The article presents the results of the students’ preferences study when choosing a place to receive higher education. The study was conducted at the Faculty of Philology at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, its methodology is based on the principles of a survey implemented online on the RAEX Rating Review portal on June 14–23, 2022; the results are compared. The answers record factors that mark the quality of education and social aspects, noted by enrollees when choosing a university, indicate the actual place of global and national rankings among the channels of information about the activities of universities, as well as other sources of information about universities. The conclusions drawn from the results of the survey consider the importance of the quality of educational services and describe aspects that influenced the choice of students such as well-established relations between the university and employers, a high level of internationalization, the possibility of conducting scientifi c research and internships. The article discusses global and national rankings of institutions of higher education and their role in informing, attitude to the ranking as an assessment tool by enrollees and their parents as the most signifi cant group of stakeholders. It is concluded that a ranking has a teaching function, it is a tool for searching information about the quality of educational services for stakeholders and a tool for creating image for a university; we pay attention to the fact that at present the ranking is not a suffi ciently demanded tool. A new important task for universities and ranking agencies is training in how to work with rankings, developing communication channels between stakeholders and universities and monitoring the results of this activity.