How to pick the best Grad School

Back in Germany I enjoyed Christmas, seeing my family and friends again after more than one year abroad. It was just awesome so far. Cause I wanna start my masters this year, I started to do an intense research on all available programs in my major Information Systems (German Wirtschaftsinformatik).

I focused on German programs as programs in English speaking countries are usually not consecutive, which means the master programs start from zero and don't build up on the bachelor programs. I plan to go abroad though, so I gonna look in particular for international programs in Germany.

My Criteria

To have fairly well defined criteria about what is important is going to help to make a reasonable decision rather than just go with gut feelings. In the end the whole package should fit to my needs. This page helps to find criteria.

Program Content

• Courses offered: The most important factor. What does an university with excellent infrastructure and reputation help, if most courses are marketing related and I want IT? What I check is the complete range of provided courses. How many courses are selectable? How flexible is the whole program? How many seminars compared to lectures? How are the credit points distributed, how important are projects and the master thesis? How many semesters will you be studying?
• Faculties involved: Are main parts of the program in the computer science faculty? Or business administration? How many publications? How many professors are teaching? How good is their reputation? (prof research on meinprof.de and google scholar)
• Academic Focus: What is the core focus of the university? E.g. in my Bachelor program in Münster it was process management.  

 Program Quality

• Accreditation: Is the program accredited by at least one of the well-known German agencies? This database helps to find the information.
• Reputation: My source the following rankings:
• CHE universtiy ranking
• karriere.de
• Humboldt-Ranking (Internationality)
• Times Ranking (overall university reputation)
• Handelsblatt (only Business Administration)
• Admission: Is it tough to enter the program? The tougher the better, it usually means higher quality and better reputation. I use two criteria here:

• Requirements to enter the program, always published on the program pages of the universities
• Ratio of applicants and acceptances. In Germany institutes prefer to remain nontransparent and don't publish these information on their websites. A polite phone call can help though
  
• Infrastructure. How does the library look like? Are there lots of modern computer labs? These information are easiest to get when visiting the place or ask students actually studying there or Alumni.
• Program attendants. Take a look at the students attending the program. How many internationals? The more the better. How many students study there? The less the better since the atmosphere will be much more personal and efficient. 
• Internationality. For me especially interesting, because I want to go at least 1 semester abroad, preferably USA or East Asia. Does the uni have partner unis in these countries? Does the program make it easy to go abroad? How about master thesis abroad? Is there even a double degree to earn? Usually these information should be available at the university's international office. Very important: Is the whole program in English or German? I strongly prefer English since I aim for an international career. 
  

Environment

• City. How large is the city? (after a year in Bangkok, even Berlin seems small and quiet. I would prefer a big city with lots of cultural options, VERY small towns get sorted out). How expensive? How is the overall atmosphere? Are there a lot of interesting companies to get connections for later work?
• Uni Location. Is the university a campus or is it spread out in the whole city? I prefer the spread out version like in Münster or Karlsruhe, as it makes the city look more like a real student city. A campus is OK though, if it's not too far away or extremely ugly.
• Non-Uni. After a good while at the world's largest student organization AIESEC I would like to get in touch with another organization e.g. company consulting. Is this possible in the university?What about uni sports?

The programs I'm most interested in starting in the summer term:

Muenster: Information Systems international program, excellent reputation

Mannheim: Wirtschaftsinformatik partly English, well-known in business

TU Munich: Wirtschaftsinformatik part of the excellence cluster, strong in computer science

Erlangen-Nuernberg: International Information System not actually starting in summer, but possible to start off with Informatics and switch later


The programs also interesting but only starting in the winter term:

Augsburg: Finance and Information Management international excellence program, highly competitive and small classes
Hamburg: Wirtschaftsinformatik interesting topics to choose of: logistics and IT management

Useful books and links:

Not ordered yet, but probably valuable: Studienführer Wirtschaftsinformatik 09/10

Find programmes in Germany: Studis online

In the next days I will have a look at each of those programs based on my criteria.