Your Guide to the Global Student Satisfaction Awards

Nowadays, it can be pretty hard for students to discover which university is really for them. They may have a vague idea of what they want to do but the whole ‘university ranking’ market is so bloated with ranking after ranking after ranking that it becomes hard for any of them to really say anything that the other one has not already said. You’ll hear the same thing again and again-good academics and research, great campus life, the town the university is based in is fun, it’s all just the same thing repackaged differently. This is especially bad for those intending to study a bachelors degree, since they don’t really know much about all of this and are the most susceptible to these tactics. Luckily, someone else also had that same view and decided to come up with a different ranking for universities that is precise, swift and doesn’t waste the student’s time.

In this article, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at the Global Student Satisfaction Award-or GSSA for short. You may not have heard of it, but once you do you will never want to use anything else.

What is the Global Student Satisfaction Award?

The GSSA is a review-based award ceremony that aims to recognize the universities which have achieved the highest student satisfaction ratings. Implemented in 2018, the idea was that, rather than look at a universities past achievements and reputation and base the rankings solely on that, they would instead interview the students themselves and allow them to express their opinions both on what they believe is important in a university and if the one they are currently enrolled in delivers in that department. In a time where most university rankings are created by independent companies who could have ulterior motives that none of us really know about, it’s a nice change to see a ranking system that puts the students first and foremost-after all, they’re the one’s going to be making use of all of these rankings.

So how does it work?

As stated above, the lifeblood of this ranking is through student reviews, each thoughtfully tailored to provide information on the categories which the universities will be ranked on. Throughout the years, StudyPortal (the people behind the GSSA), with the help of some influential partners such as the Erasmus Student Network, European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management and the International Pharmaceutical Students Federation, were able to acquire thousands upon thousands of student reviews to properly back up their rankings. Don’t worry, these guys also make use of a varied amount of validation checks such as manual checks, email checks and contacting the viewer to make sure that every review they receive is a valid and truthful one. Once they collect the reviews, a winner is chosen for the eight different categories, which are:

1. Best university: This one is self-explanatory. This ranking implies which university has the highest quality overall, with each category taken into consideration.
2. Student-teacher interaction: This ranking is based on everything teacher related-how good they are at explaining and communication, the value of their feedback to students, if they provide any support to the students after classroom hours and so on.
3. Life quality of students: Given that the students are going to be living, or at least regularly visiting, the campus for four to five years it’s important to reassure them that the lifestyle of the campus will be high quality.
4. Career development: Students go to university so they can get a job. A university which doesn’t assist students in helping them acquire said jobs through internships, workshops, etc. is a bad university.
5. Student diversity: Given that most students nowadays tend to be foreigners travelling abroad to a completely new country, it’s important to know that they’ll feel safe in this new environment that they’re travelling to.
6. Admission process: The bane of all university students. It’s genuinely confusing why no one considers this when taking a university’s overall quality into account, because a university with a smooth admission process will attract students like moth to a flame. Takes into consideration not only the application process to get into the university but other application processes too such as picking courses for a new semester.
7. Online classroom experience: A relatively new field, this one aims to evaluate how universities adapted to the online teaching experience-online format, content taught, class interaction, the whole thing. A hidden gem when it comes to evaluating a university-online teaching was devastating for everybody so if a university can pull its weight here, you know they’ll excel in face-to-face teaching.
8. Covid-19 crisis management: Another relatively new field, this one evaluates the measures and precautions the university took while going through the COVID-19 crisis. The way a university handles a crisis is an indicator of how it will handle further crises.

They check out the reviews and give the one who received the highest score in their represented field the award-a relatively simple process. Keep in mind, however, that only universities with English-taught programmes are sponsored in this competition. If a university has managed to do particularly well in a field they will given a medal which will be put on the hosts site to show future students.

So who are the winners?

The 2022 results have not yet come out so for this article we will be looking at the results of the 2021 GSSA, which were:

• • For overall satisfaction: Kühne Logistics University, Germany
  • For student-teacher interaction: Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
  • For quality of life: European School of Economics, the UK
  • For professional growth: University of California Berkeley, the US
  • For student diversity: University of Sussex, the UK
  • For admission process: University of Bonn, Germany
  • For online experience: University of Essex Online, the UK
  • For Covid-19 response: University of Klagenfrut, Austria.

Those looking to study in Germany or study in UK seem to be in luck-most of the rewards went out to those two, implying that they possess some of the more well-known universities. But take a look at the University of Klagenfrut from Austria. In a typical ranking, a university like that would have been simply thrown to the wayside in favor of the typical popular universities you’ve no doubt heard of over and over. But thanks to this system, even the more obscure universities can get representation.

And there you have it. This whole process screams streamlined-simple method, simple analysis and a simple way of showing the rewards. Ultimately, this is exactly what students needed to help them forward in their academic careers. If you’d like even more assistance in picking out your dream university, be sure to visit UniApp.