American student looking into UK postgrad options (very interested in Imperial College)

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Hello!

As mentioned, I’m an American student looking into UK postgrad options for an MSc Business Analytics degree. I’ve never applied abroad before and I’m not sure what to expect or how well I will fit various universities in the London area (interested in London for future job prospects and also loved the city when I visited).

My greatest fear is that in coming out of a business background, I may be lacking the quantitative training needed for an analytics program. Do you guys mind giving me some insight on where I might have a fighting chance with my applications? I am particularly interested in Imperial’s program, but feel free to make recommendations on other schools.

At a glance:
-BBA Marketing degree from Southern Methodist University (Cox school) with a Chinese Language minor

  • 3.8/4.0 GPA
  • No GMAT taken (I know this is bad but it was for cost and time reasons. Luckily many UK schools don’t seem to require it.)
    -VP of our uni’s Amnesty International chapter; also in an honor society and business association
  • Quant: Taking free R programming course on coursera and is Bloomberg certified. Has taken university courses in database operations management, marketing research, stat and calculus, etc, but the business curriculum isn’t terribly quant-heavy.
  • Good project management experience; I will have my most recent community service project published under the university some time this year and it also gained a fair amount of media attention. I also have a couple of data collection and reporting team projects that my university is using toward the development of a new online graduate program.
  • Also studied and volunteered abroad in various places. I would love to work abroad some day and am particularly interested in places like China, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

I am interested in a marketing research or consulting firm job and later on taking up pro bono consulting for arts nonprofits. My work experience is mainly museum admin/marketing jobs and internships.

Hope I didn’t get too long-winded on this but I’m limiting myself to two UK schools and I want to choose wisely. I really appreciate the input. Thanks!

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Imperial is specific that they want advanced calculus, probability, statistics and linear algebra, and that programming languages- including R, but also SQL and Python- are valuable.

My guess is that you will get in (you are a credible candidate & bring nice US$), but don’t shortcut the online modules that you do before the course begins and be prepared to find ways to beef up any holes in your background on your own - UK unis are much more hands-off than US ones even at UG level, and at Masters level you will be fending for yourself. Remember also that UK unis do much less in the way of continuous assessment than US unis. It varies by module/course/uni, but is not uncommon for your entire final mark for a module to be based on the final assessment (exam/project), even if there are assignments during the course.

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@collegemom3717 I appreciate your insight on how UK schools do their evaluations and I will definitely be drilling my programming languages regardless of where I get in. Thanks!