University and college sites: going to the primary source

This is one of the few categories where the official site is almost always the best source, and where third-party sites are most likely to be out of date or commercially motivated.

Anything that determines whether you can apply, what it costs, or when the deadline falls should come from the institution itself. Entry requirements, tuition figures and application dates change annually, and the aggregator sites that rank highly for these queries are frequently working from last year's data. That is not always visible on the page.

Be especially careful with rankings and with "study abroad" portals. University rankings are constructed from weighted metrics that are rarely the ones a given student should care about, and the weighting is a methodological choice, not a fact. Recruitment portals are typically paid per enrolment by the institutions they promote, which shapes what they show you.

Where a site publishes student reviews, check whether it verifies enrolment. Unverified review sections in this category are a known target for both institutional promotion and competitor attacks.