Americans at European Universities?

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>Hi debater09,</p>

<p>Glad to help. Good for you for trying something different. I'm binational (US/UK) and an undergraduate at University College London. I went to school in DC from the second grade through high school. I'm assuming that you want to do a full undergraduate degree- B.A., B.Sc., B.Eng. etc. as opposed to a year or semester abroad. If so, here are a few points which a cursory glance tells me may need addressing. For London, you'll have to state which London University you want to apply to. The big names are (for multifaculty universities) University College London and King's College, London; for more specialized universities, the LSE (economics and social sciences) and Imperial College (sciences, technology, and medicine). There are other UoL colleges which you may like also, browse for yourself. UCL and KCL each have about 18,000-20,000 students each, BTW. All, with the exception of Imperial, are member universities of the federal University of London. Go on to the main UoL website and start reading- note that quite a few on their list are graduate only institutions (not the ones mentioned above though).</p>

<p>University</a> of London: home</p>

<p>Imperial split off from the UoL last year</p>

<p>Imperial</a> College London</p>

<p>Pack in as many AP exams as you can, at grade 5 if you can, unless you are doing an IB, which is easily transferable. All of these London Universities are very competitive; King's College, London is the least competitive of those I mention.</p>

<p>When you do your UCAS personal statement, spend a great deal of time thinking it over, making it perfect, going back and making it more perfect- you are allowed 4,000 characters only and make every character count. This is the only opportunity applicants have to present themselves as individuals, outside of interview, which you may well not be expected to go to. The rest of the app is your statistics, and the reference from a teacher, which you don't see. </p>

<p>Skip the ECAs, except for perhaps your very best, which ideally should be related in some way to the field you propose to study. You won't have the space and they are considered marginal factors in UK undergraduate admissions. I put down a volunteer summer internship.</p>

<p>More...</p>

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<p>debater09 and Mr. Bobo, as someone else in this thread notes, you don't have to fly over for interviews. </p>

<p>Oxford Homepage</a> - University of Oxford</p>

<p>and Cambridge <a href="http://www.cam.ac.uk%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cam.ac.uk&lt;/a> will offer you interviews in a North American city, New York at present.</p>

<p>Others may well require a telephone interview- mine was at 5 am by phone, very early, but at least I got to wear pyjamas.</p>

<p>That said, if you want to visit, contact various departments and speak informally to an admissions tutor, you can do that. Give them plenty of notice, make sure it's in the fall and in term time (end September- mid December). Fares are very cheap after mid October. Could be interesting and can't hurt your app, but it's not necessary and not doing it won't prejudice your chances of admission.</p>

<p>More...</p>

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<p>gprime- that's not true of any of the universities debater09 mentions here. Places at her choices are limited, and there are many more overseas applicants from all over the world with fees and stellar records in hand than there are places for. If you search through her universities' statistics pages, you will see that admissions statistics are no lower for international degree candidates than for UK candidates. For visiting students on a semester abroad or a year abroad, it might be easier, but then UCL and the others are not awarding them a degree, and the visiting students are not sitting the regular exams, etc. </p>

<p>debater09- for the Republic of Ireland and for France, you have to write the university in which you are interested and ask about application procedures. AFAIK it's unlikely that you will be considered for the Sorbonne, except possibly as a visiting student- Continental universities accept many thousands of visiting students, but almost all of them are visiting as part of the European Commision's Socrates/Erasmus program, a vast program designed to foster mobility in higher education. All EU countries are involved in this, but you wiould need to be a citizen of a member state to participate in Erasmus/Socrates. </p>

<p>EUROPA</a> - Education and Training - EUROPA - Education and training: home page</p>

<p>BTW you will need to be fluent in French.</p>

<p>You might look at the American University in Paris, but it's not part of the French system- it is what it says on the label, and "American University" comes first, then secondly, "Paris". Also, UK universities are expensive, particularly for the sciences (yes they do have differential fees, unfortunately) but AUP is expensive out the wazoo.</p>

<p>Welcome</a> to The American University of Paris</p>

<p>Finally, for fees: as an international undergraduate, you won't be eligible for scholarship money. Stafford loans are transferable, and you will be entitled to work up to 20 hours per week in the UK if you are a full time student there for at least six months; you will also be eligible for free treatment and heavily subsidized pharmaceuticals under the UK National Health Service if you are a full time student for more than six months. Here's a link from my university's tuition and fees page so that you may see an example- also note the differential fees Arts and Humanities, Sciences and Englineering, Architecture, Medicine, etc.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/current-students/tuition-fees/ug-fees/ug-fees2008/index.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ucl.ac.uk/current-students/tuition-fees/ug-fees/ug-fees2008/index.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I hope these posts have been in the "helpful" category and not in the "snide yet slightly aggrieved because of the parlous state of the world economy and the decline of the relative position of the United States" category.</p>

<p>Please PM me or post here if you have any more questions. I love going to uni in London and I love UCL.</p>

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<p>^ They are very expensive but they are only 3 years (in England not Scotland) and they are usually a little bit cheaper than many private universities in the states (NYU, BU, etc.) BUT they don't exactly offer "financial aid" so keep that in mind. </p>

<p>For example at NYU you'd be paying 47,000 for room and tuition yearly for 4 years without financial aid. At UCL you'd pay around 20,000 pounds (almost $40,000) for three years without aid.</p>

<p>So if you don't need financial aid then UK unis are actually cheaper $120,000 versus $180,000-190,000 on just room and board, that doesnt include books or any other fees.</p>

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<p>On a serious note, I was considering this until I talked to a European woman about applying to foreign universities. She told me that that would be ridiculous, considering our university system is by far the best in the world and, in fact, she moved here to study at an American university. Just food for thought.</p>

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<p>Just one opinion.</p>

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<p>I really find this type of thing interesting to learn about. Why can you only apply to Oxford or Cambridge?</p>

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<p>That is the rule of the UCAS process, which applies to all undergraduate degree admissions for UK universities. I suppose because many kids would try to apply for both, and swamp their admissions process, which is very labor intensive and includes an interview with an academic. The interview is taken seriously and is an increasingly important factor in Oxbridge admissions.</p>