looking for id schools in europe

my academic goal has been to graduate from Art Center in Pasadena, CA but lately, graduating with a ~$90,000 bill makes me wonder if this is the best route. if i spend the same amount in europe, id be getting much more of an experience (since i grew up in california)…

so, im ready to move my studies overseas to europe but would GREATLY appreciate some input of the better ID schools in europe. I do not mind learning a new language at all but wonder how much it’ll get in the way of getting my bachelors.

I was considering Italy / Germany / Switzerland / England… or is there a website that basically ranks ID schools in Europe?

THANKS in advance!

As I have written in previous threads, ranking of universities can often be argued to be an imprecise measurement of the quality of the education and what a student in reality will gain from attending it. This notion together with the diversity of university tradition (concerning e.g. curriculum and degree structure, although the later in some parts is changing) in Europe, I guess is part of, the reasons for why ranking of universities have not been an especially big thing in many countries in Europe.

What I know of, there have not been any cross-Europe ranking of universities. I know that der Spiegel a couple of years ago performed an attempt of ranking concerning the German universities. This attempt was followed in some other European countries in more or less ambitious ways. Many of these rankings and many of the one that have followed was and have been heavily criticised by university employees and students as well as governments for not giving an accurate description of the situation or the quality of the universities involved.

In another thread here at Forum, I read that the guardian had performed a ranking of the universities in UK. I would however guess, without have read the ranking, that the ranking in many ways is similar to the criticized ones. The critique of rankings, I would say come from that there exist uncountable ways of performing rankings of universities. What should be ranked and how do you asses this?

This makes comparison of different rankings very hard and even harder when comparing over different countries with different cultures and traditions. In many cases it can be like comparing apples and oranges.

Because of this and the questionability of what they measure, I would instead of searching for ranking concerning European universities recommend you to try to specify for you self, what you find important. Is facility, research connection, industry connection, teacher time, studio environment and so on the most important? After that, you could send some mails to the universities and ask about how the situation is at the University of your Interest. Try to make sure to get in contact with students of the university, this to get a better understanding of what the “real” situation is and not only the glossy description presented in many catalogues and websites.

If you are unsuccessful in this you could start investigating which universities that have collaborations. This could be seen as some kind of internal ranking but it can equally be argued to be a protectionist system that does not measure quality but for instance similarities in age.

I have probably left you with more questions than answers by my replay. But there are most likely several people on the forum that give you a different opinion on the topic of ranking and European universities.

I also found rankings for individual subject at TIMES, (like the one at the GUARDIAN),

I know that these rankings might not be very reliable, but they do give you a good idea of the standards of the universities, also TIMES does the overall UNIVERSITY RANKINGS for the TOP 100 universities in UK:

alot of people i know refer to TIMES when checking the status of any university…but it all depends on your proirities…

good luck