AppliedHE has been compiling university rankings, with the aim of providing students, parents and other higher education stakeholders with an independent benchmark for comparing universities. In the beginning, AppliedHE rankings targeted only private universities in South East Asia, a large and largely underserved segment of the global higher education system. Due to strong interest from public universities, AppliedHE is now introducing two parallel sub-rankings: one for public universities and one for private universities.

The AppliedHE Private University Ranking: ASEAN was created with the goal of measuring the things about private universities that students deciding on their higher education journey find most important. Private universities are almost always more expensive than their public-sector counterparts, and therefore they represent an important investment in time and money by students and their families. Especially in Southeast Asia, private universities have played an important role in educating the workforce and expanding access to higher education.

The methodology for the AppliedHE Private University Ranking: ASEAN consists of the following criteria:

Teaching and learning (40%)

• Student satisfaction with teaching and learning (15%) – based on AppliedHE Student Survey.
• Student satisfaction with campus and online facilities (10%) – based on AppliedHE Student Survey.
• Student satisfaction with grading and examinations (10%) – based on AppliedHE Student Survey.
• Student-faculty ratio (5%) – based on data submitted by the institution.

Employability (15%) 

• Employment, entrepreneurship and further study (15%) within 6 months of graduation – based on institutions' own graduate tracer study or AppliedHE Alumni Survey.

Research (15%) 

• Research quality (10%) – citations per paper (author weighted) in Google Scholar during past 5 years.
• Research productivity (5%) – papers per faculty in Google Scholar during past 5 years.

Community Engagement (10%) 

• Student Involvement in Community Engagement (4%) – percentage of surveyed students who say that they have been involved during the past year.
• Supported Students (3%) – percentage of students who receive (partial) scholarships, grants or other aid, based on data submitted by the institution.
• Media Coverage (3%) – number of stories in Google News, log-normalized.

Internationalization (10%) 

• International students on campus (5%) – percentage of students who hold citizenship of another country OR have participated in an exchange program OR took part in a virtual exchange program during (= took an online credit-baring course delivered by a university in a foreign country), based on data submitted by the institution.
• International faculty on campus (5%) – percentage of faculty members who hold foreign citizenship OR hold a degree from a foreign university, based on data submitted by the institution.

Institutional Reputation (10%) 

• Nominations by peers – participating institutions must nominate 10 other participating institutions based on their perceived reputation. Institutions cannot nominate themselves.