This week, the results from a large benchmarking study, International Student Barometer, conducted by the UK based company International Graduate Insight Group, was released. In total, 203 universities from 11 countries — 16 of which were Swedish institutions — participated in the survey at the end of 2010. Swedish institutions did well!
More international students would actively recommend Sweden as a study destination to their peers than what was the case for international students in other countries which participated. 36 percent of international students in Sweden said they would actively recommend it as a study destination compared to 33 percent for the international benchmark and 34 percent for the European benchmark.
Sweden was also perceived by international students to be a safe, environmentally friendly country. However, students felt institutions need to do a lot more work on support service, especially career services. It is important to emphasize — as i-graduate does – that the International Student Barometer is not a ranking. Instead, it is a means of measuring how students feel their expectations are met, which of course is enormously important.
For the Swedish Institute it is very positive to note that students have rated the Studyinsweden.se website highly. 12 percent of the students have said that it was the most important factor in helping them to choose an institution as opposed to less than five percent for similar websites, in the European benchmark.
