UCL vs Edinburgh vs LSE

Hey guys, I recently stopped my Maths degree at Edinburgh University after 2 years because I wasn't really enjoying it and so I decided to drop out and reapply to study Social Sciences/Sociology at various universities. I am in desperate need of help to make up my mind. I listed pros/cons of each university, in case that helps. I also have no idea which university is better at social sciences. I know that the Social Sciences degree at UCL is new as of this year, not sure if that's a good thing.

Pros of UCL/LSE: reputation, 3-year degrees, moving to a proper city where things actually happen yay.
Cons of UCL/LSE: £9000/year (with loan, obviously) for the degree, costs of living in London.

Pros of Edinburgh: free education, already living here in a cheap flat in the city centre, already working here in a job that I love, chance to go on year abroad during 3rd year.
Cons of Edinburgh: 4 years is too long, it doesn't sound as cool as UCL or LSE.

So far I got an unconditional offer to study BSc Social Sciences at UCL and still waiting for answers on Sociology at LSE and Sociology at Edinburgh. What do you think? What should I do? Do you have any advice?

I can't answer your subject-specific questions but I wanted to ask if you are aware that you'd have to self-fund the first year of university? Can you afford that? If not stay at Edinburgh. You say 4 years is too long, but if you've already completed 2 years you only have 2 years to go.

I thought all EU students could apply for a tuition fee loan, just like other English students. I read online that applications for 2016/2017 open in Spring 2016. Doesn't it work like that? I can only afford stuying in London with a loan, otherwise I'm ****ed.

I thought all EU students could apply for a tuition fee loan, just like other English students. I read online that applications for 2016/2017 open in Spring 2016. Doesn't it work like that? I can only afford stuying in London with a loan, otherwise I'm ****ed.

I think it must be said that giving up on a maths degree at Edinburgh is a rather terrible choice. Even if you would've gotten a 2,2 it would have still been a maths degree at a prestigious university.

And if you're going to go for a degree in humanities just go for Economics, or try and find a Scoiology/Economics hybrid. Many econ degrees are rather heavy on the maths, but definetly not heavy for a maths graduate.

And a degree in economics and one in maths would make you extremely employable.

I can't answer your subject-specific questions but I wanted to ask if you are aware that you'd have to self-fund the first year of university? Can you afford that? If not stay at Edinburgh. You say 4 years is too long, but if you've already completed 2 years you only have 2 years to go.

There's no need for me to self-fund anything. I called Student Finance and apparently, my year and a bit doing Maths counts as 1 because my university never got the funding. I dropped out before that happened in December 2015. So technically, I'm entitled to 4 free years in Edinburgh and 3 years (with loan) in London. That's what I was told over the phone from SAAS Scotland and Student Finance UK.

You said you'd done 2 years at Edinburgh, not 1 and a bit. It sounds very unlikely that you could have studied at Edinburgh for three months without SFE paying them any of the tuition fee owed, I would double check that if I were you.

SAAS' own website says to be eligible for free tuition "you have been ordinarily resident in the relevant area [Scotland] for at least one year of the three year period immediately prior to the relevant date and no part of that residence was wholly or mainly for the purpose of receiving full-time education" - so no, I don't think you are entitled to four years three tuition if you stay at Edinburgh.

I said 2 years because it's just easier to say. It might sound unlikely but that's how it works. SAAS pays tuition fees every December and in my case, my uni told SAAS that I had dropped out on November 26th so the payment from SAAS never went through. I have written confirmation from SAAS about this.

Regarding your second claim, as an EU student, SAAS says that:

"To meet the general residence conditions, you must have been ordinarily resident in the EU, the EU overseas territories, elsewhere in the EEA or Switzerland for the three years immediately before the first day of the first academic year of the course (the relevant date)."

In my case, that relevant area that you're referring to is the EU, not Scotland. I'm Spanish so I meet those conditions too. And since I only used a year of free tuition, I am still entitled to another 4 years. As I said before, that's what I've been told over the phone numerous times and I'm pretty confident about this.

You didn't say you were an EU student. In future could you please give all the facts when asking for help? If you had said in your first post that you had only studied for 1 year and three months of your course, and that you were an EU student, this whole financial discussion could have been avoided.