<p>Anyone familiar with this University? My son is looking into studying abroad for his junior year at Royal Holloway....</p>
<p>I have a friend who goes there and I've visited her a few times. Is there anything in particular you wanted to know?</p>
<p>Quality of academics- suburban or rural setting- they say it is close to london? Are they really considered top ten Great Britain?</p>
<p>The academic side of things is I think in general very rigorous, although I think more impressive in the humanities than sciences. In particular, English there is very reputable. Since it is part of the University of London, they can draw on the staff and resources of UCL, Kings, Queen Mary and the other perhaps more well known colleges of the University of London.
It is actually in Egham, in Surrey, which is very, very quiet and small - very much a campus university. It's really easy to get into London though, just under an hour by train but much faster if you drive.
I don't think overall you would describe them as Top Ten, but they definitely are for some (mainly humanities) subjects, which is obviously more of a concern in the UK system. The Guardian league table table can be found at -
<a href="http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide2005/table/0,,-5163901,00.html%5B/url%5D">http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide2005/table/0,,-5163901,00.html</a></p>
<p>Any other comments on Royal Hollway or the pros and cons to a year abroad?</p>
<p>I live pretty near and have a couple of close friends who live in Egham. Egham is pretty small and not really student orientated - everything that happens that would interest a student is going to be on campus. It's got quite a few international students (from what I hear), and is under an hour from London which is a fantastic culturally diverse city with plenty to do. It's also near to Heathrow which is handy for getting home by plane as there's plenty of bus services.</p>
<p>The thing about the University of London, is that in the UK nobody has really heard of it as a collective institution, but judges the colleges individually. Also, I think the international reputation of the UoL is better internationally than locally. I'd say that Royal Holloway is a respected university, not up there with UCL and LSE etc, but above, say Goldsmiths and on a par with QMUL. It's a university with slightly lower requirements that is still respected (pretty unusually) because UK students don't value it highly, although I don't know the reasons why. High demand for places tends to dictate A Level requirements.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Holloway%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Holloway</a></p>
<p>it's beautiful</p>
<p>Yes, the founders' building is. The rest of the campus doesn't quite live up to the same standards unfortunately :(.</p>