Hello, I've been looking around and trying to understand how to go about assessing universities. I've found it is quite a challenging process ! Accreditation is one thing, but there is also the reputation of a university. In Europe, a European University's reputaition is quite an important element to keep in mind when selecting a school. So how exactly can you assess the reputation of a school? I've come across some intresting websites that rank universities according to different criteria. Here a re a few: World University Rankings 2014-2015 - Times Higher Education European University Reputation Reputation - European Universities | europeanuniversityaccredited.com European University Reputation | europeanuniversityaccreditation.com University Rankings | Top Universities These are all interesting, but you simply end up with a numbered ranking.. not much to go on. Does anyone have good advice on how to research the quality and reputation of a european university ? I know there is a lot of good knowledge to be shared on DegreeInfo so I hope someone has good advice. Thank you
This is a very slippery issue as far as I'm concerned because "reputation" is subjective. If a restaurant has a great reputation it's still possible to go there and have a mediocre meal. Most would agree that Harvard (for example) has an excellent reputation but that doesn't mean that every department is ranked #1 in the country. Also, there are sometimes differences between a school's local reputation and it's national reputation. A small school like Salve Regina might have a great local rep but over on the left coast no one has even heard of it. Now if we're just playing semantics and by reputation you mean ranking then this can be more objective but then, as you pointed out, if depends on the criteria you choose. For example, one criteria might be the size of the library. As a DL student you may not care about that because you'll never set foot in the library. Another criteria might be the percentage of tenured faculty. Maybe you don't care about that or maybe you even have a preference for instructors who live and work in the real world too. If you look at a rankings list do you really think there's a substantial difference between a school that ranks #300 and a school ranking of 320? I don't think so, especially if the criteria where they differ are non-factors to me. So the criteria mean everything when you're talking about rankings. Reputation is another thing in my mind. "I dated someone who went to Northeastern and he was a lying SOB. Any school that would admit him must be a joke so for me, Northeastern has a bad rep." ***Any resemblance between aforementioned school and lying SOB and real characters/schools that exist or existed in the wonderfulness of my life is strictly coincidental.
