<p>jwagner,
If there is no substantial difference in personnel, methodology, and data, between the Times 2007 university tables and the Good University Guide for 2007, please explain why the Times ranks St. Andrews as joint eighteenth, and the 2007 Good University Guide ranks it as fourth? If it is perhaps that the Times' set of figures applies to 2006 and the new Good University Guide to 2007, then that's a very big difference in a crowded and unforgiving field. I read the trade UK higher education press every week, and this putative and meteoric rise seems to have escaped notice all year.</p>
<p>Here's the link again for you:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/displayPopup/0,,102571,00.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/displayPopup/0,,102571,00.html</a></p>
<p>If you can't explain this, then I really should assume your post is waffle, and that you're oversensitive about the status of a university you attended. On fora like this you may encounter posters with some inside knowledge who are more likely to challenge the claims St. Andrews makes for itself and are less likely to accept the anodyne gloss presented to the American market. British university education is expensive and many young and impressionable students incur lasting debt pursuing it. It's entirely appropriate in a mass forum to question, examine, and debate matters such as reputation and content.</p>
<p>You're making a mistake in trying to approximate a British higher education institution to a particularly American institution, the LAC. A parallel institution doesn't exist in the UK, and I'm guessing that St. Andrews doesn't aspire to this categorisation, even for the American market. As to its admissions, read my post and noct's post carefully- it's easy FOR AMERICANS-the University has built up a reputation among and a relationship with Americans and wants to keep that going, not least for financial reasons.</p>
<p>With respect to Upsilamba, becoming fluent in a second or third modern foreign language will be difficult without a very substantial period of time spent in the country in which the language is spoken- that's why all UK degrees with a language component require a language year abroad. That's also why EC programs like Socrates/Erasmus were set up. Working on a language in evening classes in the absence of lectures, seminars, or departmental support just isn't the same thing, more so because the student is already working on a demanding degree. It's entirely possible to beaver away independently and at the end of a few years have a decent working knowledge of a language, but it's not the same thing as fluency and it's not a minor detail. Consider the competition for jobs in IR and related fields: many candidates, who come from all over the world, offer functional bilingualism as a minimum.</p>
<p>King's has good, and some excellent, languages departments. I don't know if War Studies is offered with German.</p>
<p>As to the LSE, you don't seem to realise how difficult it is to be admitted to the LSE as a degree, as opposed to an affiliate, undergraduate. Upsilamba is not minimally qualified for admission, and s/he will not get an offer at this point. After a year of college in the US s/he has a chance of admission to the first year of an LSE degree program. The LSE stress that the minimum qualifications published on its website really are minimums; they are also famous for meaning what they say and for not negotiating; they don't need to. Perhaps your experiences were from some years ago because a supple undergraduate admissions climate certainly doesn't exist there now. Your claim that Upsilamba as an overseas fee paying applicant will receive special consideration doesn't wash either. The LSE is flooded with overseas fee paying undergraduate applicants, including many from Asia, who are very well qualified indeed. Beyond the financial considerations, the LSE wants, in fairness, to admit students who will be able to cope academically and that is why they specify minimal requirements. Upsilamba may well be admitted in the future and should by all means try, but not with the qualifications detailed here.</p>
<p>Did you earn a degree at St. Andrews? In practice, graduate students can use libraries, and to some extent other facilities, at other universities, particularly at copyright libraries, like Cambridge, and at those with specialist and large collections. Usually your department at your home university writes you a letter and that will give you access. In the UK, 'doing research' is often taken to mean 'doing a research degree' at X university. Are you claiming to have done a research degree at Cambridge, at the LSE, at Aberystwyth, and at KCL as well, or did you use their facilities for your work, and that's why you claim to have 'conducted research'?</p>