THE biggest mistake one could do is to limit one’s search to the top universities while planning to go abroad, advises Rahul Choudaha,  Director of Development & Innovation at WES, New York. Normally most students freeze on the discipline first and then seek out countries based on their preferences, concentration of Indian students, cost and a host of other factors.  And invariably they end up applying to the best if they have the academic credential or settle for the ordinary ones in countries like the USA, UK and Australia.

The ostensible reason for such an attitude is the fact that these countries are on top of the mind and most consultants peddle the wares of universities from there. To increase the choice set of the prospective students, we have given a list of institutions that come within the Top 100 department listings by QS World rankings (given in brackets). We have purposely excluded US and UK institutions since they are quite well known. The list is broadly categorised in five disciplines namely Arts, Engineering & Technology, Medicine, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences and Management, based on their ranks.

The resultant list is quite revealing. Good departments exist in China, Singapore, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand. And  in many of these countries fees are almost nil!