School Rankings

For many students when choosing their study destination they will pay a lot of attention to rankings. Rankings are important as they give an independent way of judging universities. However it is very important to understand that every ranking has its own criteria and some maybe aimed at UK students or undergraduate students so it is very important to understand what the rankings are for and who they are aimed at. Below is a variety of rankings and your UKEAS counselor will be able to guide you through the different rankings and which ones focus on the aspects which are most important to you. Remember rankings should just be one factor in selecting your chosen school and it also makes sense to pay just as much attention to course content, location, cost, type of university and student experience:

Research Assessment Exercise

The Research Assessment Exercise is a complete university ranking. This is the only government ranking exercise and focuses primarily on research, as the name implies.

http://www.rae.ac.uk/
The Guardian

Guardian University Guide Ranking Table. This is primarily an undergraduate ranking and is aimed at UK students, provided by a major national newspaper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk
The Times

The Times Complete University Rankings. Again this is a UK focused ranking, from a major national newspaper.

http://rankings.ft.com
The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times Complete University rankings. Possibly one of the better known rankings from a sister newspaper to The Times. It caters mainly for UK students.

http://extras.timesonline.co.uk
AMBA

The association ranks postgraduate management programmes with a primary focus on the MBA degree.

http://www.mbaworld.com
The Economist

These rankings are provided by a well known business magazine, and also focus primarily on the MBA offerings of leading business schools.

http://www.economist.com/whichmba/2010/europe-ranking
The Financial Times

This famous business newspaper provides two sets of rankings. Their MBA rankings can be found here:

http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-rankings-2011

And rankings of various management programmes can be found here:
http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/masters-in-management