Considering UK schools

Student Lounge International Students
1

<p>Hey </p>

<p>I am an international student living in the US (for a pretty long time).
I fear that it may be a distinct possibility that I have been rejected/waitlisted from everywhere except my safety school.
I attribute this probably to my international status, applying for FA, and my not-so-spectacular extracurriculars.
As of right now (I don't know senior S-II grades yet of course), I have 4.0 UW, 4.5 W, and am a IB diploma candidate. My SATI is 2300+ combined and middle between 2250 and 2300 uncombined and my ACT is 35. My SATII is 3090 (800 + 790 + 780 + 720). To be honest, I kinda don't have much confidence about getting all 7s on my IB exams (I can try tho lol).
Currently, I'm thinking about Imperial, Durham, and Warwick, mostly because Oxbridge "just feels" unlikely.
Anyway, I think I will deposit to my safety for now but plan to apply to UK schools as a first-year student in the coming fall.
What steps should I take to do so and what level of school should I be reasonably expecting?
I mean I can find the obvious steps on the school website but stuff that's not on it, I would love to know.
I hear that awards, medals, and extracurriculars aren't that important for UK schools. Is that true?
Also is St. Andrews overrated? I mean it's ranked pretty high but I have been hearing some rumors.
Oh also there is a problem: I want to study biochemstry related area but I don't have much tests or school courses on biology because US schools don't care about that. I think I'm in pretty deep kimchi but please someone help me arrggghghghg
Anyway yeah. Thanks.</p>

2

<p>Each UK school will have a set of entrance requirements * per major* (“course”); the minimum number for consideration will be listed for various diplomas, including IB. If you have 36+ you can pretty much apply anywhere you want. Most selective programs will have a threshold of 27, meaning most admitted students have more. being about 6 points above the threshold basically makes the course a safety.
Don’t think of universities globally, but subject by subject. You won’t have electives or gen eds, and all your classes will be prescribed (or almost all) so you should go online and look under each course what the required classes are. ie., if you want to major in English, is Latin required? Old English? Middle English? Another foreign language? what emphasis on specific genres? Periods?
You’ll be able to choose 5 courses, total, (either in the same uni, or in 2 or 3 or 4, or in 5 universities.)</p>