<p>I'm an American college student looking to potentially apply to some British unis. I don't know too much though and am searching for more info.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What is the Russell Group? I've heard it is comparable to the Ivy league, but there are far more Russells than Ivies. Are these the best schools in Britain? How would you rank them (both in terms of academics and admissions)?</p></li>
<li><p>What is the application process like for American? What do British schools look for? Would being a college student as opposed to fresh out of high school boost my chances?</p></li>
<li><p>Here are some schools that I have particular interest in:</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Glasgow
Edinburgh
St Andrews
Warwick
LSE
UCL</p>
<p>What are these schools like? How would you rank them (academics/admissions)?</p>
<p>I am going to guess that nobody will answer you because you are asking questions that can be answered in less than a minute by using a search engine.</p>
<p>@immasenior lol, maybe you are right. I was hoping more for opinions from actual students who might provide me with more insight than a bland “Top 10 British Unis” list :(</p>
<p>But why would students attending British universities be on CC? You might try the International Students forum in hopes of finding someone who can offer some thoughts.</p>
<p>Most enquiries about UK colleges are in the UK subforum in the International section.</p>
<p>The Russell Group are the top research universities. Technically it’s more relevant for postgrad and postdoctoral purposes, but they do broadly correlate with the more ‘prestigious’/‘better’ universities for undergraduates as well, although much depends on the subject you want to study - there are spots of excellence elsewhere.</p>
<p>A lot of UK colleges will prefer you to have done a year of US college first, particularly as you only have one AP, which is the closest equivalent to the A level qualifications English 18 year olds will have (they are expected to have three in subjects closely allied to the subject to be studied at university). You’ll need to look at the specific requirements of each individual university, and within that, the course you want to apply for, for admission.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The Russel Group isn’t anything similar to the Ivy League. It isn’t a sports league and it is just new. It wasn’t even there when I was attending university in the UK.</p></li>
<li><p>They’d mostly look at achievement papers or records showing your academic strength, almost particularly in the area where you’d like to major in. I’m not sure what they’re looking for now for American students but I think SAT 2 would help them determine your intellectual capability as an applicant coming from the US. (I took the IB way back my time and I needed to score 36 to get into Cambridge.)</p></li>
<li><p>They’re some of the top 5 unis in the UK, after Oxbridge. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Please take note that in the UK, you are only allowed to apply to 5 unis, maximum. So, it would be prudent for you to select 5 unis having dissimilar level of selectivity – that is for your own good. You need to have a sort of a fallback uni, and not one of the uni in your list can be considered a “fallback” uni. </p>
<p>
What academic area would you be interested in? Generally, however, I think those 5 unis are all very competitive, very selective and very prestigious in the UK and Europe. You’ll be fine attending at either uni. Personally, however, I’d rank them this way, if we have to split hairs here:</p>
<p>LSE, Warwick, UCL
Edinburgh, St Andrews, (Durham, Bristol)
Glasgow, (King’s, Notts, Bath and the like)</p>
<p>You can only apply to 5 universities and programs, TOTAL. So if you apply to 3 different courses (majors), you only have 2 slots left open.
You can always add NCH which is linked to UCL and interdisciplinary ( £18k tuition though - there are scholarships fortunately.) NCH doesn’t count as the 5 you upload on UCAS.</p>