Global Student
Satisfaction Awards 2021

We received over 108,000 reviews across 4,000 organisations.

Students are speaking, are you listening?

The Global Student Satisfaction awards are the only student-powered global university overview capturing feedback on life inside and outside the classroom.

The Awards empower students to share their views, to create recognition for the best universities in the world.

powered byUnibuddyIELTS British Council

Awards Ceremony - Virtual

14 October 2021, 16:00 CEST (Amsterdam)

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Francesc Pedró

Director of UNESCO IESALC – UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education

Jan Peter Balkenende

Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands

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Here’s an impression on the 2021 Virtual Ceremony

Watch the behind the scenes and making of the Global Student Satisfaction Awards 2021

Award Ceremony Photo Gallery

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The review-based Global Student Satisfaction Awards recognize the universities that have achieved the highest student satisfaction ratings.

  • Overall satisfaction
  • Admission process
  • Student-teacher interaction
  • Online classroom experience - NEW
  • Covid-19 crisis management - NEW
  • Student diversity
  • Quality of student life
  • Career development

‘Access to information and experiences from former students made my decision to study abroad stronger. It helped me choose the right university with more confidence, and it shows in my career. That’s why I also shared my personal experiences, so I can continue the tradition for future students.’

Anush Satheesh

Student from India, now studying in Germany

Supporting Partners

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Student Survey

Methodology
Award categories
Report

Reviews

Studyportals Reviews Policy
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Methodology

Categories

The Global Student Satisfaction Awards 2021 are based on university reviews written by Studyportal’s community and partner study associations. In the reviews, students can rate their study experience on a scale from 1 (lowest rating) to 5 (highest rating) by assessing their satisfaction in eight categories:

  1. Overall Satisfaction
  2. Student-Teacher Interaction
  3. Quality of Student Life
  4. Career Development
  5. Student Diversity
  6. Admission Process
  7. Online Classroom Experience
  8. Covid-19 Crisis Management

Additionally, students can describe their argument on the score they have given in their review.

Winners

  • There are three regional winners for each of the above-mentioned categories: Americas (North and South America), EMEA (Europe, The Middle East and Africa), and APAC (Asia Pacific). From these regions, one worldwide winner is chosen.
  • A winning university can be mentioned in only one category, to create a more diversified selection of participants who will receive the award.
  • The university with the highest student satisfaction rating is chosen to become the representation of the best university according to the student’s opinion.
  • Only universities with English taught programmes hosted in Studyportals’ websites can participate. Due to the only possibility for Studyportals to map student reviews with correspondent universities.

Review Count

At Studyportals, students can share their study experience scores through its specialised review collection service. The collected reviews will be used by Studyportals to analyse the collected reviews to determine the university winners in each category.

  • To participate in the awards, universities need to have collected at least 10 reviews except for “Overall Satisfaction” category, which is defined with at least 30 reviews
  • The reviews from sub-organisations (such as departments or faculties) are added to their respective parent organisations.
  • The graduation date of the students submitting the reviews should be on or after 01/01/2018 (i.e. either enrolled students or fresh alumni), and the initiation date should not be older than the date of graduation.
  • There is no distinction made between local and international students.
  • In the “Admission Process” category, where reviews collected through student organisation such as ESN are not taken into account for the reason being that there’s a high population of exchange students; thus they may not have experienced the regular admission process.

Verification

  • Universities are advised to encourage students to leave a review, yet under no circumstances should they compensate the reviewers.
  • The reviews are collected with the help of Studyportals’ community and international student organisations such as ESN. Checks are in place to identify false reviews.
  • In case fraudulent behaviour is detected, Studyportals will check for their validity (e.g. manual checks, email check, contact to the reviewer).

Medals

  • All universities which receive above 4.0 overall score will win medals of honour in their respective categories.
  • The digital medals will available to universities for use and referred to their university pages at Studyportals.

Awards

Global Student Satisfaction Awards 2021 will award universities for excellence in the following categories:

Best University

  • Question asked to students: “How would you rate your overall study experience?”

Student-teacher interaction

  • Question asked to students: “How helpful, engaged and interested were your teachers with you? How easy was it for you to interact with them, during or after class?”

Life quality of students

  • Question asked to students: “How was your everyday life? Especially when thinking about the city where you lived, did it satisfy your needs and expectations?”

Career development

  • Question asked to students: “Did the university provide support for your career development (E.g. extracurricular courses, workshops and conferences, help in finding internships)?”

Student diversity

  • Question asked to students: “How diverse/friendly was the atmosphere at your university (E.g. different countries, cultures, religions, age, gender, special needs, etc.)?”

Admission process

  • Question asked to students: “How simple was it to apply to your programme? Was the information that you found on the website clear enough? Did you get support from the university staff?”

Online classroom experience

  • Question asked to students: “How well did your university change education to online? (e.g. format, content, interaction, quality of online classes)”

Covid-19 crisis management

  • Question asked to students: “How do you rate your university’s response to the Covid-19 crisis? How well did they support you and your fellow students during the pandemic?”

* All Studyportals questions are based on star ratings (1 to 5).

The Report

The Global Student Satisfaction 2021 Report represents an in-depth analysis of student experience, what they are content with, and where they would like to see improvements. The report will allow higher education professionals and industry experts to discover which are the most highly rated regions, as well as the top countries for student satisfaction.  

Access the 2021 Report >

Discover the previous editions >

The Report

The Global Student Satisfaction 2019 Report represents an in-depth analysis of student experience, what they are content with, and where they would like to see improvements. The report will slice the results by country, allowing higher education professionals and industry experts to discover which are the most highly rated universities globally, per region, as well as the top universities for student satisfaction in each country.  

Access the report >

Discover the previous editions >