Confused American wants to apply to Scottish University

Student Lounge International Students
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<p>Hi, as indicated by the thread title, I am an American student hoping to apply to a Scottish university. Specifically, the University of Edinburgh. As much as I have devoured the university's website and the internet, I am still seriously confused about the application process for Edinburgh, as it is radically different from the US application/college system. </p>

<p>The UCAS:
UE (Uni. of Edinburgh) requires students to apply through UCAS. From what I've read, UCAS lets you apply to five different universities. Within each university, you may select up to five "courses". And that's where I start to become confused. (1) What exactly is a course? UE's Guide to Undergraduate Study for American applicants makes it seem like the classes you take each year. (2) So then, when you apply for up to five courses per uni. on UCAS, are you really just selecting (or I guess applying for) your schedule? Wouldn't it make more sense to at lease apply to five different colleges/programmes within a university, rather than specific courses? (3) How many courses will a university accept from the ones you list on UCAS? (4) If you are not accepted for all of your courses, but are accepted to the university and thus accepted to at least one of your courses, can you never take that course once you get to university? (5) If you get in to UE, can you take courses for which you did not apply on your UCAS?</p>

<p>The personal statement (UCAS):
UCAS's guide to the personal statement directs you to discuss your knowledge of the courses for which you are applying. (5) Are you seriously expected to do that for five different courses (even if they are similar)? (6) And how exactly does one go about discussing one's knowledge of the course? E.g. I'm interested in international relations, and would put that down for a course. Does that mean that in my personal statement I list facts about current affairs and my opinions on them?? (7) In the US, we don't take exams like A-Levels, and aren't expected to know what we want to do with our lives before college. So there's no specialization pre university. I really have no knowledge of international affairs (which is partly why I would be taking the course - to learn about it), so I don't see how I would show my knowledge of it.</p>

<p>Majoring: (this section is probably only answerable for Edinburgh people)
How does this work? If someone could go through it year by year, that would be awesome. It seems like you enter uni. knowing what you want to do, maybe not specifically, but the general area of study. So your first year you take a class (course??) in whatever that is (I'll use int. rel. as an example), international relations, along with other courses. Do you really only take 2-4 per year? That sounds like a very small amount. But say I wanted to take a business course too, or even a language class. (1) Could I not take the class (course?) because business or language are not directly related to international relations? (2) Or, could I only take a business class, or a language class, or whatever (science, math, anything) IF the course was, like int. rel. is, part of a school which was in the same college (UE's college of Humanities and Social Sciences) as international relations is? Sorry, the short version of that question is: In addition to taking international relations every year, do the other courses I take have to be part of the same college as the one international relations is a part of? Or, do they have to go even more specific, and be a part of the same school? (So I could only take courses in the school of Social and Political Science) (3) Outside courses? </p>

<p>Basically, I'd like to major in international relations, but also to take courses in subjects within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Is that possible?</p>

<p>So, as you can see, I have absolutely no idea about what's going on. Please, if anyone can clear any of my questions up, or just explain things, it would be much appreciated. Sorry for the message length.</p>

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<p>Full marks for trying to figure it out! It is not quite as confusing as it seems- just a few pieces should make it all fall into place.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>In the UK you do not have a major, you have a subject or course and you study that - and only that- for your entire undergraduate career. The course description lays out your options pretty comprehensively
(here:[Programme</a> Structure - Undergraduate Study - School of Social and Political Science](<a href=“http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/undergrad/prospective_students/programmes/politics/programme_structure]Programme”>http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/undergrad/prospective_students/programmes/politics/programme_structure)).
In IR you can usually add a language and there are ‘double honours’ courses, such as IR with Law or Business with French, but this is a key difference between university in the US and the UK. It is important to get your head around this, as it shapes everything else. </p></li>
<li><p>You can apply to up to 5 subjects, or courses, <em>total</em> through UCAS. So, I know somebody who applied to History & Politics at Oxford, International Relations at LSE and International Relations with Law at Edinburgh. Each course has it’s own UCAS code, and these are what you put down on UCAS. </p></li>
<li><p>You can see what the requirements are for admissions for each course here: </p></li>
</ol>

<p><a href=“http://www.ed.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.114789!/fileManager/Undergrad-prospectus-2014-entry.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ed.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.114789!/fileManager/Undergrad-prospectus-2014-entry.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Edinburgh is mercifully straightforward: if you have the required marks, a decent recommendation and a decent personal statement, your chances of getting an offer are very strong. For IR, the requirement is 3 "A"s at A level, which for a US student means 5s on 3 APs, or strong 700s on SAT IIs. They do not specify which APs, but any combo of World History, US Gov, Comp Gov, Macro/Micro Econ, Euro or US History, English Lang/Lit, etc would be useful. </p>

<p>4) You write one personal statement, and submit one recommendation (and pay one fee), and it all goes to all of the courses to which you are applying. Your personal statement is a statement about why you want to study that field, why you are well suited to the subject and ideally demonstrating that this is a substantial and continuing interest through activities outside of the classroom. So, you could link a Model UN or JSA experience to a world event to a book you read, which all come together in an interest in IR. Note that ECs that are not relevant to your subject are not relevant to the application. The art of the PS is to write one that can apply to all of the courses to which you are applying- and if you have trouble finding a commonality, that is a red flag.</p>

<p>5) Edinburgh does international applications on a rolling basis, so you will know very quickly if you have an offer- and whether or not it is conditional. You have a set amount of time after your last response to confirm your place. Note that the vast majority of UK students are given offers that are conditional on the results of their A level exams. They take their A levels in June and get the results in August. Assuming you applied to more than one course, after you have all your responses you can ‘firm’ one and ‘insure’ one. Typically you ‘insure’ a course that has either given you an unconditional offer, or an offer that you are very confident that you can meet, and ‘firm’ the one you are hoping for. If you do not have enough (or strong enough, or enough that are considered relevant) APs, you could get an offer conditional on the APs that you are taking at the end of senior year.</p>

<p>Hope that helps :-)</p>

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<p>That’s exactly what I wanted to know, thank you so much!</p>

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<p>The simple way to say this is when a Brit says “course” they mean roughly what an American would call a “major”.</p>

<p>(What an American would call a “course” the Brits these days call a “module”)</p>