World University Rankings - A Principal Component Analysis
  In order to establish which parameters and corresponding weights are more appropriate for the assessment of academic excellence in the context of university rankings, I have made a multivariate data analysis on a set of 13 parameters for 178 institutions. I found that the three more relevant components are academic excellence (48%), internationalism (14%) and faculty/student ratio (8%). It is shown that these components are not correlated. 
Joao E. Steiner