Many people are likely to believe that an institution in London guarantees quality. According to many people, the best place in UK to study economics or one of the disciplines of business is the London School of Economics. For engineering and medicine, many would agree on Imperial College and of course King's College. For Oriental and African studies, it would be the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Although it is true that London, the capital city of UK and the hub of higher education in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is home to some of the most prestigious names including Imperial College, King's College, SOAS, University College London, Queen Mary (University of London), it is also equally true that it is also home to the largest number of the so called visa colleges! A visa college is one whose primary function is to send you an offer letter so that you can apply for a British student visa. Once you get to UK, the visa college's only work is to continue renewing your 'studentship' after every semester. Communicating with education is one of their least priorities!

So for people who are keen to get a good higher degree in UK, visa colleges cannot be an option for them. So, it is very significant to know about your institution where you will be spending your precious time, energy, money and effort.

Rankings are good places to start the selection process. Here is the list of the Top 20 Universities ranking of British universities according to two of the most well accepted ranking systems in UK; the Times Higher Education ranking and The Guardian Rankings:

Rankings are of two types. University ranking , which shows the overall rank of a university for a certain academic year based on goodwill, employability, student satisfaction, research endowments received and a range of other factors. The second type of course is the subject based ranking . For example, who is interested in Electrical Engineering, he or she would be more interested in the Electrical Engineering subject ranking compared to how good the university is overall.