How to Choose a Grad School: 9 Factors That Matter More Than Rankings

Updated 2026/10/16

If you choose a school by ranking alone, it might drop 50-odd places by the time you graduate! (This happened to me.)

I often see forum posts asking how to choose a school, and a lot of people decide based only on ranking and reputation. I strongly advise against relying on just those two factors for a choice this important (and this expensive)!

Choosing schools is something you should do before you submit any applications. Learn early what each school is good at and what it costs, pick your first choice, and figure out which schools you don’t need to apply to at all so you save on application fees.

Before you apply: know your Why School and why you’re going abroad

Before you apply, be clear about why you want to study abroad and what you want to achieve. How will this particular school help you get there? Don’t let peer pressure or deadlines rush you into an “investment decision” worth millions!

Once people decide to go abroad, they often ask me things like “How many safety schools should I pick?” or “Should I apply to this safety school?” My answer is always the same: “If this were the only school that admitted you, would you go?”

If you would, apply!

After the offers arrive: if you only look at world rankings…

Rankings are the simplest indicator and give you a quick overview. But if you choose purely by world ranking and your school’s ranking later drops, does that mean the education it gave you is “no longer worth anything”? Or that its courses, academics, career support and alumni network can no longer help you reach your goals?

Rankings go up and down, and every list uses different criteria. On top of that, according to an article in CommonWealth Magazine, many schools hire specialist agencies to “optimize” their numbers. Wealthy schools that care a lot about international students often “pay to boost their rankings” before expanding enrollment, and in the study-abroad world this is no longer a secret. So your school choice should go back to “why you’re studying abroad.” If a school’s overall ranking isn’t the core reason you’re going, you need to weigh other factors too! Otherwise, keep in mind that overall rankings can move far more than you’d expect. For example, the University of Nottingham recently fell from 70th to 114th, and Bristol from 28th to 61st.

For students from mainland China, the QS ranking is the main criterion, because the job market there has so many applicants that mainland companies screen strictly by the QS ranking of a returnee’s school. Unless you plan to work in mainland China after graduating, I don’t think it’s necessary, and I don’t recommend, choosing schools “only” by overall ranking.

Nine factors to consider when choosing a school

Location

(Sources: eCollegeFinder)

A school’s location shapes which employers recruit there and what the school is strong in. The local culture also has a real effect on your experience, since it’s where you’ll spend the next few years. Location influences the social environment, the resources you’ll have access to, how concentrated certain industries are, and so on, though none of this is absolute. Every state has its own character, and the difference between rural and urban settings is real.

London Business School (LBS), Columbia Business School (CBS) and Chicago Booth owe part of their reputation in finance to where they are, and California schools benefit from being close to Silicon Valley’s startup and tech hub. Being away from a big city has its own advantages. Take business schools in small towns: Virginia Darden, one of the top MBA programs in the US, is in a college town, and each MBA class has only two or three hundred students. That small-to-mid size makes for closer relationships and a supportive community. By comparison, Harvard Business School (HBS) has over a thousand MBA students each year, so you’ll find it harder to get to know all your classmates.

Academic resources and teaching style

Every school has its “specialty” programs, and the same program at different schools will differ in curriculum design, teaching resources and internship opportunities. Before you apply, look at the curriculum in detail and apply based on your own needs and career plans. Get a full picture of the program’s required courses, electives, thesis or internship requirements, what makes each Pathway distinctive, signature courses, supporting academic resources or labs, research strength, faculty research areas and the overall direction of the curriculum.

On teaching style, taking MBAs as an example, Darden and Harvard are the only two top MBA programs that teach entirely by the Case Method, so if you like that way of learning, look at them closely. Master’s programs are also either career-oriented or academic. Some don’t require a thesis. One example is the program from an interview I published earlier 👉🏻 Warwick MSc Marketing & Strategy (WBS Marketing&Strategy), where you can choose the Business in Practice option to gain industry experience before you graduate.

Budget and return on investment

Tuition and scholarships are a very practical consideration. Some schools offer Merit-based Scholarships, Need-based Scholarships, Teaching Fellows Scholarships and so on, but you still have to cover living costs. The cost of studying abroad varies by region, degree length and credit requirements, and a master’s in the UK or US generally runs to a million or more. So think critically, be clear about why you’re going and what you need, and don’t apply blindly just because others do.

Return on investment (ROI) is a concept you have to consider! Studying abroad costs money and time. Getting a higher return at a lower cost matters, but the return isn’t only your salary after graduation, job opportunities or prestige. You should first “define” the return that matters most to you, then divide it by the time and money it costs, and by the opportunity cost too!

Program length

The length of the program determines how fast you learn and how soon you get back into the job market. If you have a clear career goal and want to upgrade your skills before returning to work quickly, there are plenty of Fast-track or Accelerated Programs that will appeal to you. For example, INSEAD, Columbia’s MBA J-Term (January intake), Cambridge, Oxford and other top schools offer accelerated MBAs of 12 to 18 months. Traditional two-year MBAs, like the US M7 programs, give you a longer stretch of immersive study plus a summer internship.

Post-graduation pay and career resources

Employment depends on location, program, the alumni network and how much the school invests in career services. Some programs are career-focused, and the Career Centre gives students mock interviews, help with their resumes and cover letters, and so on. Add the conferences and Webinars where schools invite industry leaders, and you can pick up a lot of industry insight. MBAs also have many Professional Clubs where you can build relevant skills with your peers.

To get a better sense of a school’s real employment picture, use Linkedin to see which companies and roles its alumni went to, and compare. I also strongly recommend asking current or former students and admissions officers directly. Talk to alumni about their experience with the school’s Career Service team, the on-campus recruiting by potential employers, and so on. Tying back to location: in the US, some companies prefer graduates from schools near where the company is based. Weigh that against your program and how many job-search resources you’ll have before you choose.

You need to be confident that your favorite school can move your career goals forward! Use these questions as a checklist: What does the school’s career services team offer? What chances will you have to connect with alumni? What career exploration opportunities or events are there? Always read each program’s Employment Report carefully. Beyond the starting salary, check the career statistics and common employers too.

School culture, student life and student body

From a school’s overall “vibe” you can tell what kind of people it attracts and what kind of environment it builds. Do you share the values the school promotes? When you talk to alumni or current students, do you sense a culture of teamwork or something more competitive? MBA Information Sessions, webinars and networking events will tell you a lot about this.

Remember: the question is whether you suit the school or program, and also whether the program suits you.

• School atmosphere and campus culture vary. Some schools put special weight on teamwork and have tight-knit alumni. Others have a large Cohort (many students) with lots of clubs and resources, which suits people who want to grow fast on their own and try many directions. Student life is worth factoring in too, such as clubs, the sports scene and the makeup of the student body.
• How many international classmates there are: some people like having lots of classmates from other countries, while others prefer more people from home so they can look out for each other. Many people overlook this when choosing a school! Some schools or programs have a very high share of students from China or Chinese-speaking backgrounds, sometimes over 90% (even the professors are Chinese). That’s why people on Chinese forums joke: “We pay foreign tuition, and the whole classroom is Chinese.”

School rankings

Rankings are a clear, intuitive indicator of a school’s overall strength. Prestigious schools are great, but pick one that suits you. The best-known world rankings are QS and USNews. I think their main use is to place a school in a “relative” band worldwide (Top 10, Top 50, Top 100, Top 200 and so on). In general, schools less than 50 places apart can be treated as roughly the same level. Most HR staff back home don’t know much about individual foreign schools. At most they glance at the world ranking, or they don’t check it at all, so don’t agonize over a few places.

Industry reputation and strengths

Usually this tracks the school’s overall ranking or the program’s subject ranking, but sometimes there’s a big gap. When there is, I suggest giving industry reputation priority, because some industries have Target Schools whose graduates they especially like to hire. For example, Michigan Ross MBA’s 2021-22 employment report shows 42.2% of students going into management consulting and 15% into finance. In Columbia MBA’s 2022 employment report, 33.6% of graduates went into consulting and 36.9% into finance. So if you judge a school’s industry strengths only by where its graduates go, and you plan to work in finance, studying at Columbia gives you more alumni resources and job opportunities. (Of course, choosing among Top 10 MBAs means weighing everything together, not just this one factor.)

Many schools are known for specific fields such as tech, real estate, entrepreneurship, nonprofits (NGOs), finance or luxury goods. They may even run startup incubators or offer internships at nonprofits. Schools also build flexible curricula around their strengths so you can explore a range of electives. So consider whether a school’s core strengths, courses and teaching methods match your interests and the direction you want to go!

Alumni network

The alumni network is a strong predictor of career opportunities, and some networks are more concentrated in certain places than others. For example, Stanford GSB gives you an excellent Silicon Valley network, while INSEAD offers unmatched international reach. Ways to gauge an alumni network include how concentrated alumni are in a given industry, how many overseas alumni chapters there are, and the nationalities of the program’s alumni.

Final thoughts

These aren’t the only criteria. Some people also factor in climate, campus facilities, clubs and school sports spirit, food and more. Rankings fluctuate in the short term, but a school’s resources and alumni network won’t change much in the short term! I hope you all do your homework and find the school that fits you best!

For a PhD or a research-oriented master’s, your Supervisor is another important factor in choosing a school!

For MBAs, many people choose based on a school’s “specialty areas,” “location,” “alumni network” and so on, because the end goal of an MBA is to “Pivot” and land a job. So apart from HSW (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton), if you get several offers within the M7, ranking actually won’t be your top consideration!