Exchange: Decisions and Destinations
Ever since they begin their studies, IE students think about their destination for the exchange semester abroad. From their GPA to their financial decisions, everything seems to be influenced by their desired destination. While the university offers an extraordinary opportunity, with 6 continents, more than 40 countries and nearly 200 universities to choose from, such overwhelmingly wide range of choice often results in stress and doubt. This article presents a comparative study that considers academic level, lifestyle and cost of living to aid outgoing students' indecisiveness, and give future exchangers an insight on what is coming.
The first, and arguably the most important, criterion that must be considered is academics. Although some universities around the globe are very well-positioned overall, some have a lot more credit and prestige in certain fields of study. When making a decision, it is important to keep this in mind. To provide a master analysis, this article uses an average position computed from the most recent editions of three reputed university rankings: QS, Times Higher Education, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).
The following table shows the top-five institutions in overall terms. Sitting at the top of South America, is The University of Sao Paulo in Brazil in the 136th position.
When focusing in rankings by subject, however, there are certain discrepancies. For Business Administration, the first spots are taken by the schools in the table below. The South American title is retained by The University of Sao Paulo, this time occupying the 162nd position. IE University stands somewhere around the 95th position, according to this average.
For Architecture, it is Asia/Pacific that clings the top three spots. The results are shown in the following table.
In Communication and Digital Media, it is the USA that establishes dominance. The Asia/Pacific region takes two spots, while Europe also claims one of the places.
For the Bachelor in Behavioral Sciences, the top-rated option is again The University of Texas Austin. Alternatively, For people that have become attached to the old continent, the most prominent European options are UK’s University of Sussex, holding the 136th spot, and The University of Leeds, claiming the 146th place.
In the case of L.L.B, it is the Asia/Pacific region that rises to the top. Other interesting alternatives include Colombian Universidad de los Andes, ranked 5th in South America by Times Higher Education, and University of Miami, the only North American option, located somewhere around the 230th worldwide position. European highest performers are once again UK’s The University of Leeds and University of Sussex, occupying the 132nd and 186th position, respectively. The top three entries for the degree may be found in the table below.
In the field of Politics and International Studies, the top three is much more international, with each university representing a different country. Other attractive options are Sciences Po in Paris, ranked 4th in the world by QS, and South American University of Sao Paulo, placed 75th by the same ranking institution. Furthermore, UK’s University of Essex was ranked below the 40th position by both QS and ARWU.
The availably of spots is another aspect that must be taken into account when evaluating candidate universities. The table below shows the top-five most demanded institutions. The lowest GPA recorded among the applicants to these universities was 7.00 while the highest was 9.00. From the top 20 picks, the highest-performing student, with a GPA of 9.50, chose The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The most popular regions were North America and Asia/Pacific with 8 entries each. This information, all available in the International Mobility platform, may be useful for a strategic application.
As the last table shows, the top picks do not exactly match the academic level, and this may be because there are additional factors persuading students to choose other options. One of them is the environment and the lifestyle each destination provides. The following table, obtained from QS, shows the best college cities around the world, based on ratings by fellow students. Other popular exchange cities not making it to the top five include Hong Kong in the 11th position, Singapore in 14th, Shanghai in 25th and Milan in 33rd place.
The last, and perhaps the most important, aspect for parents is money. While some destinations might be very appealing, the countries they are located in may be significantly more expensive than Spain, and this is something that must also be taken into consideration when planing or deciding. The following table was obtained from Numbeo, the largest online crowd-sourced database of country information, and includes the cost of living index of ten of the most popular countries for exchange. Singapore claims the first place as most expensive country to live in, and China places itself as the cheapest alternative by a significant margin.
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