Abstract
The starting point of this paper is the question: Which issues do students think are important when choosing a higher education institution, and how are they related to the factors taken into consideration in ranking institutions? The aim is to identify and rank the parameters students perceive as important when choosing their place of education. The paper is based on a qualitative pre-study and a quantitative main study in which the authors examine what students perceive as important in business school rankings. Our findings show that, by taking the students’ perspective into account, one can see that some of the parameters used in rankings are of less importance to the students: for example, rankings that over-emphasise research. Second, we identify the parameters that could be included in business school rankings to make them more relevant to students: for example, paying more attention to learning outputs in rankings. Our findings highlight the importance of taking individual stakeholders into account in the rankings and understanding how rankings could be made more relevant and valuable for the range of stakeholders.