QS does not allow institutions to opt-in, or opt-out, of our rankings.
The QS World University Rankings are intended to be a public service, providing a precise and accurate reflection of higher education reality in order to inform students, parents, and wider stakeholders. In order to achieve these aims, it’s important that we execute a ranking that features all institutions that merit inclusion. Where we don’t have the cooperation of the individual institution (which we would always prefer), we feature them on the strength of proprietary and publicly available or previously supplied data and we do so to provide our users with as complete and precise a map of the higher education landscape as possible.
Rankings must not only publish those institutions that wish to be featured, but also those that do not. Anything otherwise would weaken their credibility and rigour.