<p>If you do consider Britain, there is one important wrinkle that may come as a surprise. You may picture yourself in England, the most populous region of Great Britain that includes London as well as those fabled universities (Oxford and Cambridge). But here's the rub: The English have a different system of higher education than that of the U.S. that makes degree study impractical in many cases. In England, undergrad degrees are complemented in three years, not four, and students are generally assumed to have completed thirteen years of schooling rather than twelve. As a result, the most selective English universities are reluctant to admit American high school graduates- some refuse to admit any- and the students who do get in will find themselves thrust into a world more appropriate for juniors and seniors in college. </p>
<p>The most important difference across the pond: while American universities generally encourage students to sample a variety of fields before choosing a major, British institutions expect students to know their major before they set foot on campus, in part b/c British students take their general education courses in high school. As a result, college coursework focuses almost exclusively on the student's major field, and American-style distribution requirements are all but unheard of.</p>
<p>The University of Cambridge has been particularly blunt about "the possible mismatch between the broad liberal arts curriculum of the North American high school and the specialist emphasis of British degree courses." In a recent year, Cambridge accepted only three students from U.S. high schools. The University of Oxford does offer a glimmer of hope for a few superachievers; Oxford considers American students who graduate in the top 2% of their class, and in a recent year, they enrolled about thirty Americans. Even so, the odds of admission to Oxford are lower than at any college in the U.S., including Harvard. The vast majority of American undergrads at both Oxford and Cambridge are there for a second bachelor's degree after earning one from an American institution.</p>
<p>The answer? Look to Scotland, England's less populous neighbor, where universities offer four-year degrees that are much better suited to the needs of American high school graduates. Scotland, which was an independent nation until 1706, has an illustrious intellectual history and has produced the likes of David Hume, Adam Smith, Rudyard Kipling, and Robert Lewis Stevenson. </p>
<p>OP, you would be better served to look at a place like Scotland's University of St. Andrews, which has a decades-long history of catering to American undergrads. A less selective option is the University of Aberdeen, a Scottish university that has stepped up its North American recruitment efforts. Other good choices would be the University of Glasgow (Adam Smith's old haunt) and the University of Edinburgh.</p>