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Original post by BradEvenden
It seems like a research powerhouse for science, you hear of UCL quite a lot on all kinds of research but the impression I have got on here so far is that perhaps this has an impact on the quality of undergraduate teaching?
It seems like a research powerhouse for science, you hear of UCL quite a lot on all kinds of research but the impression I have got on here so far is that perhaps this has an impact on the quality of undergraduate teaching?
IMHO, The research standards and rich facilities talk a lot for postgraduate studies obviously, but not so much for undergraduates. Making a concrete and unbroken foundation of advance knowledge in science and math is up to how enthusiastic for teaching lecturers are, and how close relations between lecturers/tutors and students are. And as you can imagine, good researchers don't mean good teachers. Often good researchers are bad teachers tbh. Though they definitely know recent trends of their fields and lots of technique for how to make their papers being accepted by top journals, which is extremely important and useful for postgraduate especially doctoral students, but aside from some prodigies, they are irrelevant topics for most undergraduate students.
Original post by BradEvenden
There didn't seem to be a 'centralised' organisation when I visited (someone did mention earlier), so I worried about making friends other than in halls, hard to meet up with people,etc...
Many say that if you don't enjoy it, you won't do well, others say choose a better course/place and suffer a bit and it'll be better long term!
There didn't seem to be a 'centralised' organisation when I visited (someone did mention earlier), so I worried about making friends other than in halls, hard to meet up with people,etc...
Many say that if you don't enjoy it, you won't do well, others say choose a better course/place and suffer a bit and it'll be better long term!
Mostly, you will get your friends from your course and your hall. But it's located in London, so you can find any social relations from anywhere if you are active. And all UoL colleges share their libraries and sports facilities. So I think it's quite hard to avoid knowing students from other colleges.
I think the anxious part is more about cost and budget. London is anyway much more expensive than any other cities in the UK, in addition, there are tons of rich students (especially oversea students) who use their parents' credit cards just like paper napkins, asking you to go out to posh places in the weekend.
At the end, all up to you if you can enjoy somewhere or not. I think it's nearly impossible to generalise where is the better place for fun.
Original post by BradEvenden
Referring to your later post... Perhaps Imperial's salary is higher because they decide to stay in London - e.g. research positions available, etc? While Durham's biology salary is low in comparison, like you say it depends on what the students go for, AFAIK it is just as targeted by employers than other top unis for 'graduate' jobs. Also, I have applied for Natural sciences which is higher than the single science.
Referring to your later post... Perhaps Imperial's salary is higher because they decide to stay in London - e.g. research positions available, etc? While Durham's biology salary is low in comparison, like you say it depends on what the students go for, AFAIK it is just as targeted by employers than other top unis for 'graduate' jobs. Also, I have applied for Natural sciences which is higher than the single science.
I think so too. Though if you want to apply for some specific jobs, there are universities culturally and traditionally preferred.
Original post by BradEvenden
To be quite honest the reason why I ask is because parental (and their friends) pressure (but not peer pressure) is leaning towards UCL because they have 'heard of it' and that in the news it always pops up (I.e. Research) and as for Durham* they say outside this country 'nobody has heard of it'.
To be quite honest the reason why I ask is because parental (and their friends) pressure (but not peer pressure) is leaning towards UCL because they have 'heard of it' and that in the news it always pops up (I.e. Research) and as for Durham* they say outside this country 'nobody has heard of it'.
If you are planning to work abroad, the name recognition may be better to be considered. Although you can definitely have a chance to use your mouth and pen to justify how good your institution and university is academically. So it won't be too much trouble from my point of view.
Original post by BradEvenden
However after visiting both I just felt more comfortable in the closer college atmosphere at Durham and the academic departments seemed decently 'rigorous' enough, particularly for Earth science which I plan to do alongside Biology in Nat,Sci.
However after visiting both I just felt more comfortable in the closer college atmosphere at Durham and the academic departments seemed decently 'rigorous' enough, particularly for Earth science which I plan to do alongside Biology in Nat,Sci.
Your impression is actually correct. Aside from reputation issues, Durham's research standards in natural science fields are more or less the same level of UCL.
Not only UCL, but also Bristol, Warwick, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, OSU, ENS Paris, Tech Munich, and ANU have similar research standards of Durham in natural science fields (you may not have heard of some, but all are research powerhouses in STEM fields.). So Durham is actually much more decent than its name recognition in those subjects. The percentage of papers published in top 20% journals of natural science fields at Durham is 91.5% meaning the vast majority of the scholars are first class researchers (This percentage is 83.5% at UCL, Although I want to be fair to mention that natural science is not the strongest part of UCL, once again.)
Original post by BradEvenden
I wanted to know if UCL was academically miles superior but interestingly it doesn't seem to have cracked up to be. Which is a shame really.
What did you like about Durham Earth Science? As for UCL I visited recently and it does seem like a good uni academically but I was disappointed with the accommodation especially with the price of living in London, seems to be higher on the international leaderboards than it does on the national ones
I wanted to know if UCL was academically miles superior but interestingly it doesn't seem to have cracked up to be. Which is a shame really.
What did you like about Durham Earth Science? As for UCL I visited recently and it does seem like a good uni academically but I was disappointed with the accommodation especially with the price of living in London, seems to be higher on the international leaderboards than it does on the national ones
UCL as a whole research institution, it is much better than Durham. It has 4 times more scholars, 4 times more postgraduate students, as a result 5 times more research grants. If you think this is the important factor for you, I think you had better choose UCL. But if you prefer college education, caring environment and smaller universities, then perhaps Durham is the place to go. It's a matter of who you are like, and what you like about.
(edited 8 years ago)
Sorry I missed your post. Somehow I want to encourage you by the following additional explanation.
This basically is a bit wrong interpretation. Top american private universities are smaller and have low acceptance rate usually 20% or lower compared to UK counterparts (Though LSE is about the same size and similar acceptance rate).
However, because of unclear admission criteria and massive weight to extracurricular activities, academic achievements of students are interestingly vary. Take a look at the following admission results of Caltech, Harvard, Pennsylvania, NYU, and UC Berkeley.
California Institute of Technology
Harvard University
University of Pennsylvania
New York University
UC Berkeley
As you may notice, academic achievements are strangely vary in US top universities. Unlike Oxbirdge, there is no university in the US accepting only academic high achievers. Caltech is academically most rigorous, but still there are some who are accepted with ABB equivalent (and didn't attend, wise decision). Harvard is accepting quite significant numbers of BBB equivalent students, some are even CCC or lower. It comes from an unique US admission system. In the US, the bottom 24.9% of Students' academic profiles are unreported, so normally US universities use this black box for their legacy admissions, specially wealthy students, and college sports purposes.
And can those people graduate? Mostly yes, according to reported graduation rates for top universities. US schools are liberal arts, so if you intend to choose mickey mouse subjects and avoid to attend infamous classes, graduation mission itself is easy.
In addition, there are so-called "group work" composing 50% of markings. Quite often student athletes are useless but can gain high marks because of paired students' extra efforts.
So US universities clearly have their own problems. Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard, actually warned about academically unserious admissions at US top universities damaging US societies and higher education (The following article is the one he claimed).
The Trouble With Harvard - The Ivy league is broken and only standardized tests can fix it
I personally prefer and respect academically rigorous European universities. If you want to study Quantum mechanics deeply for instance, Cambridge would be a better place than Harvard (of course a risk of dropout at Cambridge will be higher on the other hand). Though European universities aren't good when it comes to bring up good leaders perhaps (showing strong leadership and knowing broad knowledge perfectly fit liberal art education rather than European universities, targeting to launch specialists). All systems have pros and cons.
,I think you don't have to feel sad about UCL. It's a decent university providing decent education with high reputation. I only don't agree with its strategy to increase its size every year (merging IoE, launching new Olympic park campus with extra few thousand students), which may harm their reputation in future. And unlike US, it's difficult to reduce sizes of universities because sacking academic staffs is not easy under UK labor law. So increasing size is basically a one-way street.
But being a highly selective smaller institution is not everything. NYU is doing the same (merging NYU poly, launching satellite campuses to expand its size). And still keeping its prestige in its own way. same goes for UCL.
Original post by frognation22
Yes I very much agree with you! I quite like how American private universities have a small undergraduate population and a large graduate population/how the academic achievement in these universities does not vary like it would at a school like UCL or LSE.
This basically is a bit wrong interpretation. Top american private universities are smaller and have low acceptance rate usually 20% or lower compared to UK counterparts (Though LSE is about the same size and similar acceptance rate).
However, because of unclear admission criteria and massive weight to extracurricular activities, academic achievements of students are interestingly vary. Take a look at the following admission results of Caltech, Harvard, Pennsylvania, NYU, and UC Berkeley.
California Institute of Technology
Harvard University
University of Pennsylvania
New York University
UC Berkeley
As you may notice, academic achievements are strangely vary in US top universities. Unlike Oxbirdge, there is no university in the US accepting only academic high achievers. Caltech is academically most rigorous, but still there are some who are accepted with ABB equivalent (and didn't attend, wise decision). Harvard is accepting quite significant numbers of BBB equivalent students, some are even CCC or lower. It comes from an unique US admission system. In the US, the bottom 24.9% of Students' academic profiles are unreported, so normally US universities use this black box for their legacy admissions, specially wealthy students, and college sports purposes.
And can those people graduate? Mostly yes, according to reported graduation rates for top universities. US schools are liberal arts, so if you intend to choose mickey mouse subjects and avoid to attend infamous classes, graduation mission itself is easy.
In addition, there are so-called "group work" composing 50% of markings. Quite often student athletes are useless but can gain high marks because of paired students' extra efforts.
So US universities clearly have their own problems. Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard, actually warned about academically unserious admissions at US top universities damaging US societies and higher education (The following article is the one he claimed).
The Trouble With Harvard - The Ivy league is broken and only standardized tests can fix it
I personally prefer and respect academically rigorous European universities. If you want to study Quantum mechanics deeply for instance, Cambridge would be a better place than Harvard (of course a risk of dropout at Cambridge will be higher on the other hand). Though European universities aren't good when it comes to bring up good leaders perhaps (showing strong leadership and knowing broad knowledge perfectly fit liberal art education rather than European universities, targeting to launch specialists). All systems have pros and cons.
,I think you don't have to feel sad about UCL. It's a decent university providing decent education with high reputation. I only don't agree with its strategy to increase its size every year (merging IoE, launching new Olympic park campus with extra few thousand students), which may harm their reputation in future. And unlike US, it's difficult to reduce sizes of universities because sacking academic staffs is not easy under UK labor law. So increasing size is basically a one-way street.
But being a highly selective smaller institution is not everything. NYU is doing the same (merging NYU poly, launching satellite campuses to expand its size). And still keeping its prestige in its own way. same goes for UCL.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by RussellG
Sorry I missed your post. Somehow I want to encourage you by the following additional explanation.
This basically is a bit wrong interpretation. Top american private universities are smaller and have low acceptance rate usually 20% or lower compared to UK counterparts (Though LSE is about the same size and similar acceptance rate).
As you may notice, academic achievements are strangely vary in US top universities. Unlike Oxbirdge, there is no university in the US accepting only academic high achievers. Caltech is academically most rigorous, but still there are some who are accepted with ABB equivalent (and didn't attend, wise decision). Harvard is accepting quite significant numbers of BBB equivalent students, some are even CCC or lower. It comes from an unique US admission system. In the US, the bottom 24.9% of Students' academic profiles are unreported, so normally US universities use this black box for their legacy admissions, specially wealthy students, and college sports purposes.
And can those people graduate? Mostly yes, according to reported graduation rates for top universities. US schools are liberal arts, so if you intend to choose mickey mouse subjects and avoid to attend infamous classes, graduation mission itself is easy.
In addition, there are so-called "group work" composing 50% of markings. Quite often student athletes are useless but can gain high marks because of paired students' extra efforts.
So US universities clearly have their own problems. Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard, actually warned about academically unserious admissions at US top universities damaging US societies and higher education (The following article is the one he claimed).
The Trouble With Harvard - The Ivy league is broken and only standardized tests can fix it
I personally prefer and respect academically rigorous European universities. If you want to study Quantum mechanics deeply for instance, Cambridge would be a better place than Harvard (of course a risk of dropout at Cambridge will be higher on the other hand). Though European universities aren't good when it comes to bring up good leaders perhaps (showing strong leadership and knowing broad knowledge perfectly fit liberal art education rather than European universities, targeting to launch specialists). All systems have pros and cons.
,I think you don't have to feel sad about UCL. It's a decent university providing decent education with high reputation. I only don't agree with its strategy to increase its size every year (merging IoE, launching new Olympic park campus with extra few thousand students), which may harm their reputation in future. And unlike US, it's difficult to reduce sizes of universities because sacking academic staffs is not easy under UK labor law. So increasing size is basically a one-way street.
But being a highly selective smaller institution is not everything. NYU is doing the same (merging NYU poly, launching satellite campuses to expand its size). And still keeping its prestige in its own way. same goes for UCL.
This basically is a bit wrong interpretation. Top american private universities are smaller and have low acceptance rate usually 20% or lower compared to UK counterparts (Though LSE is about the same size and similar acceptance rate).
As you may notice, academic achievements are strangely vary in US top universities. Unlike Oxbirdge, there is no university in the US accepting only academic high achievers. Caltech is academically most rigorous, but still there are some who are accepted with ABB equivalent (and didn't attend, wise decision). Harvard is accepting quite significant numbers of BBB equivalent students, some are even CCC or lower. It comes from an unique US admission system. In the US, the bottom 24.9% of Students' academic profiles are unreported, so normally US universities use this black box for their legacy admissions, specially wealthy students, and college sports purposes.
And can those people graduate? Mostly yes, according to reported graduation rates for top universities. US schools are liberal arts, so if you intend to choose mickey mouse subjects and avoid to attend infamous classes, graduation mission itself is easy.
In addition, there are so-called "group work" composing 50% of markings. Quite often student athletes are useless but can gain high marks because of paired students' extra efforts.
So US universities clearly have their own problems. Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard, actually warned about academically unserious admissions at US top universities damaging US societies and higher education (The following article is the one he claimed).
The Trouble With Harvard - The Ivy league is broken and only standardized tests can fix it
I personally prefer and respect academically rigorous European universities. If you want to study Quantum mechanics deeply for instance, Cambridge would be a better place than Harvard (of course a risk of dropout at Cambridge will be higher on the other hand). Though European universities aren't good when it comes to bring up good leaders perhaps (showing strong leadership and knowing broad knowledge perfectly fit liberal art education rather than European universities, targeting to launch specialists). All systems have pros and cons.
,I think you don't have to feel sad about UCL. It's a decent university providing decent education with high reputation. I only don't agree with its strategy to increase its size every year (merging IoE, launching new Olympic park campus with extra few thousand students), which may harm their reputation in future. And unlike US, it's difficult to reduce sizes of universities because sacking academic staffs is not easy under UK labor law. So increasing size is basically a one-way street.
But being a highly selective smaller institution is not everything. NYU is doing the same (merging NYU poly, launching satellite campuses to expand its size). And still keeping its prestige in its own way. same goes for UCL.
Ah yes I most certainly see where you are coming from. However, the chances are quite (if not incredibly) high that those who have BBB or even lower are either legacy students or recruited athletes, and honestly, I'd place quite a few bets that there's still a much smaller concentration of not-so genius students at a HYPSM school, compared to LSE or UCL- even with Harvard accepting around a quarter of legacy students.
Hell, I attend an international school here--took various SAT Subject Exams (even took AP exams after self-studying extensively), did extremely well on the ACT, have great marks, great extracurriculars and yet, I was flat-out rejected to Stanford, MIT, and Columbia
Of course not bragging about my applicant profile in any way (because after all i did get rejected), but as a result, I find it extremely difficult to believe that it would be easier, majority-speaking, for a low-achieving applicant to have a higher chance of getting accepted into a HYPSM school than he/she would for a UK university.
I also have to disagree with the group work component I frequently see TSR members talk about...it really is not as commonly practiced as many on here make it seem--I know its quite different at large public universities where group work is more heavily valued and its easier to graduate, but at private universities?
I've actually heard the opposite from my USA friends and brother (he's at UChicago, and in all of his years there, has come across almost no classes that value group work- all of his first year exams were in-class papers. He had 10-15% dedicated to participation in seminar during his first year). if there's one thing that they're notorious for, its the practice of grade deflation (obviously there are private schools that also inflate like Brown), which makes it extremely difficult to receive high marks-as you probably already know its extremely common at Chicago, MIT, Columbia to name a few.
Any input on USA admissions? (Sorry for dragging you into this heh) @ivybridge
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by frognation22
I really feel sorry for your admission results. And it must be painful.
I'm quite sure you will get over it once you start your university course.And it doesn't deny you are intellectual really! It seems you are smart enough to be successful for your future study and career for sure
.I don't want to pour salt into your wound, but I want to respond a bit, if you don't mind.
Original post by frognation22
Hell, I attend an international school here--took various SAT Subject Exams (even took AP exams after self-studying extensively), did extremely well on the ACT, have great marks, great extracurriculars and yet, I was flat-out rejected to Stanford, MIT, and Columbia
Of course not bragging about my applicant profile in any way (because after all i did get rejected), but as a result, I find it extremely difficult to believe that it would be easier, majority-speaking, for a low-achieving applicant to have a higher chance of getting accepted into a HYPSM school than he/she would for a UK university.
Hell, I attend an international school here--took various SAT Subject Exams (even took AP exams after self-studying extensively), did extremely well on the ACT, have great marks, great extracurriculars and yet, I was flat-out rejected to Stanford, MIT, and Columbia
Of course not bragging about my applicant profile in any way (because after all i did get rejected), but as a result, I find it extremely difficult to believe that it would be easier, majority-speaking, for a low-achieving applicant to have a higher chance of getting accepted into a HYPSM school than he/she would for a UK university.
Although I don't know your profile at all, if you are British, applied to US top schools, and expected to be assessed based on purely academic merit, then the chance will be ridiculously tiny.
Let's take Harvard as the example of US admission. Roughly speaking, Harvard gives 2000 offers every year, and about 11 percent are international students. As you may know, International students will be assessed independently in a different pool for international applicants, so the number of seats for them is only 220.
Though it's not clear what exact ratio is, based on world population, 10% of the international students' seats are likely provided for European students (Though I think this number is much higher than 10% in reality). In this case, 22 places are for European applicants.
Furthermore, like Dr. Pinker mentioned above I linked, only 10% (or even less) of Harvard students are selected based on academic merit. For European candidates, this means 2 seats.
So 22 seats for European candidates will be likely divided as follows: 2 seats for academic prodigies, 5-6 seats for exceptional cases like legacy or sports, and 14-15 seats for students with mixed profiles of excellent academic merit and excellent extracurricular activities.
If you don't have interesting extracurricular background enough to grab their attention, then you will be forced to compete with other British/German/French etc applicants for one of 2 seats. Even among top 10 universities, there are only 20ish seats in total for British academic experts. This is one reason why often international students complain that perfect SAT with GPA above 4.0 is even not close to US top schools.
But the situation is quite different when it comes to domestic students aiming to get one of 1800 seats (still very hard, but not as much as the one for internationals). In fact, the acceptance rate in early action cycle for example is 16.5% for Harvard, which is much more realistic than regular decision acceptance rate with 3.2%. The highest percentage in the early action cycle among IVY is 27.2% for Cornell (composing 41% of new entrants).
Even the situation is completely different for internationals from a country with fewer applicants to US universities. 3 people for example apply to Harvard from some area where not many people go to US colleges. This will be a much higher chance to be accepted, that you may feel unfair. But this is how US admission works AFAIK.
So I can say, British applicants are forced to be into the theoretically fiercest competition pool along with candidates from China and India.
But I think applying to US top schools as Americans are comparable difficulties with applying to British top schools as British. (I mean for example UK top 2 admissions are comparable with American top 10 universities and equivalent LACs, if I consider that US is 5 times more populated than UK.)
Original post by frognation22
Ah yes I most certainly see where you are coming from. However, the chances are quite (if not incredibly) high that those who have BBB or even lower are either legacy students or recruited athletes, and honestly, I'd place quite a few bets that there's still a much smaller concentration of not-so genius students at a HYPSM school, compared to LSE or UCL- even with Harvard accepting around a quarter of legacy students.
Ah yes I most certainly see where you are coming from. However, the chances are quite (if not incredibly) high that those who have BBB or even lower are either legacy students or recruited athletes, and honestly, I'd place quite a few bets that there's still a much smaller concentration of not-so genius students at a HYPSM school, compared to LSE or UCL- even with Harvard accepting around a quarter of legacy students.
I think so too. UK counterpart for HYPSM is Cambridge. LSE and UCL are more comparable with US top 20 to top 30. And if you compare UCL to NYU(32nd) for example, NYU's distribution map above shows more variety of academic backgrounds than UCL (acceptance rate of 31% at NYU is also similar to UCL's one(36% in total and 31% for Home students, according to the following page)).
Breakdown of Undergraduate Admission Statistics - University College London
Original post by frognation22
I've actually heard the opposite from my USA friends and brother (he's at UChicago, and in all of his years there, has come across almost no classes that value group work- all of his first year exams were in-class papers. He had 10-15% dedicated to participation in seminar during his first year). if there's one thing that they're notorious for, its the practice of grade deflation (obviously there are private schools that also inflate like Brown), which makes it extremely difficult to receive high marks-as you probably already know its extremely common at Chicago, MIT, Columbia to name a few.
I've actually heard the opposite from my USA friends and brother (he's at UChicago, and in all of his years there, has come across almost no classes that value group work- all of his first year exams were in-class papers. He had 10-15% dedicated to participation in seminar during his first year). if there's one thing that they're notorious for, its the practice of grade deflation (obviously there are private schools that also inflate like Brown), which makes it extremely difficult to receive high marks-as you probably already know its extremely common at Chicago, MIT, Columbia to name a few.
I think it highly depends on which school. And yes Chicago is famous for its stricter assessments. Though I heard the grade deflation there has been much improved compared to its past, and not too different from other schools any more.
Anyway, let's see how things will go after your entrance. Everything may go well there. Most likely university life and study are very different from what we imagine before our attendance. You can find nice friends/gf, study hard, go to a graduate course in some US top school or Oxbridge, and get a highly paid job in wall street or city
. The past is the past, there is always a chance to be successful at any point in your life, if you don't forget to be positive .(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by RussellG
I really feel sorry for your admission results. And it must be painful.
I'm quite sure you will get over it once you start your university course.And it doesn't deny you are intellectual really! It seems you are smart enough to be successful for your future study and career for sure .
I don't want to pour salt into your wound, but I want to respond a bit, if you don't mind.
Although I don't know your profile at all, if you are British, applied to US top schools, and expected to be assessed based on purely academic merit, then the chance will be ridiculously tiny.
Let's take Harvard as the example of US admission. Roughly speaking, Harvard gives 2000 offers every year, and about 11 percent are international students. As you may know, International students will be assessed independently in a different pool for international applicants, so the number of seats for them is only 220.
Though it's not clear what exact ratio is, based on world population, 10% of the international students' seats are likely provided for European students (Though I think this number is much higher than 10% in reality). In this case, 22 places are for European applicants.
Furthermore, like Dr. Pinker mentioned above I linked, only 10% (or even less) of Harvard students are selected based on academic merit. For European candidates, this means 2 seats.
So 22 seats for European candidates will be likely divided as follows: 2 seats for academic prodigies, 5-6 seats for exceptional cases like legacy or sports, and 14-15 seats for students with mixed profiles of excellent academic merit and excellent extracurricular activities.
If you don't have interesting extracurricular background enough to grab their attention, then you will be forced to compete with other British/German/French etc applicants for one of 2 seats. Even among top 10 universities, there are only 20ish seats in total for British academic experts. This is one reason why often international students complain that perfect SAT with GPA above 4.0 is even not close to US top schools.
But the situation is quite different when it comes to domestic students aiming to get one of 1800 seats (still very hard, but not as much as the one for internationals). In fact, the acceptance rate in early action cycle for example is 16.5% for Harvard, which is much more realistic than regular decision acceptance rate with 3.2%. The highest percentage in the early action cycle among IVY is 27.2% for Cornell (composing 41% of new entrants).
Even the situation is completely different for internationals from a country with fewer applicants to US universities. 3 people for example apply to Harvard from some area where not many people go to US colleges. This will be a much higher chance to be accepted, that you may feel unfair. But this is how US admission works AFAIK.
So I can say, British applicants are forced to be into the theoretically fiercest competition pool along with candidates from China and India.
But I think applying to US top schools as Americans are comparable difficulties with applying to British top schools as British. (I mean for example UK top 2 admissions are comparable with American top 10 universities and equivalent LACs, if I consider that US is 5 times more populated than UK.)
I think so too. UK counterpart for HYPSM is Cambridge. LSE and UCL are more comparable with US top 20 to top 30. And if you compare UCL to NYU(32nd) for example, NYU's distribution map above shows more variety of academic backgrounds than UCL (acceptance rate of 31% at NYU is also similar to UCL's one(36% in total and 31% for Home students, according to the following page)).
Breakdown of Undergraduate Admission Statistics - University College London
I think it highly depends on which school. And yes Chicago is famous for its stricter assessments. Though I heard the grade deflation there has been much improved compared to its past, and not too different from other schools any more.
Anyway, let's see how things will go after your entrance. Everything may go well there. Most likely university life and study are very different from what we imagine before our attendance. You can find nice friends/gf, study hard, go to a graduate course in some US top school or Oxbridge, and get a highly paid job in wall street or city . The past is the past, there is always a chance to be successful at any point in your life, if you don't forget to be positive .
I'm quite sure you will get over it once you start your university course.And it doesn't deny you are intellectual really! It seems you are smart enough to be successful for your future study and career for sure
.I don't want to pour salt into your wound, but I want to respond a bit, if you don't mind.
Although I don't know your profile at all, if you are British, applied to US top schools, and expected to be assessed based on purely academic merit, then the chance will be ridiculously tiny.
Let's take Harvard as the example of US admission. Roughly speaking, Harvard gives 2000 offers every year, and about 11 percent are international students. As you may know, International students will be assessed independently in a different pool for international applicants, so the number of seats for them is only 220.
Though it's not clear what exact ratio is, based on world population, 10% of the international students' seats are likely provided for European students (Though I think this number is much higher than 10% in reality). In this case, 22 places are for European applicants.
Furthermore, like Dr. Pinker mentioned above I linked, only 10% (or even less) of Harvard students are selected based on academic merit. For European candidates, this means 2 seats.
So 22 seats for European candidates will be likely divided as follows: 2 seats for academic prodigies, 5-6 seats for exceptional cases like legacy or sports, and 14-15 seats for students with mixed profiles of excellent academic merit and excellent extracurricular activities.
If you don't have interesting extracurricular background enough to grab their attention, then you will be forced to compete with other British/German/French etc applicants for one of 2 seats. Even among top 10 universities, there are only 20ish seats in total for British academic experts. This is one reason why often international students complain that perfect SAT with GPA above 4.0 is even not close to US top schools.
But the situation is quite different when it comes to domestic students aiming to get one of 1800 seats (still very hard, but not as much as the one for internationals). In fact, the acceptance rate in early action cycle for example is 16.5% for Harvard, which is much more realistic than regular decision acceptance rate with 3.2%. The highest percentage in the early action cycle among IVY is 27.2% for Cornell (composing 41% of new entrants).
Even the situation is completely different for internationals from a country with fewer applicants to US universities. 3 people for example apply to Harvard from some area where not many people go to US colleges. This will be a much higher chance to be accepted, that you may feel unfair. But this is how US admission works AFAIK.
So I can say, British applicants are forced to be into the theoretically fiercest competition pool along with candidates from China and India.
But I think applying to US top schools as Americans are comparable difficulties with applying to British top schools as British. (I mean for example UK top 2 admissions are comparable with American top 10 universities and equivalent LACs, if I consider that US is 5 times more populated than UK.)
I think so too. UK counterpart for HYPSM is Cambridge. LSE and UCL are more comparable with US top 20 to top 30. And if you compare UCL to NYU(32nd) for example, NYU's distribution map above shows more variety of academic backgrounds than UCL (acceptance rate of 31% at NYU is also similar to UCL's one(36% in total and 31% for Home students, according to the following page)).
Breakdown of Undergraduate Admission Statistics - University College London
I think it highly depends on which school. And yes Chicago is famous for its stricter assessments. Though I heard the grade deflation there has been much improved compared to its past, and not too different from other schools any more.
Anyway, let's see how things will go after your entrance. Everything may go well there. Most likely university life and study are very different from what we imagine before our attendance. You can find nice friends/gf, study hard, go to a graduate course in some US top school or Oxbridge, and get a highly paid job in wall street or city
. The past is the past, there is always a chance to be successful at any point in your life, if you don't forget to be positive .Ah no don't worry you're not really pouring any salt on my wound! I think I had terrific extracurriculars, but at the end of the day I know I can't beat myself up for it too much all of the other applicants had equally great (and obviously better) applications than mine, and well you have to pick the best of the best don't you? It's just what it is I suppose.
I actually was not sure if I was considered a domestic or international student? (My father is an American so I have dual citizenship even though I grew up here in London) I think I was qualified to be a domestic student, but I kind of wonder if me living outside the USA still might have affected the application decision!
And I agree Early Action/Decision is nice because they accept more applicants from that pool, but we also have to put it into perspective and realise that those who apply ED are even more serious applicants and the applicant pool has even more overachieving highly qualified/prepared students than RD-- thus highly contributing to the large acceptance rate.
I applied ED to Columbia haha didn't even get deferred to regular decision. Oh well. I appreciate the holistic admissions process in the United States regardless, and how they really value good academic records and a personality to match (I mean technically they would also have to take into consideration a lot of things besides academics because there's more competition due to population size in the USA, and they can't admit just based on academic merit or else the schools would be flooded lol!). It's just that my dream to do undergraduate in the United States has gotten pretty slim :P
I'm alright with UCL and LSE. I think UCL is vastly overrated (and like you said, I would equate it to NYU which is still of course a fine school), and in no way do I see how it is ranked number 5 in league tables ha. It just comes off as such bogus, and I've seen so many UCL students let these superficial rankings get into their head and choose the school for such reasons meh.
I most certainly am sad about this...I don't know maybe I'll take a gap year-- I just don't think a UK university can meet my undergraduate expectations, and I felt like my brother got a great educational experience at a USA uni I don't think I will get at LSE or UCL. (And frankly, I am a bit tired of living here in London) Sorry for being a negative nancy ahha I'm still dwelling over this all a bit as you can see!
(BTW I'm a girl lol I think I've made a lot of people on here into thinking I'm a guy ha! :P )
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by frognation22
x
I knew your gender, I just thought you are not straight because of your twisted emotion :P
Anyway... I have an idea. Just think of it.
Why not contacting course directors at UCL and LSE, then express your concerns about educational environment honestly? Also you can ask them about how much practically different study environment they have, and as a result how different students' average academic achievements (and average thickness of the knowledge of your field) will be, compared to top US private universities.
If you are dissatisfied with their answers, then there are 2 options.
(1) ask UCL to switch your course to its Liberal arts degree that is designed like US Liberal Arts, and possibly more suitable for you.
(2) think about re-applying to US colleges. But in this case, you should either visit/contact some prep school or educational organisation helping students applying to US universities, and ask statistic odds of your success rate based on past applicants' database having similar backgrounds, or resister yourself here, and input your sat/gpa data and check your odds of getting in several universities which you are interested in. Then only if the chance seems realistic, then maybe you can challenge one more time.
And this time, you had better (1) design your extracurricular activities and practice them wisely in next few months to make yourself look unique, compassionate, useful, and gifted enough to be successful in your future. (2) apply as many schools as possible from tier 1 to tier 3 colleges. The acceptance rate at Columbia is only 7%, but the acceptance rate at any one of top 10 if you apply all is theoretically 46.3% (sorry if I miscalculated, but you can get what I mean). All universities have different admission policies, so you are rejected by Columbia doesn't mean you will be rejected by the rest of them.
In addition, although most of the top 10 universities have extremely low acceptance rate, top 20 are much less competitive. Cornell(14.2%), WUSTL(17.1%), Notre Dame(21.1%) for instance are much much easier to be accepted compared to Columbia(7%), Stanford(5.1%), and MIT(7.9%). Top 30 are like Carnegie Mellon(24.6%), Wake Forest(34.4%), Boston College(33.9%) and so on. And since all of them are US private colleges, they have a same format of US higher education that you really want to have.
So apply all tier 1 universities, pick some you like from tier 2 and tier 3 as your insurance. Because your SAT and GPA are very good, at least you will get some offers from tier 2 and tier 3 in the worst case.
I'm sure you know all what i said above. I just want to push your back to move on to next step.
Good luck!
(edited 8 years ago)
Overrated: Manchester for sure (this refers to the way university puts itself out there - makes it sound as if it's amazing when it really is a piece of ****)
Underrated: SOAS especially in the last few years.
I went to Manchester and I highly regret it today. I wish I had gone to SOAS instead. Not only is the amazing for law, the faculty is brilliant it has ties with Columbia university so they have exchanges of students and faculty all the time.
I am super jealous of people who have gone to or are going to SOAS now. And my advice yo anyone thinking of going to Manchester - DONT DO IT!!
I applied for uni in 2008 (old!) but my a level grades weren't good enough so I decided to take the foundation route. I wish I had known at that point that SOAS does foundation courses as well. I would have definitely applied. Biggest regret of my life!!!
Underrated: SOAS especially in the last few years.
I went to Manchester and I highly regret it today. I wish I had gone to SOAS instead. Not only is the amazing for law, the faculty is brilliant it has ties with Columbia university so they have exchanges of students and faculty all the time.
I am super jealous of people who have gone to or are going to SOAS now. And my advice yo anyone thinking of going to Manchester - DONT DO IT!!
I applied for uni in 2008 (old!) but my a level grades weren't good enough so I decided to take the foundation route. I wish I had known at that point that SOAS does foundation courses as well. I would have definitely applied. Biggest regret of my life!!!
Original post by RussellG
Why not contacting course directors at UCL and LSE, then express your concerns about educational environment honestly? Also you can ask them about how much practically different study environment they have, and as a result how different students' average academic achievements (and average thickness of the knowledge of your field) will be, compared to top US private universities.
I'm sure you know all what i said above. I just want to push your back to move on to next step.
Good luck!
Why not contacting course directors at UCL and LSE, then express your concerns about educational environment honestly? Also you can ask them about how much practically different study environment they have, and as a result how different students' average academic achievements (and average thickness of the knowledge of your field) will be, compared to top US private universities.
I'm sure you know all what i said above. I just want to push your back to move on to next step.
Good luck!
Ah I haven't really talked to the course directors at LSE..I did at UCL during Open Day and whilst they were all kind and respectful, it was rather clear that maths (and just sciences in general) was definitely not its strongest suit (especially teaching quality which I value very much) and lacked great funding in that area
I still have a few weeks to decide what to do, but admittedly, I'm 80% leaning towards taking a gap year, reapplying, and really showing the passion I have for my extracurricular activities. I would consider doing liberal arts here, but my main goal is to have a rigorous liberal arts education on top of specialising in maths, and we can't really do that here
In a way, I've come to terms that the UK isn't right for me higher education-wise. I just find too many cons about it (many of which I would never have the power to change as a lot of it is just how our system works in general) But I guess it's okay for me to feel this way and recognise that maybe something's not right for me, and I should give one more shot at pursuing the one thing I have tried to pursue my entire life. Originally, I was quite happy to have gotten into UCL and LSE of course, and definitely was considering firming one of the two and giving them a try. However again, at this point, I know our uni system, as a whole, doesn't fit me, and I don't think it's beneficial for me to give it a chance any more sadly. I hate sounding ungrateful because I should be very lucky I have gotten an education in the first place but yeah :3
I certainly wish I had applied to more schools this year, but it is what it is and I need to focus on achieving my future goals instead of dwelling on my past mistakes definitely.
Thanks for the advice though, and keeping up with my overly negative attitude haha
I know I've bombarded you the past few days with quite a bit of ranting so thanks for being so patient as I really do appreciate it!(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by frognation22
x
So, if the situation called for it would you take a larger state school in the US (like top 30-40) over UCL/LSE? In case it's bad news from the uber top ones again.
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Original post by Princepieman
So, if the situation called for it would you take a larger state school in the US (like top 30-40) over UCL/LSE? In case it's bad news from the uber top ones again.
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I'm not sure if I would to be honest. I guess it depends on the uni (I quite like UC San Diego). It most certainly would lack the unique pros I find in the USA private schools, but no doubt, it also provides me with some academic opportunities I would prefer over a UK school.
I also don't know if I'm allowed to defer one year and apply to other schools in the USA? Not sure if that would be against UCAS policy, but I would try to do that so at least, I have one school to go to in a worst case scenario
Original post by frognation22
I'm not sure if I would to be honest. I guess it depends on the uni (I quite like UC San Diego). It most certainly would lack the unique pros I find in the USA private schools, but no doubt, it also provides me with some academic opportunities I would prefer over a UK school.
I also don't know if I'm allowed to defer one year and apply to other schools in the USA? Not sure if that would be against UCAS policy, but I would try to do that so at least, I have one school to go to in a worst case scenario
I also don't know if I'm allowed to defer one year and apply to other schools in the USA? Not sure if that would be against UCAS policy, but I would try to do that so at least, I have one school to go to in a worst case scenario
You can certainly do that! The two application systems are not connected in any way.
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Original post by Princepieman
You can certainly do that! The two application systems are not connected in any way.
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Phew that's what I was hoping! Thanks for confirming this! Shame I've had to make my uni situation a bit complicated but so be it I guess :P
Original post by Scruffyjoe
Overrated: Manchester for sure (this refers to the way university puts itself out there - makes it sound as if it's amazing when it really is a piece of ****)
Underrated: SOAS especially in the last few years.
I went to Manchester and I highly regret it today. I wish I had gone to SOAS instead. Not only is the amazing for law, the faculty is brilliant it has ties with Columbia university so they have exchanges of students and faculty all the time.
I am super jealous of people who have gone to or are going to SOAS now. And my advice yo anyone thinking of going to Manchester - DONT DO IT!!
I applied for uni in 2008 (old!) but my a level grades weren't good enough so I decided to take the foundation route. I wish I had known at that point that SOAS does foundation courses as well. I would have definitely applied. Biggest regret of my life!!!
Underrated: SOAS especially in the last few years.
I went to Manchester and I highly regret it today. I wish I had gone to SOAS instead. Not only is the amazing for law, the faculty is brilliant it has ties with Columbia university so they have exchanges of students and faculty all the time.
I am super jealous of people who have gone to or are going to SOAS now. And my advice yo anyone thinking of going to Manchester - DONT DO IT!!
I applied for uni in 2008 (old!) but my a level grades weren't good enough so I decided to take the foundation route. I wish I had known at that point that SOAS does foundation courses as well. I would have definitely applied. Biggest regret of my life!!!
To try and discourage people by telling them not to go there and call it overrated based on one persons experience from 8 years ago is highly deceitful when you haven't even given any reasons whatsoever as to why your experience there wasn't as good as everyone elses.
Original post by Terry Tibbs
For what reasons exactly do you think Manchester is a pile of ****? Because as an undergrad there I honestly have no clue what you're talking about.
To try and discourage people by telling them not to go there and call it overrated based on one persons experience from 8 years ago is highly deceitful when you haven't even given any reasons whatsoever as to why your experience there wasn't as good as everyone elses.
To try and discourage people by telling them not to go there and call it overrated based on one persons experience from 8 years ago is highly deceitful when you haven't even given any reasons whatsoever as to why your experience there wasn't as good as everyone elses.
Whether my experience is 8 years old or not is irrekevant. The university experience should nonetheless be good no matter how many years ago it was.
I didnt give reasons because most people on this forum haven't and I don't think this is the kind of forum where you can elaborate on why you didn't have a good uni experience I guess.
But since you asked I'll tell you my reasons:
Manchesyer isn't particularly good for law. The faculty is pretty average (in terms of their qualifications and research) whereas soas has a brilliant law faculty. The law school ranking is pretty horrific in the national league tables and international as well. Most importantly Manchester suffers from a bad reputation syndrome for some strange reason and that has definitely affected the way I look at it and think about it. I'm ashamed to say that I went to this university at work, on Facebook and even LinkedIn just because it has such a bad reputation. Of course this is what I have experienced. You might not have experienced this.
As an alumni I do think I have a right to be able to share my honest thoughts on my university. I do have a right to talk about it as much as you do even if it's negatively.
Hope that explains my point to you.
Original post by Scruffyjoe
Overrated: Manchester for sure (this refers to the way university puts itself out there - makes it sound as if it's amazing when it really is a piece of ****)
Underrated: SOAS especially in the last few years.
I went to Manchester and I highly regret it today. I wish I had gone to SOAS instead. Not only is the amazing for law, the faculty is brilliant it has ties with Columbia university so they have exchanges of students and faculty all the time.
I am super jealous of people who have gone to or are going to SOAS now. And my advice yo anyone thinking of going to Manchester - DONT DO IT!!
I applied for uni in 2008 (old!) but my a level grades weren't good enough so I decided to take the foundation route. I wish I had known at that point that SOAS does foundation courses as well. I would have definitely applied. Biggest regret of my life!!!
Underrated: SOAS especially in the last few years.
I went to Manchester and I highly regret it today. I wish I had gone to SOAS instead. Not only is the amazing for law, the faculty is brilliant it has ties with Columbia university so they have exchanges of students and faculty all the time.
I am super jealous of people who have gone to or are going to SOAS now. And my advice yo anyone thinking of going to Manchester - DONT DO IT!!
I applied for uni in 2008 (old!) but my a level grades weren't good enough so I decided to take the foundation route. I wish I had known at that point that SOAS does foundation courses as well. I would have definitely applied. Biggest regret of my life!!!
What the hell are you talking about? Manchester is one of the most underrated unis. Their engineering department looked great. It's by far the most impressive uni I've visited (well excluding imperial). And I've been to 8 RG Unis so far. You having a bad experience doest make the entire uni bad. I have friends doing law there and they love it. Maybe you were just bad at the course?
And you genuinely sound like you're talking out your ass. What bad reputation styndrome? It has one of the best reputations in England. All you have to do is look at international rankings to see proof lol.
6th best academic reputation in the UK
30th in the world
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2015#sorting=2453333+region=+country=208+faculty=+stars=false+search=
.
6th best employer reputation in the UK. 13th in the world
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2015#sorting=2453334+region=+country=208+faculty=+stars=false+search=
SOAS looks dodgy though. How can a uni specialise in African studies? What even is that? Memorising african capitals?
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Lawliettt
What the hell are you talking about? Manchester is one of the most underrated unis. Their engineering department looked great. It's by far the most impressive uni I've visited (well excluding imperial). And I've been to 8 RG Unis so far. You having a bad experience doest make the entire uni bad. I have friends doing law there and they love it. Maybe you were just bad at the course?
And you genuinely sound like you're talking out your ass. What bad reputation styndrome? It has one of the best reputations in England. All you have to do is look at international rankings to see proof lol.
6th best academic reputation in the UK
30th in the world
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2015#sorting=2453333+region=+country=208+faculty=+stars=false+search=
.
6th best employer reputation in the UK. 13th in the world
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2015#sorting=2453334+region=+country=208+faculty=+stars=false+search=
SOAS looks dodgy though. How can a uni specialise in African studies? What even is that? Memorising african capitals?
And you genuinely sound like you're talking out your ass. What bad reputation styndrome? It has one of the best reputations in England. All you have to do is look at international rankings to see proof lol.
6th best academic reputation in the UK
30th in the world
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2015#sorting=2453333+region=+country=208+faculty=+stars=false+search=
.
6th best employer reputation in the UK. 13th in the world
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2015#sorting=2453334+region=+country=208+faculty=+stars=false+search=
SOAS looks dodgy though. How can a uni specialise in African studies? What even is that? Memorising african capitals?
First of all, I don't understand why everyone has to resort to being rude. I'm not talking "out of my ass"! Maybe you do that.
Honestly, I didn't have a bad uni experience at all. I had amazing friends, loved my time at uni and was also quite proud of the uni, till I started working. Everyone at work laughs at me because they think I have wasted my parents money by going to Manchester, I'm an international student by the way (was)
It's so hard to hear that I have wasted three years at a place that isn't respected. It makes me sad which is why I'm advising people not to go there. Maybe it's not my place to do that but I'm just writing from my experience. I wish people didn't make me feel like **** about my university (and I'm talking about my sister and parents as well) i really do regret going to Manchester.
I don't think I was bad at the course, because if I was I wouldn't have ended up with a 2:1. I was relatively okay at my course and I even enjoyed it. But I do think Manchester can do a lot to improve its faculty (most of them have studied from Manchester and not Oxbridge or Ivy leagues like they have at soas) the law faculty at SOAS is amazing! They have tutors/lecturers from Columbia, Stanford and Harvard. Which is amazing! I also think Manchester can do a lot to improve their entry standards, tighten their acceptance rate and overall bring the law school up to par with what is expected from an internationally renowned university.
In the REF (law) they scored 29 which is piss poor, so they really should improve their research quality, which will only happen if they upgrade their faculty to better qualified people and lower their acc prance rate on the program (in my cohort alone we had over 400 people doing law!!!)
I'm just disappointed with my experience yes!
Original post by frognation22
Thanks for the advice though, and keeping up with my overly negative attitude haha I know I've bombarded you the past few days with quite a bit of ranting so thanks for being so patient as I really do appreciate it!
I know I've bombarded you the past few days with quite a bit of ranting so thanks for being so patient as I really do appreciate it!You are welcome.
But there are something I'm a little bit concerned about from your last post. I don't want to get involved into your personal issues really, however do you think you are aware enough where your motivation of the gap year comes from?
I think you had better avoid all US public universities (possibly even including UC Berkley), because you will regret like "I pay huge out of state fee, more than my brother pays, and this huge class size with too many unmotivated students? Then what was the meaning of my gap year... sigh.".
If i'm not mistaken, your dissatisfaction with your situation right now comes from two reasons.
1. You want to fill the gap between your brother and you as much as possible. Even you may want to be better than him (if I consider the situation he chose Chicago, then you applied only Stanford, MIT and Columbia).
2. Your academic achievement and your huge effort must be evaluated fairly. Otherwise the world is too unfair.
There are many people who got high marks, and more than happy to apply and choose average Russell Group universities in cities where they live, and never questioned about their decision. But you are clearly not one of them. Why?
And one more thing. You were initially happy with being accepted by UCL, then you felt like you got awfully scammed. And you think the unhappiest part is vastly overrated reputation and its students believing QS rankings like a holy bible. But wait, why not simply being a part of them and just enjoy this ritual? There are always 2 solutions when people face "cognitive dissonance". And you clearly didn't want to choose the other solution(deny yourself and accept the situation). After all, there is no law and no right answer about how to perceive universities. Your choice looks meaningful, doesn't it?
Plus when I showed the alternative solution to switch your course to Liberal arts at UCL, you even didn't check it out and decide to contact university representatives to know how the course is like and seek the possibility of having a similar quality of US education. Your behavior implies you are actually not seeking "the quality of education", though you excuse yourself you are suffering because of this reason. (I'm sorry if I'm going to insult you even more, but believe me I only want to help you)
I assume, the issue lies under your family relations rather than any superficial reasons. You admire your brother and the way he's been doing. So you are against the people who aren't like him and deny him/his effort easily. You want to go to a college like the one where your brother studies ,because you want to confirm him and be a part of your family identity. (Furthermore, perhaps you want your parents being proud of you like they do to your brother).
If he studied at London Met, and your parents were more than happy about his attendance at a university, proud of him, because they had never been educated, do you think you would still perceive the situation in the same way?
Everyone on the earth wants to be loved and admired by his/er most important people. So this is really normal behavior as a human, even proving you are not natural born psychopath.
Maybe my assumption is not true at all. But in any case, I think you had better develop your self-awareness a bit more to not regret your future decision any more.
What I wanted to say is, I think you shouldn't compromise your identity for the sake of your mental health, unless it has some ethical problem. And going back to the main topic, if your SAT/GPA are really some of the best as you said, you will be almost safely accepted, or at least wait-listed by some tier 2 universities, I'll show you two top 20 universities who accept academic high scorers no matter how their other backgrounds are.
Vanderbilt University(15th)
Notre Dame(18th)
Also Chicago(4th) and Duke(8th) have statistic tendencies to accept academic top achievers whatever other elements are. At least not like Ivies whose decisions are unpredictable and chaotic even if you are one of the top. No need to make the distance between you and your brother even wider than now by attending UCSD.
sorry for my long annoying judgmental comment. I hope you don't mind about it, and it is somehow useful.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by RussellG
x
x
Thank you for this insight! I wouldn't say this is from familial pressure however. Both parents attended a HYPSM university and yes, my brother did go on to UChicago. But I never felt the pressure from them to attend these schools. In fact, it's always been the pressure I have placed on myself to go to these schools. I'm a naturally competitive person so yes, when I was not accepted to these places, it hurt perhaps more than it hurt some others. In a sense, it felt, well, I was inferior to those around me-- even though I know that's the last thing they think of me, and they're so proud of my accomplishments.
So essentially, you are quite right...part of this stems from my self-insecurities. I don't think its seeking validation from my family, but more definitely comparing the experiences I'll get compared to what my father, mother and brother have received. I.e. "I'm so jealous that they have gotten an even better education than I have!!"
Yes, I am a huge perfectionist and am always striving for the best--I find it difficult to settle with what I have, and I acknowledge this problem and it has been something I've been working on.
As awfully arrogant as it sounds (sorry), money is not an issue so it, well, has not played a role in me choosing which university suits me best.
But a huge part of this also comes from just overall being dissatisfied with the education I have received in the UK.
The one thing I do disagree with you is that I don't think my academic merit has to be evaluated on a fair-basis. I understand that (and quite enjoy) American admissions is very holistic and seeks well-rounded applicants. Instead of dwelling over the fact that admissions didn't consider me well enough or have a silly attitude such as "Screw them for not seeing the best in me!", I dwell over the fact that I was unable to portray myself as a well-rounded applicant. I was unable to showcase my talents and convince them.
So really, if anything-I have always put the blame on myself.
With large public universities, they will have less advantages for sure. As a result, its difficult for me to tell whether I would like going to UCL over a school like UC Berkeley or vice versa. Like you said, large schools have larger class sizes, their general education requirements tend to be much broader and scrambled than the ones required at private universities etc.
No doubt, these are all negatives to me, but at the same time I still have a general background of different academic fields, can specialise in two completely different degrees, have more module selections etc
You're correct--with UCL's liberal arts programme-- I can most certainly specialise in two areas. Yet this does not take away the fact that the programme lacks a lot of flexibility in terms of module selections and more.
I actually applied to UCL's natural sciences programme--where I can specialise in two areas as well. I applied for the mathematics stream, but I would not have to decide which two academic streams I'd like to focus on until the middle of first year (so I could actually do Policy and Ethics alongside Physics instead) Y
I thought this was a wonderful programme, but then again, I attended Open Day and started researching more about it and realised that sure there is more flexibility degree-wise, but again, I am so incredibly limited in module selections as compared to the USA.
Not to mention, factoring in there's only around 80 hours worth of lectures/seminars in a term compared to approx 225 hours in the United States.
Yes UCL might be rated highly in league tables, but what does that matter when I don't think the teaching quality could ever match up to its 'rank?" At the end of the day, it is not about attending a school for superficial reasons such as prestige
Props to the many students who choose to attend a large state school over a HYPSM school. I applaud these students for believing a school like UC Berkeley can offer more to them than CalTech, and not giving into a HYPSM level school simply because it sounds more prestigious.
However, I do not see myself as one of these students and that is largely because the environment I crave for in university is something only private universities can provide me (HYPSM or not--i.e. I would love Swarthmore, Pomona, Vassar, Barnard etc)
With that said, lets say I got into Warwick and UC Santa Barbara. I would, as a matter of fact, still choose the latter.
If it was UC Santa Barbara or UCL? Honestly, I still find myself leaning to this top 30-40 school over UCL. So as mentioned before, when it really boils down to choosing, prestige isn't necessarily a factor I really consider (Even though my posts might have come across this way)
Sorry I know this is a long response-- I wrote it fairly quickly so if its a bit confusing at some parts, apologies!
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Scruffyjoe
First of all, I don't understand why everyone has to resort to being rude. I'm not talking "out of my ass"! Maybe you do that.
Honestly, I didn't have a bad uni experience at all. I had amazing friends, loved my time at uni and was also quite proud of the uni, till I started working. Everyone at work laughs at me because they think I have wasted my parents money by going to Manchester, I'm an international student by the way (was)
It's so hard to hear that I have wasted three years at a place that isn't respected. It makes me sad which is why I'm advising people not to go there. Maybe it's not my place to do that but I'm just writing from my experience. I wish people didn't make me feel like **** about my university (and I'm talking about my sister and parents as well) i really do regret going to Manchester.
I don't think I was bad at the course, because if I was I wouldn't have ended up with a 2:1. I was relatively okay at my course and I even enjoyed it. But I do think Manchester can do a lot to improve its faculty (most of them have studied from Manchester and not Oxbridge or Ivy leagues like they have at soas) the law faculty at SOAS is amazing! They have tutors/lecturers from Columbia, Stanford and Harvard. Which is amazing! I also think Manchester can do a lot to improve their entry standards, tighten their acceptance rate and overall bring the law school up to par with what is expected from an internationally renowned university.
In the REF (law) they scored 29 which is piss poor, so they really should improve their research quality, which will only happen if they upgrade their faculty to better qualified people and lower their acc prance rate on the program (in my cohort alone we had over 400 people doing law!!!)
I'm just disappointed with my experience yes!
Honestly, I didn't have a bad uni experience at all. I had amazing friends, loved my time at uni and was also quite proud of the uni, till I started working. Everyone at work laughs at me because they think I have wasted my parents money by going to Manchester, I'm an international student by the way (was)
It's so hard to hear that I have wasted three years at a place that isn't respected. It makes me sad which is why I'm advising people not to go there. Maybe it's not my place to do that but I'm just writing from my experience. I wish people didn't make me feel like **** about my university (and I'm talking about my sister and parents as well) i really do regret going to Manchester.
I don't think I was bad at the course, because if I was I wouldn't have ended up with a 2:1. I was relatively okay at my course and I even enjoyed it. But I do think Manchester can do a lot to improve its faculty (most of them have studied from Manchester and not Oxbridge or Ivy leagues like they have at soas) the law faculty at SOAS is amazing! They have tutors/lecturers from Columbia, Stanford and Harvard. Which is amazing! I also think Manchester can do a lot to improve their entry standards, tighten their acceptance rate and overall bring the law school up to par with what is expected from an internationally renowned university.
In the REF (law) they scored 29 which is piss poor, so they really should improve their research quality, which will only happen if they upgrade their faculty to better qualified people and lower their acc prance rate on the program (in my cohort alone we had over 400 people doing law!!!)
I'm just disappointed with my experience yes!
Okay, where to start. For one, you have only experienced one of the MANY courses there and you think that this gives you the authority to advise EVERYONE thinking of going there not to. If you don't speak for the majority of current and past students of the law department, you certainly don't speak for every student's experience of their respective department. I highly doubt that for example, their Physics department (for which I a student of) that has been ranked as far as top 3 in Europe, has A*A*A A level entry reqs, is one of the leading departments in the world for physics research, is as you imply a **** department. Honestly, you deserve all the rudeness you're getting.
Your "analysis" of the Law department and its rep is false. Lets have a look at the rankings shall we: http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2016/law-legal-studies#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search= 11th, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2016/subject-ranking/social-sciences-0#!/page/0/length/25/country/469/sort_by/rank_label/sort_order/asc/cols/rank_only 7th, http://www.shanghairanking.com/FieldSOC2015.html 6th, http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/united-kingdom/social-sciences-public-health?page=2 8th, meanwhile SOAS is nowhere to be found. Its a top 10 uni for Law and in general which you will find plenty of rankings confirming, these people and your parents/sister whom laugh at you are evidently uneducated on what are and are not reputable/respected unis. If as you are claiming it as seen as such a poor uni for law, why would that make it overrated?
Finally, here we have the strangest part of it all http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=64022701&highlight=. If you don't want anyone to go to Manchester, why then would you tell someone asking where to go for computer science of all things with "University of Manchester"? Lol, so odd, so very very odd.
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