CHE University Ranking is not an overall ranking, but a detailed analysis. The ranking does not produce an overall points score since there is no “best higher education institution”, not in one subject and certainly not in all subjects. For example, a university may indeed be a leader in the field of research, but the equipment it offers its students may be miserable, or it may be strong in German Studies, but poor in Economics and Business Administration. Therefore, CHE University Ranking offers a multidimensional ranking - several league lists produced on the basis of quite different criteria.

In the CHE University Ranking users can find valuable information for their choice of the right subject of study and the university in Germany fitting best for them. The ranking results are based on facts as well as assessments by 120,000 students and 3,000 professors.

There are several possibilities to make use of the ranking: a user starts into the ranking by selecting a subject and a type of degree. Subsequently they will get to the tabular view which lists all German and some selected Austrian universities offering this subject. On the basis of some preselected criteria a user can see how they performed within the ranking. A special way of finding the right university for a user is the comparison, which can be used for all subjects. With the comparison a user can compare departments from universities and universities of applied science with each other and decide for themsleves which one fits their needs best.

The CHE University Ranking has up to 37 different indicators for each university. The Decision-Making Model allows them to be thematically summarised in the following eight criteria:

• Job market and career-orientation (including e.g. percentage of bachelor theses that are compiled in cooperation with work environment, percentage of teaching by practitioners, job market preparation, etc.),
• Equipment (including e.g. IT-infrastructure, self-study places, library, etc.),
• Research (including e.g. citations per publication, integration of theory and practice, third party funds per academic, etc.),
• International orientation (including e.g. proportion of international students, share of foreign language courses, combined study program with foreign HEI, etc.),
• Study results (including e.g. graduates per year, study duration (median), graduations in appropriate time, etc.), 
• Place of study and university (including e.g. proportion of students that come to the university mostly by bicykle, opening hours central student counselling, special features regarding university sports, etc.), 
• Students (including e.g. gender balance, number of students etc.),
• Studies and teaching (including e.g. admission requirements, exam preparation – additional services, extra-curricular activities, etc.).