Your Choice of University for Graduate School

I know it can be an uphill task selecting from more than three thousand universities in North America to study. How does one even begin when a good number have impressive facilities and serene environment? What should one look for?  What are the fool proof yardsticks to selecting a good school? Is a good school just like beauty that is in the eyes of beholder? 

Well, a lot depends on what you look for in a school. But basically, when cost of tuition is off the list, I mean when the chance of securing scholarship is closer to one than zero, three factors, in my opinion, are essential in selecting university in America.

The first and perhaps the most important is the reputation. By reputation, I mean academic ranking of the university. You don't want to go to a school that's at the bottom of the ladder. The ranking thus measure a lot of activity going on in the university; activity like index of publication by faculties, faculty-student ratio, funding, percentage of alumni that have excelled in chosen fields among others. A number of organizations carry out annual ranking of universities but the most reliable appears to be here  which is acceptable globally and uses yardsticks that are reflective of academic excellence. Other reputable agencies that measure universities performances also include this carried out by Times and this one carried out by US News.  It must be stressed though that a common mistake most students make is to assume a particular university's ranking covers the whole courses that are on offer in the university. For a school like Harvard that has excellent programs in several fields, that may not be far from the truth. But for most schools, the answer in a word is NO. A lowly ranked school (overall) may even have a discipline that is well ranked and well known to the extent of competing with the globally acclaimed of the top ten. Thus, the best way is to look for ranking according to disciplines which of course is well explained here as well.

Besides exposing the strength of universities, ranking can as well be a tool to judge the admissibility of candidates. A student with weak academic credentials will no doubt find it difficult to gain admission in the top and better ranked universities. Thus, based on student's undergraduate performance, test scores in TOEFL and GRE, profile of reference providers as well as contents of their recommendations and statement of purpose, a student can judge where his/her application for graduate studies may likely succeed.

Apart from quality of academic program, international graduate students are also concerned about the suitability of the environment in terms of weather, crime rate, cost of living and other sundry issues. At first, these factors may appear trivial, but if you listen to testimonies of several candidates, you may well realize that these are potent factors that can have a very negative bear on student performance if not carefully managed. So, you may want to choose a town with low income tax, or no tax at all, very low cost of living which in effect maximizes your savings potential and an environment where the crime rate is below the national average. A good way to check is to google : crime rate+ name of your town. i.e. name of the town where the university is located.

With a good school selected based on your ability as determined by your academic credentials and right environment chosen, what other potent factors can affect graduate students significantly? The short answer is a lot. But one is particularly obvious: the choice of your adviser, I mean the big boss who you will work with and who will supervise your doctoral thesis. This choice can make or mar your career. So, with all these factors in mind, take a look at the article below and begin research on selecting the best schools for graduate studies.  Don't forget to leave a message or contact me via email if you have any questions.