hydrology Courses, the International Biotechnology Center, the International LASER Center, courses or seminars on Russian as a foreign language. In 1991 the French University College, the Russian-American University and the Institute of German Science and Culture were opened. The university has awarded honorary degrees to more than 60 scientists, statesmen and politicians from abroad. Many prominent university scholars and scientists in return hold honorary degrees from foreign academies and universities.

The university is commonly regarded as one of Russia's most prestigious universities and has high entry requirements for its prospective students. However, Moscow State University performs inconsistently in international and national rankings of higher education studies. While it was placed 77th overall by the Academic Ranking of World Universities and 112th by QS World University Rankings, it was not included among the top 200 universities by recent Times Higher World University Rankings and came in at 296th (based on the full THE World University Rankings in their iPhone application). On a highly-cited and consistent ranking, Moscow State University ranked 43rd in 2008, 44th in 2009-2011, and 45th among 300 Best World Universities in 2012 compiled by Human Resources & Labor Review (HRLR) on Measurements of World's Top 300 Universities Graduates' Performance. Despite its large number of faculties, Moscow State University seems to be strong mostly in natural sciences and mathematics (currently placed between 38th and 75th in the world) but considerably weaker in other disciplines. Despite the fact that it is still the highest ranked Russian university according to the three international rankings mentioned above (with the nearest Russian competitor being Saint Petersburg State University that scored 300-400th), the university was consistently placed outside top 5 nationally in 2010-2011 by Forbes and Ria Novosti / HSE., with both ratings based on data set collected by GU VSHE from Russian Unified State Exam scores averaged per all students and faculties of university.