Purpose: This study intends to build up a thorough understanding of social factors that largely influence students' decision-making to opt institution for higher studies in India. Design/methodology/approach: This descriptive research follows two sequential phases consisting of the literature review to identify social factors and validate the factors through the questionnaire method. Factor analysis was applied to identify the various factors that influence the student's institution choice. Findings: The research work explores and identified four factors and their associated attributes that impact students' decision-making to opt institution for higher studies. It was found that the career advisor influence variable has the highest level of variance, followed by societal norms, social platform and cohort influence. Research limitations/implications: The present study is limited to social factors only. Therefore, many other determinants which may influence the student's decision-making to opt the institute for higher studies remain unaddressed in this study. Practical implications: The findings of the study can guide the institutions' admission management in underpinning the acceptance of social factors to observe their influence on student's choice of an institution. An important implication is the identification of career advisor influence as the strongest social factor which may bridge the student's career fit in the institution and social platform influence which may help higher education institutions to redesign their marketing strategies to augment students' enrolment. Originality/value: This study provides insight into the important role of social factors that impact the student's decision-making regarding institution choice in India.