Many people have been asking me about how to select universities to apply. I had faced similar situation a year and half back and thought instead of answering all individual queries I will blog about it (I am still open to queries). My experience is searching for MBA College, but this would be applicable for MS too by changing a few parameters.
Plan to apply in few universities – 20% should be dream colleges, 60% should be colleges where you like to go and rest 20% should be your fallback options. Fallback colleges are those where you have very good chance of getting admission. I created a spreadsheet with set of parameters to figure out which colleges I should apply to. Here is a list of few of them
1. GMAT (or GRE) score: Average GMAT score that was accepted last year. This would give you a very good idea of what chances you have based on your score.
2. Average Work Experience: MBA admission is not just about GMAT score, there is always a balance with work experience. Using this parameter you can decide will your score able to compensate for work experience or vice versa.
3. 80% score: This column is crucial for people with low score. They should not know -what was least accepted score? Because he/she can be an outlier. So look at what was the least score in 80% of class. This figure is available on most of the sites.
4. Percentage Acceptance: This data will help you decide the chances of your admission to a particular college. For your fallback colleges make sure this percentage is high.
5. Yearly cost: Very crucial to make the judgment. Make sure when you gather the data, it should be of same type. Either yearly, not just the tuition fee etc. Cost of living varies highly based on location. So it would be better if you get the figure which says total yearly expenditure.
6. Rankings: Ranking of the program that you wish to attend and reputation of the university matter a lot too. If you want, make multiple columns for rankings from various sources.
7. Enrollment: Size of the program is important, can be given low weight. Based on your preference. I feel it is more relevant for MBA students.
8. Placement: A percentage of students placed directly from college.
9. Scholarship/GA/RA/TA opportunities: This number is not accurate, but sometimes some colleges say it up front that we do not offer anything.
10. Location: This is a very crucial factor; I did not realize the importance of it till I joined my program. Many companies will not come if you are remotely located. How accessible is the place from nearest airport, big city etc are some things to be kept in mind before joining that institute.
All this information should be gathered from few websites, cross checked. Usually the numbers are nearly close but if they differ by huge margin just go with the reputation of website. I gathered all the data from BusinessWeek and USAToday.
After inserting all the information, we should give weightage to the parameters and based on weighted mean rank the colleges. This information gathering can be tiresome process but is very effective in colleges that one wants to apply to. I am adding a sample excel sheet that I used while applying to colleges.
Good luck! Listen to podcast on the complete application process.
Sample Spreadsheet
