Top 10 Places to Study Abroad 2025 - Rankings Rationale
Wondering how we came up with the Top 10 Rankings? We'll break the process and factors down here for you.
At educations.com, we're dedicated to helping students around the world find the right education for their needs. We understand that international students have unique considerations when selecting a university and program. That's why we're making our annual rankings of the Top 10 Places to Study Abroad to help them discover their ideal study abroad destination!
In the spring of 2024, we conducted a survey* of nearly 27,400 students from more than 195+ countries (3,043 students from India) and asked about their top reasons for studying abroad. This resulted in a list of factors they considered most important, and we use these factors to form our rankings**.
This is the 6th annual ranking we have published. To compare how the importance of the factors (and the factors themselves) has changed since last year, check the 2024 rankings and rationale page.
For all fields of study and Indian students, these 5 factors are:
- To access higher-quality teaching
- To achieve my career goals
- To experience a new culture or lifestyle
- To develop myself personally
- To have an adventure
For MBA, law, and healthcare degrees:
- To access higher-quality teaching
- For post-study work opportunities
- To experience a new culture or lifestyle
- To develop myself personally
- To have an adventure
We assigned each factor a quantitative metric (or weight) based on the percentage of students who considered it important in their decision-making process. For instance, 9.09% of the surveyed students indicated that studying abroad was significant for their personal development. Therefore, the "develop myself personally" factor accounts for 9.09% of each country's overall score.
For the field-specific rankings, we've filtered the responses by student's desired field of study.
Each factor's score consists of sub-scores derived from external data sources listed below. These sub-scores were averaged and summed to generate a final score for each factor.
Factors were weighted and combined to create a final score for each country. The countries with the highest final scores make up the top 10 for each list.
Data sources and score weighting
1. To access higher-quality teaching
Score weighting:
- General: 43.54%
- MBA: 42.95%
- Law: 44.16%
- Healthcare: 44.90%
- For Indian students: 45.05%
Data sources:
- General and for Indian students:
- MBA:
- Law:
- Healthcare:
2. To achieve my career goals
Score weighting:
- General: 34.21%
- For Indian students: 35.28%
Data sources:
- General:
- For Indian students:
3. For post-study work opportunities
Score weighting:
- MBA: 27.09%
- Law: 25.31%
- Healthcare: 27.08%
Data sources:
- MBA, law, and healthcare:
4. To experience a new culture or lifestyle
Score weighting:
- General: 10.38%
- MBA: 21.27%
- Law: 21.65%
- Healthcare: 21.02%
- For Indian students: 8.84%
Data sources:
- General:
- MBA, law, and healthcare:
- For Indian students:
5. To develop myself personally
Score weighting:
- General: 9.09%
- MBA: 4.58%
- Law: 4.78%
- Healthcare: 3.53%
- For Indian students: 5.47%
Data sources:
- General:
- MBA, law, and healthcare:
- For Indian students:
6. To have an adventure
Score weighting:
- General: 2.77%
- MBA: 4.10%
- Law: 3.47%
- Healthcare: 4.10%
- For Indian students: 5.36%
Data sources:
- General and for Indian students:
- MBA, law, and healthcare:
*State of Student Recruitment survey conducted in Spring 2024
**The analysis for the rankings takes into consideration our data, external data sources, and current international world affairs where relevant
educations.com team
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