How to select a University in UK for MBA and other allied courses???

The LOCAM - Good University Guide Part-I

Choosing a good university is a pretty tough task but if you know yourself well (Your strengths and interess, I mean), it's as easy as 1 2 3...

People generally consider AMBA Accredition, but isn't the only good thing; AMBA regulates the policies of universities pertaining to admission, course content, assessment methods so on and so forth.. but if you want to assess a university in UK in terms of teaching quality, student satisfaction and research excellence, there is a lot to consider then.

If you have some work-experience, you can get into some very good universities (All AMBA Universities require at least two years managerial work experience and some require GMAT scores also). Practically, considering finance, job prospects, admissions requirements and all that, you need to consider a lot...

To select a good university, you have many sources of information. But, initially I would recommend you to check the UK Government's Research Assessment Exercise - RAE. The primary purpose of the RAE is to produce quality profiles for each submission of research activity made by institutions. Based on the assessment of University's research works submitted to the RAE panel, Universities are ranked in each subject category. RAE in my opinion is the most authentic assessment of universities in the UK as it's a government done job and they won't want to mislead first their own students and then international students, off-course. Go to RAE official website, (http://www.rae.ac.uk/) put in the name of your proposed University and it will show the RAE assessment report. If you want to check the subject rankings go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/page/subject/rae2008 and select the subject.

Another good source of checking the ranking of UK universities are the league tables published by UK based newspapers such as The Times and The Guardian etc.

I prefer consulting the Times League Table (Good University Guide) located at http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tol_gug/gooduniversityguide.php. The table shows the general rankings, but if you want to check the subject rankings, type in your subject in the "Choose Subject" field and click Search.

Another good thing to consider is The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) - QAA checks how UK universities maintain their own academic standards and quality. They review and report on how Universities in UK meet their responsibilities, identify good practice and make recommendations for improvement. QAA also publishes guidelines to help UK universities and colleges develop effective systems to ensure students have the best learning experience. Access QAA website at http://www.qaa.ac.uk/.

I would like to advice you, don't go into what the people say in general. Do what is authenticated by people who are known for excellence in their fields. That way, you would never regret whatever you do in life.

Hope that helps.

Best of luck.

P.S: Do post your Comments...