The same image has been published alongside the same false claim on Facebook in Thai here, here, here and here.

The Taiwan FactCheck Center also debunked a similar claim shared in Chinese with the same fabricated graphic (archived link).

Comments showed some users believed the ranking was genuinely published by THE, while some users took credit for their contributions to the university’s purported ranking.

“Oops!! Now I immediately feel I’m good-looking,” read one Thai user’s comment.

“It’s a good survey to study. IQ is probably not everything. Appearance is also an important factor,” read the Thai caption of a Facebook user’s post sharing the image.

Not a genuine ranking

Claire Baumforth, director of corporate communications at THE, told AFP by email that the claim was “completely false”.

“Times Higher Education would never compile a ranking of this nature,” Baumforth wrote.

Keyword searches on Google did not find the purported rankings published on THE’s website or in reliable reports.

The magazine’s university rankings are published annually (archived link).

Universities are ranked globally based on five key metrics — teaching, research environment, research quality, industry innovations, and international outlook, as shown below (archived link):

According to information on THE’s website about the 2024 rankings, the magazine’s methodology has been tweaked several times since 2004. However, alumni appearance has never been part of its ranking metric (archived link).

According to THE’s publication in 2024, Chulalongkorn University received a global ranking of #601-800 and #117 for Asia.