Should I transfer from Uni of Glasgow to Uni of Edinburgh (for maths)?

Hi everyone !!

I’m currently an first year international student doing Mathematics at the University of Glasgow, I’m considering transferring to the University of Edinburgh. A bit of context:

I come from a British school in Madrid, Spain, and I’ve done the Spanish Baccalaureate and gotten decent grades (9,3 median grade with a 9 in Maths). When I got to Glasgow I couldn’t do the joint degree I wanted, which is Mathematics and Economics because they overbooked the classes for econ. Thus, my other two electives are Computing Science and Intro to Mng Acc + Intro to Econ (the latter ones just worth 20 credits, one each semester). None of the last two are available for further studies in second year.

Looking into the future I would love to work in the field of finance which is difficult to get in.

Why transfer??

- As an international student, I pay full tuition fees (+-30k). This makes me think I should try my best to get into the most competitive uni I can, which in this case is Edinburgh, being the 27th in the world (qs rankings), Glasgow being the 78th.

- In my own personal opinion, I think Edinburgh has more prestige and can really give me a boost for a postgraduate job in finance.

What I already know…

I’ve read that transferring is pretty hard and only happens with extraordinary situations. I also know that I should start contacting the Uni of Edinburgh as well as my personal advisor here in the Uni of Glasgow. I have to ace all my exams in this first year, either A1,A2,A3.

My doubts:

Should I transfer? Would it make sense to accept an offer for a first year in Edinburgh? (This meaning I could go back and choose Econ as my second subject (for a joint degree) instead of CS.) Does it matter in the long-run which uni I go to? What are my chances of actually transferring? Should I also look into other prestigious universities? Will Edinburgh see my final grades for first year or am I going to need to apply before? What grades are they going to look at (first year December grades, school…)?

Thanks for reading!! I’m aware I’ve gone into detail, sorry :/

Any advice will be greatly appreciated :smile:

Reply 1

ferasuriname

4

I'm currently doing Maths @ Edinburgh rn (1st year), and also considering going into finance.
To answer your questions (and give some unsolicited advice):

•

I would consider transferring, but not if you're going to redo first year. If you get really good grades this year, you could apply to second year entry and skip first year (This would mean no economics as a joint degree though).

•

Yes, which uni you go to does matter, especially in finance, but Edinburgh really isn't very prestigious for finance. From what I've heard, Edinburgh does very good CS research, but it's not very well known for much else (except classism lol). If you want to go to a good uni for finance, you'd be better off picking Oxbridge, Imperial/UCL, LSE or Warwick (in case you want to be a quant). Maybe stick with Glasgow and do a master's at a more prestigious uni?

•

As for your chances of transferring, what the uni looks at, I'm afraid I can't really help you with this one.

•

If you reapplied from first year, (say for the Econ and Maths joint degree), they'd probably look at your school results but once again, I'm not too sure about this.

•

If you're interested in quantitative finance, Maths and CS is a better option than Econ and Maths anyway.

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 2

rayaanshahid10

12

Original post

by ferasuriname

I'm currently doing Maths @ Edinburgh rn (1st year), and also considering going into finance.
To answer your questions (and give some unsolicited advice):

•

I would consider transferring, but not if you're going to redo first year. If you get really good grades this year, you could apply to second year entry and skip first year (This would mean no economics as a joint degree though).

•

Yes, which uni you go to does matter, especially in finance, but Edinburgh really isn't very prestigious for finance. From what I've heard, Edinburgh does very good CS research, but it's not very well known for much else (except classism lol). If you want to go to a good uni for finance, you'd be better off picking Oxbridge, Imperial/UCL, LSE or Warwick.

•

As for your chances of transferring, what the uni looks at, I'm afraid I can't really help you with this one.

•

If you reapplied from first year, (say for the Econ and Maths joint degree), they'd probably look at your school results but once again, I'm not too sure about this.

•

If you're interested in quantitative finance, Maths and CS is a better option than Econ and Maths anyway.

what did u achieve at highers to be accepted?

Reply 3

ferasuriname

4

Original post

by rayaanshahid10

what did u achieve at highers to be accepted?

I got 5 As at Highers (Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Human Biology, ESOL) so I got an unconditional midway through the year and slacked off throughout S6 (Ended up with A in Maths, C in Physics, and D in Chemistry). Didn't affect me, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Reply 4

rayaanshahid10

12

that's great, a couple questions if u don't mind, how many hours did u revise a day?, Any tips for Higher Physics? , What were ur prelim results, and also if u could go into detail of why u wouldn't recommend slacking off in s6.

Reply 5

ferasuriname

4

Original post

by rayaanshahid10

that's great, a couple questions if u don't mind, how many hours did u revise a day?, Any tips for Higher Physics? , What were ur prelim results, and also if u could go into detail of why u wouldn't recommend slacking off in s6.

Hours revised - varied, some days I barely revised at all, some days (i.e THE day before the exam) I revised pretty much all day.
Tips for Higher Physics - I don't really have any tips for the exam, just grind past papers. As for your project, I didn't do a project at Higher (our year group didn't have to for some reason), but I did have to do one at Advanced Higher, and my advice would be to pick the simplest, most common topic you can find. Something like, "investigating speed of sound" or "finding the magnitude of g". Don't be like me and pick "Radiation" because, at least at my school, I had no help whatsoever apart from my Physics teacher showing me 15 pages out of some book from 1989.
My prelim results - I don't remember but they were bad. Like really bad. Was a very good wake up call in S5. Thankfully unis don't look at your prelim results.
As to why you shouldn't slack off in S6 - I think that you should apply to at least one really really good uni. One of Oxbridge, Imperial, LSE, UCL, (and Warwick if Maths is what you want to do). And for these unis, S6 grades matter. Even if you're dead set on a Scottish uni like I was (I'm a Scottish student so I save on the tuition fees), you can still do direct entry, which imo is well worth it for mainly one reason. The class sizes for direct entry are a lot smaller and you will be able to make much closer connections with your classmates, which is probably one of the main reasons to go to uni in the first place.

Reply 6

rayaanshahid10

12

Original post

by ferasuriname

Hours revised - varied, some days I barely revised at all, some days (i.e THE day before the exam) I revised pretty much all day.
Tips for Higher Physics - I don't really have any tips for the exam, just grind past papers. As for your project, I didn't do a project at Higher (our year group didn't have to for some reason), but I did have to do one at Advanced Higher, and my advice would be to pick the simplest, most common topic you can find. Something like, "investigating speed of sound" or "finding the magnitude of g". Don't be like me and pick "Radiation" because, at least at my school, I had no help whatsoever apart from my Physics teacher showing me 15 pages out of some book from 1989.
My prelim results - I don't remember but they were bad. Like really bad. Was a very good wake up call in S5. Thankfully unis don't look at your prelim results.
As to why you shouldn't slack off in S6 - I think that you should apply to at least one really really good uni. One of Oxbridge, Imperial, LSE, UCL, (and Warwick if Maths is what you want to do). And for these unis, S6 grades matter. Even if you're dead set on a Scottish uni like I was (I'm a Scottish student so I save on the tuition fees), you can still do direct entry, which imo is well worth it for mainly one reason. The class sizes for direct entry are a lot smaller and you will be able to make much closer connections with your classmates, which is probably one of the main reasons to go to uni in the first place.