Where to go?

What's the best place?

One of the most frequently asked questions. Entirely fair but really difficult to answer. There are so many variables, some of them personal to you. Here's a checklist:

• Academic reputation. Ask staff in your own department. Academic links are really strong and they'll know exactly where the hot spots are. Or check the website for the Research Assessment Exercise 2008, carried out by the four higher education funding bodies, which produced research ratings for individual departments nationwide. Current results are based on assessments made in 2008. The new system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions is the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which is due to be completed in 2013.
  
• You might want to look at how the department scores on the teaching side too. Subject review reports are worth a look.
• Top Universities provides international ranking tables that can be searched by individual subjects; geographical regions and QS World Universities rankings (including Asian Universities rankings; and rankings by subject (Arts & Humanities; Science; Engineering)) .
• Check out the Times Higher World University rankings which can be searched by region and subject. The rankings only cover the top 200 universities.
• Employability. If employment prospects are important to you, don't be afraid to ask what exactly their students go on to do.
• Your potential supervisor. The PhD's relationship with their supervisor is really close. Is this someone who you can respect and get on with for three years. Will they have time for you?

If you decided to stay at Bristol go to the current Postgraduate Prospectus, produced by each faculty.

If you want to look elsewhere in the UK check Prospects which has the most comprehensive listing of UK courses. TARGETcourses allows you to compare courses by a number of factors including student reviews, RAE score, fees and employability rating. Check the press (especially Guardian, Times, Independent, and Times Higher Education), and occasional specialist publications such as Prospects Postgrad, which you can sometimes pick up from us. Have a look at our page on Information sources to help with choosing further study in the UK.

If you decide to look overseas you'll need to plan well ahead - often more than a year. Check our useful links or come in and see the material we've got in our Information Centre.

Next page: How & when to apply

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