Spain-based educational architecture platform Best Architecture Master’s (BAM) Ranking has released its third edition and, like in 2018 and 2019, the top-ranked master’s degree program in architecture is the Master of Architecture II at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD).

Other American universities and schools that made the cut include Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cornell University, Princeton University, the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), and the University of California, Los Angeles. Three universities with programs that appeared in the 2019 ranking—Syracuse University, Yale University, and the University of California, Berkeley—do not appear in the 2020 ranking, while Princeton and UCLA are both new additions to the prestigious mix.

Pointedly international in scope, the 2020 BAM Ranking invited a 19-person committee composed of architecture professors from around the globe to conceive a list of the 29 top master’s degree programs offered by a range of different universities that appear on the latest QS World University Rankings in the Architecture/Built Environment category. These programs were then compared, evaluated, and ranked using BAM’s point system-based methodology which includes 11 educational performance indicators and 41 sub-indicators. The programs are ultimately ranked according to how many evaluation points they received on a one to 100 scale. Among the 11 key indicators are Relation with Other Universities, Job Opportunities and Networking, Student Internationality and Diversity, Faculty Competence, and Publications.

The top tier of the BAM Ranking 2020 can be found below while the full list of all 29 programs evaluated and ranked can be viewed here.

1. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts | Master of Architecture II

2. Columbia University, New York City | Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design

3. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid / ETH Zurich, Madrid | Master of Advanced Studies in Collective Housing (MCH)

4. Delft University of Technology (TUDelft), Delft, the Netherlands | The Berlage Post-master degree in Architecture and Urban Design

5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts | Master of Science in Architecture and Urbanism (SMArch Urbanism)

6. University College London | Architectural Design MArch (B-pro)

7. Tsinghua University, Beijing | English Program for Master in Architecture

8. (tied) Technische Universität München (TUM), Munich | Master of Arts MA in Architecture

8. (tied) Cornell University, Ithaca, New York | Post-Professional Master of Science, Advanced Architectural Design

10. Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey | Post-Professional Graduate Program in Architecture

11. (tied) Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA), London | MArch in Architecture & Urbanism (DRL)

11. (tied) Technische Universität Berlin (TUBerlin) | Master of Architecture in Typology M-ARCH-T

13. Politecnico di Milano, Milan | Master Architecture and Urban Design

14. (tied) Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Los Angeles | Master of Architecture II

14. (tied) Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain | Master’s Degree in Theory and Architectural Design