Does UCL suck outside of the UK?

Might when you look at research budget which completely dwarfs what most UK universities.

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First of all, you don't need to believe it's 4th in the world. It's totally ok to disagree. But no one should disagree that UCL is among top 20 in the world, that is a fact. Maybe not 4th but definitely top 20 in the world, if not top 15 in my opinion.

If you don't believe QS ranking which places UCL as 4th, then how about THES which places UCL as 17th in the world and ARWU which places UCL as 21st in the world?

Three huge world rankings and the results are: 4th, 17th, 21st place.

I have to laugh hard each time I read this "worshipping" of American unis. Such as "mightly American unis", LOL. Where is this worshipping coming from? Is the U.S. paradise for those like you? LOL.

Zurich or St.Gallen are very good, no doubt. McGill i Canada the same. But besides that, the rest are American and UK unis in the top 20.

I think most people would agree that these are top 20 in the world, in no particular order.

Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, LSE, Imperial, UCL, MIT, CalTech, Berkeley, Cornell, Zurich/St.Gallen, McGill, and the rest is maybe more "vague", but Brown, UCLA, Warwick and KCL are good candidates.

So this is basically 19-20 unis which most would agree are top 20 in the world. So UCL is maybe not 4th but definitely top 15-20 in the world, which THES and ARWU also confirm.

I haven't even mentioned European business schools, those would trash U.S. boys. Heck, U.S. don't even have pre-experience Master's, lol, only MBAs (with couple of exeptions of course) but they are nowhere near top European schools in this area. For MBA it's 50/50 U.S. vs Europe.

You know so much I want to cry.

Do you think its worth me putting an application into McGill (Deadline is in March and I don't think it would take me more than 4/5?) and what about Toronto? I think deadline is in March too. Or are they not worthy?

Or should I quit being a bitch and just get my grades for Comp Sci UCL?

Please help me, I need some wisdom right now

Hi again,

If you have the grades for McGill, then just apply. But UCL is an excellent uni so it's up to you. Toronto is very good, but I don't think you will need it. If you feel you are at UCL/McGill level then go for it, and concentrate on these two


Do you plan on doing a MSc after your undergrad degree?

Thanks for the reply again.

And yes my degree includes an MSc.

I think I may apply to try to transfer from UCL/Kings depending on which one I will try to get in to Ivy League or Stanford.

Not sure how I would go about that. If you know anything that would help.

If its too competitive to get into any American Uni's (I'll try around 9 or so, the Ivy Leagues, Stanford, Carnegie Melon and maybe 2 more) Transfer from 1st Year UCL -------> US then I will apply for MBA/Masters around age 27 or so.

Hi again, no problem


I wouldn't go for transfer, I deeply believe that you really have everything you need in Europe. I mean, for MBA you can consider the U.S. alongside Europe, because they are 50/50 in that area, but everything else, especially MSc, (pre-experience Masters), then Europe is the boss in that area. I don't need to show you Financial Times rankings where there are none American schools at pre-experience MSc-level.

The closest you'll get a great school which has pre-experience Masters in the U.S. is Duke ***ua Business School but they are still nowhere near Europe in this area.

So in my opinion, for undergrad . go UCL/KCL, get a 1st or high 2:1.

For MSc (pre-experience), again you have KCL, UCL, LSE, Oxford, Cambridge, LBS, Imperial, Cranfield, HEC, ESSEC, ESCP, Warwick, St-Gallen, IE, ESADE, RSM, Bocconi. I mean, you really don't need more options, neither can you find any better than this, because U.S. does not have pre-experience Masters, so U.S. can't compete with Europe in this area.

Then if you want MBA after few years work, then you can consider U.S. but again alongside Europe. You can add another top-class schools from Europe for MBA which unfortunatey don't have MSc pre-experience programs such as INSEAD, IESE and IMD in addition to the top-schools I mentioned for MSc which have both MBA and MSc programs. So you have many choices for everything. Hope this helps

Surely most people outside uk only know a maximum of 2 or maybe 3 unis in uk. I doubt an average European/American cares enough to have a knowledge of universities which aren't in their own country.


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You know so much I want to cry.

Do you think its worth me putting an application into McGill (Deadline is in March and I don't think it would take me more than 4/5?) and what about Toronto? I think deadline is in March too. Or are they not worthy?

Or should I quit being a bitch and just get my grades for Comp Sci UCL?

Please help me, I need some wisdom right now

Might when you look at research budget which completely dwarfs what most UK universities.

It is better for you all not to seriously in depth with your academic (it is still top priority for employer though).. i think my work life now is far far harder than my academic life.. in university you are treated very well.. you study harder and you achieve better..

In office, this logic doesn't sound.. it is really complex in the matter of the work itself, the politics behind, your network and ao on so forth..

Get the top in the class.. UCL is still among the world's best.. Your work is still waiting ahead

Cheers

I studied abroad at UCL, and based on my experience, I'd say yes, but not for the reason you cited. It is true that few outside the UK have heard of UCL, but that doesn't matter for grad school apps, etc., because any serious person in academia has definitely heard of UCL. I had actually heard of UCL before I applied.

UCL is an extremely good school for hard sciences. For the humanities--at least for art history, which is what I studied--UCL SUCKS...INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF THE UK. The resources were laughably bad. Literally, I saw them and laughed. The department seemed to have only two small classrooms, with no desks, so students had to write on their laps. The instruction was meandering and shallow at best, but after the first week it didn't matter anyways, because my classes were taught half of the time by other students. They just gave PowerPoint presentations (often terrible) on the assigned readings. I didn't pay to be taught by 19-year-olds who don't give a s***. It was frustrating.

The entire university has one humanities library; for reference, where I go to school in the US and lots of schools in the US and Europe have one library for each humanities subject. UCL's library is bad at that. It's understaffed, obnoxiously overcrowded, humid for some reason, and has a middling collection much of which is missing, damaged, or can only be checked out for one week *because people need the book often* and rather than, say, buying two copies, the university has just slapped a "one week loan" sticker on it. The copiers and online services are perennially out of order, and don't even think about asking a staff member why because they'll probably just stare at you, chuckle, and then go back to chatting with their friends.

That UCL is ranked so highly for art history in the UK boggles the mind. I received better instruction in high school. The feedback on papers, at least, was solid, but overall my experience there was a joke. It seemed like the best students had just come into the university already knowing a lot and if anything were stagnating at UCL.

For the inevitable haters of my comment, I experienced what I experienced. It's possible I had an unusually bad time, but given what I've heard from other students, I doubt it. The one advantage was that it's in London, so the museum opportunities were incredible. (UCL's """"art museum""" itself was a joke.) I don't know if the school just doesn't fund the humanities or what, but something was seriously wrong there. Bottom line is this: having been at UCL, I would not take an art history degree from UCL seriously. If UCL is one of the 'top three' humanities schools in Britain, that's more a sad reflection on Britain's overconcentration of academic resources at Oxbridge--or a lie--than any indication that your degree there will be worthwhile.

Queue the haters...