<p>I’d recommend going and having a look at The Student Room’s Edinburgh forum. </p>
<p>However, just to note what’s happening in Edinburgh tonight [Official</a> site for Edinburgh’s New Year celebrations, featuring event listings, and a gallery. Home<a href=“it’s%20world%20famous”>/url</a>. Seeing as you’re going to be studying in a capital city, the nightlife will be excellent - and the drinking age is 18, so you will be able to take full advantage of it. </p>
<p>You’ll find that people have three main sources of friends
halls of residence
course
societies
And, as time goes on, friends of friends. </p>
<p>If you want to spend every weekend traveling around Europe, you should consider a study abroad program (most of which involve almost no studying) rather than direct enrollment. Directly enrolled students will not for the most part spend every weekend traveling round a whole continent because
they don’t have the money
they are studying
they are not on vacation
they are visiting home/friends/family.</p>
<p>That’s not to say that some student societies don’t run trips. I was a member of the walking (hiking) society at Oxford and went on walking trips all over the UK. But that wasn’t the main reason for the existence of the society. Also, British people would probably find your request a bit weird. They would think you’re an adult, organise your own trip.</p>
<p>There’s a well developed public transport network in the UK. You can get pretty much anywhere you want (unless it’s seriously remote) by train. See [National</a> Rail Enquiries - Official source for UK train times and timetables](<a href=“http://www.nationalrail.co.uk%5DNational”>http://www.nationalrail.co.uk) By the time you’re 18 in the UK, you’re expected to be an adult and act like it - including shifting for yourself when it comes to holidays. By the time I was 19 (but only just!) I was on the opposite side of the world, travelling solo and independently (not with friends, and not with a tour company). This is considered fairly normal in the UK. </p>
<p>You can even get to Europe by train (via the Chunnel, as it’s affectionately known; an undersea train tunnel linking England and France), or you can fly by Ryanair / Easyjet for peanuts.</p>
<p>If you’re planning on coming from one semester only, and travelling is a priority, then I would suggest that you come for the second semester. That way, you’ll have the Easter holidays to travel (though you will have work to do then, so you won’t be able to travel for the whole time) and you can stay on for the summer much more easily. If you come in first semester, you’ll only get one week (reading week) in which to travel, and then you’ll be back home for xmas.</p>
<p>Remember that a Msci is the same as a Bachelors. The 4 ancient universities ( St. Andrews, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow) call their bachelors a masters as a way to stand apart from modern universities. It does not mean you get a masters when you graduate</p>
<p>The UCAS deadline (for Edinburgh and all universities) is January 15th. </p>
<p>Oregongirl14, that isn’t true. The MSci is an undergraduate master’s degree, it is a combined bachelors and a masters degree. You might be thinking of the ‘Scottish MA’ - the ancient Scottish universities award an MA instead of a BA, this is just a normal bachelors degree with a different name for obscure historical reasons. The (undergraduate) MA is only awarded to arts students, not science students and it is different from the MSci.</p>
<p>More specifically 6pm on January 15th, UK time. Miss this at your peril - and be aware that the UCAS website can have a nasty habit of freezing then, and you don’t want to have to deal with that, so get it in at least the day before.</p>
<p>All I know is when the admissions rep came to my school to talk to me he explained that you would see masters when you were looking at courses online and that it meant bachelors. </p>
<p>I’ve heard stories of people who thought they were getting a great deal because they were getting a masters degree instead of bachelors only to get there and find out that’s not true. So just make sure you know what program your applying to because I was told by the admissions guy that 4 years at Edinburgh = bachelors degree in the US.</p>
<p>MA (Hons) – undergraduate arts degree
BSc (Hons) – undergraduate science degree
MSci (Hons), MChem (Hons), MEng (Hons), MPhys (Hons) – five-year undergraduate masters degrees, these are ranked somewhere between a BSc and a MSc.</p>
<p>If you see (Hons) after the letters it is an undergraduate degree, if not it is a postgraduate degree.</p>
My daughter is a Junior who is very interested in attending the University of Edinburgh. we live in the US , however Im British and know how different the University experience is there compared to the US . She is looking to major in Biology /Premed - she has taken the SAT once 800R 650M 730W . I understand that the min for International is SAT 1800 , but does that still hold true for the Bio/Premed program ?
What are your experiences being an American student studying in the UK ? Do you feel you were prepared enough for the courseload and for the different teaching style ?
I’m a little confused about the cost. As an American student from a family who isn’t really wealthy, but would pay full tuition anywhere under 60k, Edinburgh seems like a steal compared to private American universities. Their tuition is roughly $18,000 and the room and board roughly $10,000 (I think, not certain on that). So where exactly is the ¨expensive¨ coming from? Am I reading the data wrong? Is it just so expensive to live in the city?
My daughter is graduating next month from Edinburgh. Yes, your calculations are roughly correct. It’s a steal. It’s not expensive. For the room and board, you get a private room ( my daughter had a private bath first year as well). But you are on your own for lunch, that’s not included in the r&b charges. But NYU wanted 15 k just for a shared room- no meals! Everyone at Edi moves “off campus” (not a phrase anyone there woul use, but you get my point) into flats with their mates after first year. The whole section of the city surrounding the university buildings are townhouses cut up into flats. Finding a place is really no problem. My daughter loves the place so much she won’t come home and is staying for her masters next year. It’s pretty equivalent of the educational level of a “lesser ivy” and it seems to me that it is much like univ of Pennsylvania. St. Andrews attracts more U.S. Students but is very remote, full of rich English Tory kids, ( who actually burned president Obama in effigy last year) and really isn’t as stimulating an intellectual environment overall as Edinburgh. In the UK, far more students seek entrance to Edinburgh than St Andrews ( and in fact Edinburgh gets way more applications than Oxford or Cambridge).
@gigglebot3, the cost is in pounds, not dollars (still may not be that expensive for some subjects compared to full-pay at an American private, but more than in-state tuition for an American).
@Edinfan, applicants may only apply to one of Oxbridge, not both, so that cuts down on the number of their apps, but yes, Edinburgh (like McGill, Toronto, Oxbridge, and a few others) is a pretty good deal if you are a full-pay American and don’t live in a state like CA/MI/VA/NC/TX/WI/MN (or some other states where your flagship is great in your major)
@Edinfan Thanks so much for that helpful comment! I was originally very interested in St. Andrews, but I’m looking more to Edinburgh because of the city setting and greater economic diversity. It’s also a plus that it’s cheaper! As a student who would hope to attend NYU or similar, this does seem like a more affordable option and overall better option, and I have a much better shot of even getting in. I’m so glad that your daughter loved it so much, I hope I can have a similar experience!
@PurpleTitan I had (incorrectly) tried to calculate the USD amount from the £15,580 tuition listed for international applicants. I converted incorrectly from Euros to USD, the actual amounts would be around $24,000 tuition, still a steal compared to 40-60k for most private American universities (Georgetown, NYU, etc.). The only cheaper option that I am considering is to stay in Indiana and attend Indiana University, for probably around 15k plus room/board, most likely less with scholarship likelihood.
@gigglebot3, though Edinburgh & St. Andrews (and McGill and Toronto) are also research-focused public universities and thus comparable to the better state schools in the US like UW-Madison/UNC/UCLA/UCSD (who’s OOS tuition is a little less than American privates as well). In fact, there’s probably even less hand-holding at those foreign schools than American state schools. Granted, arguably, NYU (a giant private) is similar to those state schools outside of its famous programs like Stern & Tisch but costs more. Tuition at Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and McGill actually depends a fair bit on major as well, and for some majors, OOS tuition at UW-Madison is comparable to those at those foreign unis. If you want an urban setting, UCLA and UCSD are also urban and very strong in some majors. Granted, IU is also strong in some areas.
@Edinfan, what the heck are you talking about? You didn’t realize that Edinburgh receives funding from Scotland/UK government entities and the structure of its governing body is set by Scottish law?
Why did you think they give Scottish students a tremendous discount compared to what non-EU foreigners pay?
St. Andrews is in the same situation as Edinburgh while Toronto and McGill are funded by Ontario and Quebec, respectively.
Most top universities outside the US are publics, BTW. Keio and Waseda are really the only prestigious non-American universities that come to mind who are private.
Hey, any current or past student know about catered accommodation at Edinburgh? I have a friends who attended last year as study abroad and said that he was offered 3 meals per day mon through sun. However, on the Edinburgh website it states that catering housing serves only breakfast and dinner. Do you know which is true? If only breakfast and dinner, where are students expected to get lunch? Thanks
Quick questions:
-Are Scottish universities four years (as opposed to three, like in England)?
-Where can I find info about on-campus employment? Is that even a thing in the UK?
-From what people have been saying here, American students have a pretty easy time of it as long as they meet (or can meet by the time they graduate) the minimum requirements - which seem surprisingly easy to fulfill (the vast majority of people that I know have 1800 SATs, and a 650 is not particularly high for an SAT II). This seems dissonant with the 10.4% admittance rate. Do the American students tend to drown, or fill out the bottom tiers of classes?