Choosing which university to go to is the number one event in any student’s life!
Because this is not only related to your next academic life but also closely related to your future career development. How to choose a university that suits you and can meet your development expectations among many universities is also a topic that many students care about.
Today, we will talk to you about the things that international students choose for Australian schools, take you understand the things you need to pay attention to when choosing a university, and give you some suggestions.
How to choose the university that suits you best?
Every year, the world’s major authoritative education ranking institutions will release the latest rankings on various indicators of global universities, including QS World University Rankings, US News World University Rankings, THE World University Rankings, ARWU World University Rankings, etc.
Many students will use university rankings as an important reference factor when choosing a school in Australia. However, the ranking is only one aspect that needs to be considered when choosing a school, and it cannot be used as the basis for all considerations in choosing a school.
Here, we would like to remind everyone to pay attention to the following points when referring to university rankings:
Refer to various ranking metrics
Different ranking agencies use different indicators for evaluating schools. Some rankings will focus on the academic reputation of the school, while others will pay more attention to the number of academic literature published by the school. Therefore, a school may show different results in different university rankings.
Pay attention to the rankings of different departments and disciplines of the school
The comprehensive ranking of world universities mainly shows the overall situation of each university, and its performance in different disciplines and majors may be ignored by everyone.
In fact, only by referring to the world university rankings, it is impossible to fully understand the student experience of each university, as well as the important factors including campus facilities and equipment, accommodation environment, student support services, teachers’ teaching level, and available employment resources.
So what other information resources can help us choose the Australian school that suits us?
Here we recommend QILT to you. QILT (The Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching) is a set of higher education survey results recognized by the Australian Federal Government.
It covers various indicators from student enrollment to employment, including student learning experience, course satisfaction, employer satisfaction, employment rate, and other surveys.
These data are calculated by Australian students and employers after participating in questionnaires and surveys.
They are authentic, reliable, and transparent.
QS ranking VS QILT
So, what is the difference between the QILT survey report and many world university rankings? Let’s take the QS World University Rankings as an example to show you in detail~
QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings (QS World University Rankings) is an annual world university ranking report released by the British educational institution Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).
The ranking system consists of three parts: Global Comprehensive Ranking, Subject Ranking (including 51 different subject areas and five comprehensive departments), and five geographical regions, namely Asia, Latin America, Emerging Europe and Central Asia, Arab Region, and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa).
The QS World University Rankings consist of six criteria, the proportions of which are as follows:
- Academic reputation (40%)
- Faculty paper citations (20%)
- Teacher-student ratio (20%)
- Employer reputation (10%)
- The proportion of international faculty (5%)
- The proportion of international students (5%)
QILT
As a higher education survey report, QILT aims to provide the Australian government and the education industry with powerful, transparent, and fair performance data to support and promote the development of education quality in Australia.
Administered by the Center for Social Research on behalf of the Australian Department of Education, Skills, and Employment, the QILT survey data provides a factual and reliable reference for students who are or will be studying tertiary education in Australia.
Students can use QILT survey data to understand the real-life experiences of current students and recent graduates and to explore and compare Australian higher education institutions and fields of study.
According to data from the QILT official website, more than 400,000 students, graduates, and employers participate in the QILT survey every year, involving 41 Australian universities and about 90 non-university higher education institutions. The survey covers four aspects:
- The Student Satisfaction Survey (SES) collects feedback from students on their satisfaction with school learning, including educational experience, teaching quality, student engagement, learning resources, student support, and skill development.
- The Graduate Employment Survey (GOS) collects short-term employment outcomes of graduates, including employment, full-time employment, continuing study status, and median wages.
- The Graduate Employment Longitudinal Survey (GOS-L) collects graduate employment outcomes three years after graduation, including employment, full-time employment, continuing study status, and median salary.
- The Employer Satisfaction Survey (ESS) collects opinions from graduate employers about the school’s graduates, including workability, skill level, etc.
It is not difficult to see that the data results presented by the QS World University Rankings and the QILT Learning and Teaching Quality Indicators Survey report have their own merits. The QS World University Rankings are mainly for the top 500 universities in the world, and the QILT survey report is mainly for universities and colleges in Australia.
In addition, the QS World University Rankings relatively emphasize the academic reputation of the school, the citations of papers, and other scientific research data. The QILT survey report mainly collects the evaluations of students and employers through questionnaires, interviews, and other forms of data statistics.
Therefore, if you want to know the details of student satisfaction with the school’s courses, employment outcomes, graduation rate, salary, and other details, it is absolutely necessary to refer to QILT’s survey data when choosing a school.