3. Country & University Selection
As my first step, I have selected 10 countries based on my personal preferences and their immigration laws (Ex: Issuing spouse working visa, postgraduate working hours restrictions, climate, financial stability, the ability to get a PR, racism, welfare, etc.). For that, I prepared an Excel sheet and included all the important details of those countries/ links for later reference. Then, on another sheet, I prepared a table (Country & University Selection) covering the following sections.
Country, some universities, world rank, scholarship/ stipend quote, ability to obtain spouse working visa, deadline, cost of living, IELTS/ GRE and other entry requirements, potential supervisors, and links for their academic profiles.
As a beginner, I first entered only about three universities for each country and they were selected according to the rank and the availability of my interesting research area. Then, each university website is referred to and all the necessary information for my table is extracted. Only some countries were selected after analyzing the data in the prepared tables and then more universities were considered for those selected countries.
World ranking of universities in a particular country was obtained by Times Higher Education World University Rankings. QS World University Rankings can also be referred.
When selecting universities that have my desired research area, I divided their rankings into 3 levels and all 3 levels of universities were considered for a safer condition. It is as follows: World ranking under 100, ranking ranging 101-500, ranking ranging 501-700. Sometimes, due to the competitiveness, or any other unexpected situation, you may not get any opportunity from most reputable universities that have high rankings. Therefore, I thought to consider any university in any of those 3 levels of ranking in order to secure an opportunity.
To check the availability of your interesting research area in a certain university, you can follow either method as given below.
- Just google it as “interesting area in the university name. ”
- Go to University website -> Research section -> Research centres/ groups
- Go to University website -> Faculty/ School of Graduate Studies -> Programs of Study
- Go to University website -> Departments (under Academics section) -> Select a possible department in which your interesting research area can exist
To find entry requirements/ eligibility criteria, tuition fees, deadlines, scholarships of a postgraduate program in a certain university, you can follow either method as given below.
- Just google it as “ entry requirements of the program name in university name ”
- Go to University website -> Admissions -> Graduate Studies
- Go to University website -> Under Prospective students section -> Graduate Studies
- Go to University website -> Departments (under Academics section) -> Select possible department where the interesting research area can exist -> Under Study/ Programs section
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