Abstract:

Rankings play an important role for any potential student who chooses a university. Given that, more and more young people are interested in investing in their education, wanting to pursue a rigorous specialization, being important to consider how students choose which university they will attend. Thus, not only students use international rankings, universities are showing a greater dependence on them. Thereby, in recent years there has been an increase in the interest of higher education institutions around the world, to be classified in international rankings.

Through this paper we aim to identify the impact that international rankings have on students' decision to choose a university. At the same time, we aim to identify the ways in which universities try to differentiate themselves in order to be as attractive as possible among students. Withal, we will detail the factors that influence the choice made by students. Finally, we will focus on the future perspective of performing a mathematical modelling to identify the share of influence of these factors on students' decisions for choosing the university.