University and Program Shortlisting

To understand this you have to understand the rankings of various Universities across the globe and ranking of these Universities for your program. There is a difference between that. For example my Uni, University of Illinois is ranked as 10th in overall Engineering schools in the US but ranks 1st in my field of interest of Structural and Civil Engineering. These rankings are primarily driven by the quality of research, career and growth opportunities and the placements that students get each year. Thus based on the cumulative of results of these the rankings are places by many rankings organizations. Some notable organizations to check the rankings are U.S. News, QS World Rankings etc. 

To choose your Unis, you should remember the 4-3-3 rule, which is as follows.

These stand for 4 Ambitious and Top Tier Unis>>> 3 Moderate and Mid Tier Unis>>> 3 Safe and Easy to secure Unis. 

So how to Identify these?

Its quite easy, the Ambitious Unis are the ones which from the ranks 1- 6 , Moderate are the ones from ranks 6 - 12 and Safe Unis are the ones from ranks 12 onwards. So any of these Unis that you choose can be a part of your application lists.

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When it comes to choosing programs, not all Unis support the program that interests you. Thus the best way is to check out all the Unis and read about the programs and detail course curriculums. Another thing to study is that the same program might be called out differently at different Unis.