I’m an American student (California) and I actually really liked the process! There were some parts that were confusing just because my education system is different and was hard to match up with UCAS, but I have a great college counselor who is familiar with the process. In my opinion it’s a bit better than the US system for a number of reasons:
• the limit of 5 universities reduces what happens in the US where every college is sending out countless emails just to drive up their selectivity rate
• the way the personal statement and entire process works is much more objective and actually schoolwork-based, rather than the US system where in addition to great grades and test scores, you need an excellent essay (and 12 additional, shorter essays for Stanford, for example) that shows who you are as a person and what you’ll add to their community.
• also because it was due first, I ended up becoming more familiar with it, and so the American application system got confusing for me! I haven’t really set up the common app yet because my only school that needs it isn’t due for a while, but it confused me a lot. The coalition app is better only because I’m already familiar with it, but it is a LOT less streamlined than UCAS.
• a smaller thing is that every university I looked at made it very very clear what support they have for disabled students, and had a disabled applicants page. In the us I haven’t seen a single page like that, and finding disability information at all is difficult
That’s all I can think of right now! Surely there’s more but it’s midnight so I’m a little burnt out haha