On a UK board, someone said Johns Hopkins was about the equivalent of Imperial, which I understand is just below Oxbridge and LSE. I would infer then that top 30 or maybe top 50 US schools would be about equivalent to Imperial, Durham, or St. Andrews. Obviously, UK admissions is by department, and probably medicine, law, STEM, and so on are more competitive. However, I was wondering if like a #12 UK university would be significantly less competitive than close to Ivy-level US universities and LACs.
What do you mean by competitive? International grad research rankings? How easy it is to get in as an undergrad?
I really think that you are comparing apples to oranges here. There is really no objective way to compare, say, Ivy League schools to Oxbridge or Russell Group to top 20 US News schools. Also, don’t forget that UCAS only allows you to apply to 5 schools and many UK high schools do not allow marginal students to apply to Oxbridge or certain programs.
I mean how easy it is to get in for undergraduate. Are Imperial, St. Andrews, Durham, maybe UCL and Warwick about equivalent to 20-50th rank US school in difficulty?
You need to look at each individual program on the Uni website which has the entry requirements that you need to achieve as a minimum to get accepted.
As londondad says, it’s really hard to compare directly, because they expect different attributes from applicants. You’re only allowed to apply to five universities in the UK, so fewer no-chance applications will go in.
Obviously it depends on the subject, but I think all the ones you’ve mentioned apart from St Andrew’s would expect three As at A level (5s at AP for US students) for some courses, and a mix of As and Bs (4s and 5s) for others, in relevant subjects. However, broadly speaking, if you’re a full-pay international, and meet that standard, you’ve got a pretty good shot everywhere but Oxbridge, for everything but medicine.
What subject are you interested in?
It depends on whether you are a full-pay international or Brit as well for the UK schools; whether you are in-state or not for American publics, and where you are from for the elite American privates.
And the criteria they look at are very different (beside’s maybe St. A’s for Americans, which may be a tiny bit holistic).
In short, it’s very tough to compare by entrance requirements.
Give a specific circumstance and it would be easier to say.
For an American, outside of Oxbridge and LSE, hitting the requirements for a subject and school likely would be enough. But there are relatively few Americans with 3-5 5’s in relevant/acceptable AP’s.
The sole criteria for admission into a UK school is academics, as such UK kids rank their schools in terms of entry tariff, the higher the tariff the more difficult the entry requirements. Oxbridge and Medicine are slightly different in that it will require an interview as well, although acceptance into a UK medical school for Americans is I believe is quite rare. Every UK school will tell you what is expected in terms of entry tariff for the country from which you are applying… In terms of the USA depending on the university and the subject you can expect to have 3-5 AP’s with mostly 5’s maybe the odd 4 for a less popular course, and for some universities at least 3 AP"s taken in the same year. Schools are also ranked in terms of subject, universities such as Manchester and Loughborough, although not in the top 10 overall, rank very highly in such things as engineering and so the entry requirements can still be quite stiff. Comparing US and UK schools is difficult because entry requirements into US schools are holistic, being an Olympic standard swimmer will work in your favour at Stanford but nowhere in the UK, plus UK schools tend to be much larger, St Andrews would be considered small by UK standards but still has around 8,000 students. Stick with entry tariff in terms of reputation and you will be fine, but in the UK take note, there is no hand holding its called reading for a degree for a reason, and expect a large proportion of your degree grade to rest upon final exams at the end of each year rather than continual assessment. Good luck.
@elguapo1, UK unis (all public) tend to be larger than most American privates but smaller than most American public flagships. OSU has 47K undergrads on their main Columbus campus, for instance. ASU has 67K undergrads.
Most are in the range of the smaller public flagships like UVa (15K undergrads) and UNC (18K) or bigger privates like Cornell (14K), BU (16K), USC (19K), and NYU (24K)
And to add to what @elguapo1 said, because the top American schools admit holistically while for full-pay Americans/non-EU Internationals, entry to any UK uni outside Oxbridge & LSE is much more cut-and-dry, if you are unhooked (and most people are; if you are a recruited athlete, legacy, or scion of someone globally rich/famous/powerful, you would know), entry in to a comparable American uni is typically tougher.
For instance, you could say that UCL and UMich are on the same level, but if you are a top student who is not a MI resident, entry in to UMich is tougher/less certain than getting in to UCL as a full-pay International.
Likewise (in part also because Imperial is much bigger), entry in to JHU/Caltech is tougher/more uncertain and entry in to MIT is much tougher/more uncertain than gaining a place at Imperial for someone unhooked. Caltech, BTW, does not take athletic prowess or race in to account (though Caltech is tiny). Neither Caltech nor MIT take alumni legacy in to account.