Is it worth paying attention to ratings when choosing a university?

It's very difficult and almost impossible to determine the best university in the world, because each university has its own composition of faculty, its own approach to learning, and so on. However, mankind has come up with a rating system that evaluates universities according to various criteria. Each university is given an overall rating. These evaluations make up the rating.

Currently, 20 international ratings are recognised for evaluating educational institutions and various fields of study.

Many applicants and their parents choose a university based on known ratings. This approach has many disadvantages:

1. popular universities have high tuition fees, especially for foreigners;
2. great competition among applicants. In this scenario, your chances of admission are much lower.
3. the university may be among the top 5% of the best universities in the world, but the preferred educational programme at this university isn't of high quality. It makes sense to enrol in a university where more emphasis is placed on your programme.

There's no reason to make reckless decisions and enrol in the highest rated university. If you want to get a decent education, answer 3 questions first:

1. do you want to study at home or abroad?
2. what kind of education do you want?
3. what level of education do you want to get (bachelor, master, PhD )?

You've decided who you want to be. Now you can use the assessments as a tool to help you choose your educational path.

Choosing a bachelor's degree programme abroad

Focus first on evaluating the quality of the education. The overall grade of the university will give you less information, so consider teaching as a separate criterion in the evaluations (Times Higher Education).

The results may surprise you. For example, one university may be at the top of the overall rankings, but if you evaluate a specific criterion, that university may be in the middle.

Second, look at subject positions. For example, the QS World University Rankings will help you find out how good the curriculum is at your university of choice.

Choosing a master's program abroad

If you're applying to a master's program, you need to pay attention to the quality of the research, because a master's degree is a step up and usually such programs are research-oriented.

Here you can focus on the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) or US News & World Report Global Universities Ranking.

Choosing the right course of study and enrolling in a university abroad aren't easy tasks. You need to approach these issues carefully, take your time to search for a program and then gather all the documents, pass entrance exams and much more. The admission process is very complicated, but with our help it can be easy. We'll select programs according to your preferences, prepare you for the interview with the university admissions committee and entrance exams, gather all the necessary documents together with you and arrange them properly.

You can get a free consultation with the admissions manager. Sign up through the link.