The Rankings:

Each school in the Asiaweek Asia's Best Universities ranking was judged in 5 categories, each of which is weighted differently. Below is an explanation of each category, and its weighting.

ACADEMIC REPUTATION: (20%) Each university was asked to rate its peers on a scale of 1 to 5. The total score was divided by the number of responses.

STUDENT SELECTIVITY: (25%) Derived from:

1. Number of first-year students accepted compared with total applicants
2. Enrollees compared with accepted students
3. Students who belonged to the top 1% of their high school class or who got a grade A or equivalent in the national entrance test
4. Median score of first-year students in the national or university entrance test.

Extra 3 percentage points were awarded to schools in educational systems that have pre-university screening, such as the "O" Levels in Singapore and Hong Kong.

FACULTY RESOURCES: (25%) Derived from:

1. Teachers with graduate degrees
2. Median pay
3. Per-teacher university spending
4. Class size
5. Student-teacher ratio.

Extra 1.25 percentage points were awarded to universities that grant non-monetary benefits such as free housing.

RESEARCH OUTPUT: (20%) Derived from:

1. Citations per teacher in international academic journals as tracked by the Journal Citation Index
2. Published articles per teacher in Asian academic journals
3. Research funding
4. Teachers with doctorates
5. Graduate students

FINANCIAL RESOURCES: (10%) Derived from:

1. Total spending
2. Total spending per student
3. Library spending per student
4. Access to the Internet
5. Access to e-mail

A sixth attribute, computers per student, was added for science and technology schools.

Other Notes:

• Multi-disciplinary universities offer a broad spectrum of courses from arts and humanities to business to engineering. Science and technology schools have a more specialized focus.
• Variables were ranked from highest to lowest, with the top university given 100 points. The others were assigned points as a percentage of the highest score.
• When a piece of data is not available, the lowest score of a school from the same country was used when applicable.
• All money figures were converted into Purchasing-Power Parity dollars, based on World Bank ratios.