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University College London, University of London
University College London
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foundation year in UCL, is it worth it?

I recently got an offer from UCL to do a foundation year in humanities, I also got an offer from QMUL for foundation. QMUL gave me a conditional offer 8.0 while UCL gave me an unconditional.
I am hoping to do law after foundation, and i definately prefer to attend one of the top university.
UCL seems have a better offer, since it is unconditional. But, it cost 11,450/pa! while QMUL one is around 7,700!
is the 11,450 i will have to pay to UCL is worth it? or should i just go to qmul because it is way more cheaper
ps: i am not eligable for undergrad programm yet, since my first language wasnt english and my country's qualification is not acceptable for undergrad in UK

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Reply 1
audria
I recently got an offer from UCL to do a foundation year in humanities, I also got an offer from QMUL for foundation. QMUL gave me a conditional offer 8.0 while UCL gave me an unconditional.
I am hoping to do law after foundation, and i definately prefer to attend one of the top university.
UCL seems have a better offer, since it is unconditional. But, it cost 11,450/pa! while QMUL one is around 7,700!
is the 11,450 i will have to pay to UCL is worth it? or should i just go to qmul because it is way more cheaper
ps: i am not eligable for undergrad programm yet, since my first language wasnt english and my country's qualification is not acceptable for undergrad in UK


I have considered the same things as you last year, specifically the courses offered at KCL and UCL. They are expensive, however, they do provide a higher chance of getting accepted by that university for your undergraduate degree. However, there is NO guarantee.

If you are based in UK at the moment, why don't you consider Birkbeck, UOL?They offer a Certificate of HE in Legal Method course, which lasts for a year, and is accepted as a valid qualification by many top universities in the country. I have done some research before applying through UCAS, and universities like UCL, KCL, LSE, SOAS,QMUL, Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Manchester and Nottingham came back to me saying that it is a sufficient qualification for an entrance to an undergraduate law degree. I did, however, get rejected by UCL in December, but was offered a place at Oxford. The course fees are approx. £700 a year and the classes are once a week, although you do have to do a fairly large amount of independent work.

Other than that, I'd suggest you do a lot of research before embarking on the course at UCL, considering the fees are quite high. Have a look at KCL, they say their progression from the foundation course to a degree at KCL is approx. 80%. They also do a law pathway course, so that could maybe be a bonus too. Contact universities to which you are hoping to apply in the future and ask them whether they would accept the course.

Good luck :smile:
University College London, University of London
University College London
London
Reply 2
well, i also applied to king's, but they havent give me an offer. I probably will have to decide betweet UCL/King's(if they give me an offer). I am not based in UK now, and looking for something full time.
Reply 3
audria
well, i also applied to king's, but they havent give me an offer. I probably will have to decide betweet UCL/King's(if they give me an offer). I am not based in UK now, and looking for something full time.



Well, then that's a different situation altogether :smile: KCL and UCL, I guess, would be your best options then.

Best of luck.
Reply 4
and deciding between kcl and ucl will be hard, kcl seems have better programme because of the law pathway but it seems the undergrad fee for international is higher than ucl, and ucl offers more scholarship than kcl.
Reply 5
Hiya!
Well I dont really recommend doing the UPCSE at UCL. Based on personal experience as well as other friends who have completed the course and had trouble with finding a place in many UK unis. Basically its a do or die situation; you'll need to do extremely good in the course so that ucl may give u an offer, but then if they didnt accept u, u would need to do another foundation course in another uni.
I've completed the course with an avg of 74% and did not get offered a place at ucl, when i applied to other unis (manchester, imperial, newcastle) they said they dont accept the foundation course given at ucl.
So in my opinion, i would go for that, as its not worth it, especially if your looking to go into Medicine or Law
Reply 6
yeah i dun recommend this course as well, at some point this course is meaningless and a waste of money
Reply 7
Are you sur about that Medic4Life ?

On their website they say their foundation course (UPCH) is recognized by all universities.
"All universities in the UK are very happy to consider applications from UPC students. "

They also say:
"About 50% of our students progress to UCL every year"


They lie so ?
It's weird because all students from UCL have never seen a student from UPCH whereas they also study at UCL. :eek3:
Reply 8
im doing this course now, most people got rejected by ucl. i got some offers from other unis but not from ucl. well there is someone this year who got an offer from cambridge but still...
Reply 9
Foundation courses such as UPCH (UCL) and King's College are recognized in England then why did you reject by most universities ? :confused:
"There are no UK universities which will not consider students holding the UCL UPC qualification. However, each department within each UK university can make its own rules and we cannot guarantee that each department will make an offer to UPC students."



im doing this course now, most people got rejected by ucl


I assume they have been rejected by UCL because their marks should not be good enough. :confused:

"An offer of a place on a UCL undergraduate degree course is not guaranteed. Although, most of our successful students will achieve an offer from UCL. These students will be expected to perform very well in the first term of the UPC course to be considered for admission to degree programmes at UCL as well as other top UK universities."
Reply 10
I assume they have been rejected by UCL because their marks should not be good enough. :confused:

not really some got a really good marks
Reply 11
UCL's foundation is still very good - probably the best in the UK. To compare you would have to get detailed stats on other course at Warwick, Durham etc and that is hard. The Bellerby's stats are nowhere near as impressive as UCL foundation when it comes to getting into top UK unis. But there are still many students who do not get into top UK unis from UCL foundation - maybe up to 30%. It really depends on how academic you are and also your ranking within the UCL foundation - which can be tough. Many of my friends progressed from UCL foundation to UCL in things like Engineering, Biomedicine, Maths and Economics. And I know the top guy in UCL Engineering last year was ex-UPC, so I don't know about this 'not heard of' stuff! He's a Chinese guy at Cambridge now doing a PhD. Anyway, why don't you ring them and ask for more details? I'm sure they will be straight with you.
Reply 12
I know this is terribly late, but i'm just writing this for the sake of future applicants.NO, its not worth it. Unless you're a certified genius who is willing to undergo intense stress for no sensible reason. I'm currently on the foundation programme and i must say its been a let-down, the course is poorly co-ordinated. I worked my ass off for 6 months hoping to get into UCL for law only to get rejected later on, and then found out only 2 foundation students have gotten into UCL in 3 years! why pay so much money for the foundation for humanities if the acceptance ratio is so poor? In short, if you wanna study the sciences or some business programme, its okay. but for law or political science, stay away from ucl, you're better off at warwick or KCL, i hear they run more sensible programmes there.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by Rotimi
I know this is terribly late, but i'm just writing this for the sake of future applicants.NO, its not worth it. Unless you're a certified genius who is willing to undergo intense stress for no sensible reason. I'm currently on the foundation programme and i must say its been a let-down, the course is poorly co-ordinated and the stuff on the website are all lies. I worked my ass off for 6 months hoping to get into UCL for law only to get rejected later on, and then found out only 2 foundation students have gotten into UCL in 3 years! why pay so much money for the foundation for humanities if the acceptance ratio is so poor? In short, if you wanna study the sciences or some business programme, its okay. but for law or political science, stay away from ucl, you're better off at warwick or KCL, i hear they run more sensible programmes there.


HEY, Rotimi! I completely AGREE with you! I did UPCH last year before you (law as well), worked my ass off, tried to be nice to tutors and lived with a dream to get into UCL. Was rejected by UCL and that's considering the fact i had good results on my exams. Don't do this foundation if u want to study Law or Medicine! It's definitely not worth so much money and more importantly your efforts and expectations! Go check Birkbek's website, they have legal certificate which doesn't require you to study 24/7 and pay 12 000 pounds but is accepted by many prestigious unis!
Reply 14
Original post by girlfromala
Go check Birkbek's website, they have legal certificate which doesn't require you to study 24/7 and pay 12 000 pounds but is accepted by many prestigious unis!


Yes, UCL has accepted Legal Methods students for the past few years including me this year. You need near enough 80% to get in though.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, any mature student (21+) wanting to to study Law should do the Certificate in Legal Method at Birkbeck rather than an access or foundation course.
Reply 15
I think this might be too late a reply for some as well.... But if you are still able to find a way out now, I advice you for your own sake to get out whilst you can! I'm currently in the upch course this year. whilst most foundation courses are over, we are still having exams. but the lengthy course duration aside, upc(h) also has other flaws.

Firstly, we have to do VIVA's which make for a significant part of our overall grades. For any of you who don't know what vivas are, they are oral examinations on your essays for your core modules and for culture&society (I'll touch on that soon). Well, wouldn't you know.... Even UNDERGRADUATES DON'T have to do vivas. VIVA's are only down in masters degrees.... and UPC....

Apart from your 2 core modules, you still have to take english and culture & society. In C&S, we have to read literature books on homosexuality, gender perception, colonial discourses, etc.... all of which has nothing to do with almost close to none of the students' future degrees!

Another issue with UPC is that they don't take constructive criticism too well. We have a meeting at the every term where students get to voice their opinion. Well, at most of these meetings, the director of the foundation programme has acted defensively and often times, rude. Furthermore, when the feedback with all the critique was shown to us, 90% of the criticism that was brought up was not mentioned. Most of it was just the positive things (not much....).

I just want to tell you that these are the things that are occuring in UPC. By no means do I have the intention to say all of this just to mock the course.. (especially because I'm already in it at the moment).. I wish somebody could have told me all of this before I joined the course. Therefore, I am writing on here just to tell you. You can make your own informed decision on whether or not you want to attend this course. If you do decide to go ahead and continue to enroll in it, I wish you the best of luck and the best piece of advice I can give you is to work your butt off!!!!:smile:
Reply 16
Oh my god... this thread just made me so worried! cause i am going to study in UPCH from this september..... can't believe the statistics in UPC's website is inaccurate. so i will probably get a low chance of getting into top universities even though i study freaking hard?
Reply 17
Original post by Ruiqi
Oh my god... this thread just made me so worried! cause i am going to study in UPCH from this september..... can't believe the statistics in UPC's website is inaccurate. so i will probably get a low chance of getting into top universities even though i study freaking hard?



Hey Ruiqi! Nice to hear you got a place on UPCH, congrats. May I ask which course you plan on studying in university? Cuz Most of the stuff I said earlier really apply to Law LLB aspirants, and so long you study hard, you can still get into good schools. I for one got into Warwick, others Durham, soas, Lse etc. but my point is UCL law department does not seem to value UPCH LLB applicants. My final results average was an A star yet ucl didn't think I and others were good enough. So if you're hoping to study law at ucl next sept, I'm afraid you're gonna have a badd time. And some schools, like KCL, queen Mary also don't appreciate uPCH law. If your hopes are for another course, I can't really offer much advice, all I can say is the course is probably the most intense foundation programme in the world, so if you don't get into ucl at the end of the day you may be very annoyed. I personally think doing A levels gives students a better chance at the good unis, but if you've settled On foundation, maybe you could check out others like queen Mary, KCL? I think they run more practical programmes, so long you do well, you should be able to get into the unis. But from my experience on the UPCH (law), good grades don't guarantee admission. The statistics on the website refer largely to the science(upcse) students, the progression rate to ucl is much higher for them. In essence, I can't say much if you don't plan on studying law, only that this course is too intense for this level, and it would be unfair for you to go through so much rigorous training if you don't get a place at a prestigious university. But so long you work hard, buckle up and you're an exceptional student, you should be able to pull through. Just don't put all your hopes on getting into ucl like i did. If you study hard, you will get into a top university. But no such guarantee for ucl law.


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Reply 18
Hi Rotimi!
Thank you so much for your reply. I see that was for Law applicants. I am hoping to study Economics in university. I hear it is a very competitive course for almost any university so I am a bit worried. Do you think economics applicants would get a fair chance of getting into good universities?
Yeah i see its such an intensive course. Indeed I got offers from foundation courses at Queen Mary and SOAS but I have already paid the full tuition fee so I cannot change it now. I will just study as much as I can....
I dont mind not getting into UCL if I can progress onto other good universities. Do most of the students successfully get an offer from at least one university?
By the way, do the entrance tests students are required to take again when the course starts matter a lot?
thanks!
Ruiqi
Reply 19
Original post by Ruiqi
Hi Rotimi!
Thank you so much for your reply. I see that was for Law applicants. I am hoping to study Economics in university. I hear it is a very competitive course for almost any university so I am a bit worried. Do you think economics applicants would get a fair chance of getting into good universities?
Yeah i see its such an intensive course. Indeed I got offers from foundation courses at Queen Mary and SOAS but I have already paid the full tuition fee so I cannot change it now. I will just study as much as I can....
I dont mind not getting into UCL if I can progress onto other good universities. Do most of the students successfully get an offer from at least one university?
By the way, do the entrance tests students are required to take again when the course starts matter a lot?
thanks!
Ruiqi


Firstly, the entrance tests aren't really that hard, so long you passed the first one on your own, they should be fine. About the offers, a vast majority of students do get offers from good universities, the few exceptions are mostly down to personal laziness etc. if you want to change places you can always request a refund, you have a right to that you know. About economics, I've been talking to a friend who did that on the upch last session, he said : "objectively speaking, the UPC is not the ideal way to gain entry into an economics undergraduate programme. The math is beyond A level syllabus and the econ syllabus is different as well ...econ students had to complain several times to the provost about the delivery of the course. It's better to do a levels at a reputable private college. For economics, it's really hard. Only SOAS asks for a lower requirement cuz they know the requirement of the course, a lot of us (UPCH econ students) got dissuaded from applying straight for economics." lol, I know this sounds discouraging but i will message you his details so you can talk to him about it. But i think you'll get a respectable uni so long you apply yourself. Goodluck, hopefully you won't need it :smile:


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