My daughter rising Senior has researched many schools in US and abroad and loves King’s College. She plans to study English and Literature. She met with a rep here in the US who said if you have the scores listed on the KCL web and have a good personal statement you have a good chance at an offer. My concern is the web site states they accept 13%.
Weighted GPA 4.61
AP’s 5,5,4…Taking 4 more AP classes next year.
ACT 30
Subject tests pending this week…Anyone with any KCL insight would be appreciated.
If she meets the required scores, she is very likely in at KCL.
Even for Brits, the acceptance rate at KCL is nowhere near that low.
What you are seeing is likely not the acceptance rate. Many UK unis list the ratio of applicants to spots, but outside of Oxbridge (and LSE/Imperial/UCL/Edinburgh/St. A’s + some courses that are highly ranked at other unis to some extent), yield tends to be quite low for UK unis (because few people judge a school by it’s acceptance rate over in the UK, unlike here, so there are no yield protection games).
Can you point us to the web page you looked at?
Agreeing with @PurpleTitan: if she has the required scores, and writes a decent PS she is pretty much in. They love full pay international students. She should spend some time researching the PS- it is really, really different than a US essay. She will be making the case that she is a good candidate for the course(s) she is applying to, not that she is a good person. If she is applying to both English & Comp Lit she will want to read both descriptions carefully and write an essay that will link to both courses (and any others she is applying to).
GPA (weighted or not) won’t matter. Duplicate tests won’t count (eg, AP OR Subject test). She should have Lit & Lang & another essay-based exam (eg, a history).
@2boysandandagull, the 13% you are seeing is actually the “acceptance/enrolment rate”, this is a bit different from the enrolment rate (i.e. yield) OR acceptance/offer rate (i.e. selectivity) of US universities.
(A) Enrolment/Yield rate in the US is calculated as a percentage of those getting and accepting an offer, who then enrol. That is:
No of students enrolling/No of students made an offer and accepted
The US enrolment/yield rate factors in:
- only those made an offer and accepted it.
(B) Acceptance/Offer rate in the US is calculated as a percentage of those made an offer out of all applicants. That is:
No of students made an offer/Total number of applicants
The US acceptance/offer rate factors in:
- only those made an offer.
© The UK Acceptance/Enrolment rate calculation is calculated as a percentage of those applying, who then accept and enrol. That is:
No of students enrolling/Total number of applicants
So as you can see, the UK acceptance rate factors in:
- those that were not made an offer but applied
- those that were made an offer but decided to choose other institutions as their firm and insurance acceptance
- those that were made an offer and accepted the offer.
In the UK, here are some of the figures for acceptance/enrolment rates:
Oxford 18%
Cambridge 22%
LSE 7.2%
Edinburgh 10.3%
KCL 13%
Warwick 14.8%
Imperial 15.2%
Durham 16.3%
You should take note that Oxford and Cambridge have such high rates because, out of capability realism of applicants and self-selection, the total number of applicants to these two universities would be comparatively lower than the next tier of top universities, hence the two would automatically be dividing with a smaller denominator. So it does not mean Durham or the others are more selective than Oxbridge.
^ Well, and no one can apply to both of Oxbridge.
Here are the overall acceptance rates for Brits:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/10/19/which-elite-universities-have-the-highest-offer-rates/
Other than Oxbridge (and maybe LSE), it would be even easier for full-pay internationals.
As usual and expected, the Golden Triangle plus Edinburgh are topping the list.
No idea where Google gets their statistics from but King’s acceptance rate is significantly higher.
Have look at their Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_College_London#Admissions, it has stats on offer rates and the average entry tariff of their students for the past 5 years. Notice how they have been enrolling more and more students every year at the expense of dumbing down the average entry tariff of new students.
UK higher education is currently going through marketisation and universities, with the exception of Oxbridge and maybe LSE and Imperial, are desperate to enrol more students to satisfy annual accounts in a period of intense austerity (pretty much all British universities are national i.e. supported by the UK govt.).
Your kid will get in, especially since they’ll be paying international tuition fees.
Regarding @LutherVan 's point, acceptance rate in the US is offer rate in the UK. Very few universities have offer rates in the 50% region or below… think Oxbridge, LSE, St Andrews, Edinburgh, and Imperial and that’s it.
I wouldn’t worry about the statistics, in my experience of UK unis it tends to be more based on personal statement and interview - are you a ‘good fit’ for the uni? I know people with lower grades who’ve got into Oxbridge and higher grades who’ve been rejected.
Engage with KCL - what is it about that specific college that your daughter likes? Is it course, location etc (these are more of a big deal with London colleges than you might realise - most colleges are in Bloomsbury, but KCL is on the Strand which is a short half hour walk away but means there’s a different atmosphere. It’s near art galleries, Covent Garden and has some amazing underground excavation of the old city wall and I think some Viking remains). Find out about the student culture at KCL - how will your daughter fit in? What kind of Halls does she want to be in?
I would also say there’s a fairly high rate of international acceptance - echoing @PurpleTitan, you’re going to be full-pay, and the British system (particularly in London, where the buildings are expensive!) is in need of cash injections at the moment.
I’m a student in London at the moment (at a different college), so if you have any questions let me know 
Just want to counter @flamingohair 's point, with the exception of Oxbridge, UK schools do not interview their applicants. This is especially true as your kid will be applying for English Literature.
The personal statement matters less and less as schools prioritize tuition fees - standardized test scores and the ability to be a full-pay student matters far more.
My daughter met with the chemistry professor who read her application and who will be her advisor at St Andrews. I don’t know if it was an interview per as but she was accepted shortly after that meeting. Ditto at Durham. They had read her personal statememt and had specific questions.
I was interviewed for my university and got in despite a C at A-Level in my field, which is English Lit