My son is trying to decide between the two. He loves St. Andrews (connected with people, town, spirit of the school) but is concerned about the limited breadth of courses (economics) and job/internships prospects in the US (he is American). Santa Clara University is in Silicon Valley and companies seem to actively recruit students and graduates of the school. Also can anyone comment on how easy it would be to transfer from St. Andrews into an American University if need be? Many thanks.
St Andrews is very well known in the US and would have relative flexibility in course choices. The environment would be very different - climate, classmates, international prestige v. Silicon valley recognition…
Transferring would not be a big problem but be aware transfers get lousy aid (if you can’t afford to be full pay).
1 Like
Thanks for your response!
I can’t really compare the two (don’t know about St. Andrews) but I have one at SCU if you have any questions. Feel free to ask anything or PM me if you want. Mine is CSE - computer science engineering.
Thanks for the offer to answer questions about SCU. It seems like such a great school with rigorous application requirements, high GPA’s. Why are acceptance rates so high then? And why the yield so low? It is not a well-known school in the eastern US and college counselors don’t know much about the school. It seems to attract mostly California applicants. Any additional information or perception would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
It’s acceptence rates are high because of low yield. And it self selects a fairly qualified group who want the catholic traditions. Especially with all of the uc competition. Not surprising it’s yield is lower. Imho. It’s a beautiful place and in the heartland of tech. I would go there and try to kill it. Only concerns with St. Andrews is if you decide to move on to medical school it would be a challenge. And if you think Portland is cool and rainy. You haven’t seen anything yet when you are talking about Scotland. It’s further north than Maine. But great golf!
One reason the yield is so low is that they have terrible financial aid. They were ranked bottom 5 in financial aid for families that make less than $30,000 or less and really low for families that make $50,000 or less. They fund a few students but mostly like families who could be full pay and would be happy with a small merit scholarship, or can be full pay and are content with its reputation in the Silicon Valley.
It IS an excellent school, CS is absolutely topnotch.
@MYOS1634 100%
Santa Clara always had the reputation for being the backup feeder school for Silicon Valley private school kids who couldn’t get into the top tier schools, so that is probably why they have poor financial aid. At least that was the reputation of the school back in the 80s when I attended there. I’m guessing there’s probably still some truth to that at the undergraduate level.
While that was the old rep, it is 30 years later and SCU is not what it use to be. Comp sci and engineering, business and law (grad) are fantastic there. Those getting in CS and engineering have extremely high stats and some are turning down top tier schools for the programs, connections and location of SCU. The LA majors have the benefit of strong relationships with profs. People in SV use to dismiss it because it was in their backyard, now they know it is a gem. An acquaintance of ours use to bad mouth it all over town, called it high school 2 thinking it was just soooo beneath them when their kids were applying to college (typical Norcal attitude and snobbery), had to laugh out loud when I saw their D transferred to SCU for engineering last year.
SCU’s financial aid isn’t great, for the simple reason that their endowment isn’t great. Their 2017 endowment number was $906 million. Assuming an enrollment of about 9000, that’s an endowment per student value of around $100,000.
For comparison, Stanford has an endowment per student of around $1.5 million. Schools like Caltech or Pomona College are also above the $1 million per student level. They are wealthier than SCU by more than an order of magnitude.
However, SCU has one trump card when it comes to financial aid: they are willing to offer it to out-of-state applicants. So even if their aid isn’t great, SCU is likely to be a better deal for an out-of-stater than a UC campus, which will charge equally high out-of-state tuition with zero financial aid. SCU is on the verge of drawing most of its students from outside California for this reason.
It turns out that there are a lot of highly qualified out-of-staters who would like to study engineering or CS in Silicon Valley, and who would like some financial aid. Sure, Stanford is probably their first choice, but given the microscopically low acceptance rate there, SCU is an attractive alternative.
SCU’s name recognition is hindered by one key factor: in the US News & World Report ranking, they are classified as a “Regional University”, rather than a “National University”. Students who are researching colleges outside of their home turf typically focus on the “National” ranking.
Why is SCU in the “Regional” ranking? USN&WR follows the Carnegie Classification, which in turn reflects the number of research doctorates. SCU doesn’t issue enough PhDs. They are expanding their PhD programs, so this may change in the future. One of the top California public universities, Cal Poly, is also considered a “Regional” university for this reason, although in practice California students commonly regard Cal Poly as an alternative to mid-tier UC campuses. (Incidentally, SCU is ranked higher than Cal Poly in the USN&WR Regional ranking).
SCU has a low yield because it doesn’t have enough wealth to compete with the low in-state tuition offered by the UCs. For most California residents, the UCs are going to be a better deal financially. For most out-of-staters, however, SCU will be the better deal. SCU’s yield would be higher if you looked exclusively at out-of-state applicants.
Hi I just saw this. I have a son at each Santa Clara and St. Andrews and can really speak to their differences. I wish I had seen it earlier to speak to you. Please pm me any questions but for now I am curious which school did he pick?
@gsr145 let me know if you have questions about either school.
@college curious
Can you lay out the differences or comparison for the benefit of the greater cc world.
I, for one, would be very interested to hear your thoughts.
Ok I will try: Academically both schools in our experience require independent proactive students. When we looked at Santa Clara they made it seem much more hand holding to it’s students. For example that a teacher would reach out if you missed class, but that has not been my son’s experience. St. Andrews you only take 3 classes a semester for a total of 6 classes all year. Santa Clara you take 4 classes a quarter for a total of 12 a year. St. Andrews they are big lecture classes with weekly very small tutorials. Santa Clara more of my son’s classes are smaller as in 20-30 students range. Santa Clara has core classes you must take in different areas no matter what your major. St. Andrews you take classes in your major and 2 other areas of interest the first couple of years with the other two areas being quite flexible. The last 2 years you focus on your degree which is usually either one subject or a joint degree which is two subjects.
As far as student life. There is no real town of Santa Clara but just a few stores. San Jose is close but not right there. St Andrews though a very small town has 60 bars and restaurants all right there. Both are an hour from major cities, Edinburgh and San Fran. St. Andrews has a very sophisticated social life. LOTs of parties, black ties, a couple of local nightclubs and a very party oriented active student union. It is a BIG drinking school. Drinking is legal at 18. My son has seen lots of pot smoking but no real other drugs. Santa Clara is more beer drinking solo cup house parties. Also more outdoor activities and sports which makes sense given the weather. Also lots of drinking but my son there has seen more drugs than just pot. Also FWIW and of course only my personal observation from talking to my son and friends but seems like a lot of kids on prescription meds. Both schools have a lot of wealthy kids but also a good mix of kids. Santa Clara many more West Coast kids. St Andrews way more international, with about half the kids from the UK, 12-14% American and the rest from all over the world. Santa Clara has about 6% international students.
Both Campuses are very beautiful and very different. Santa Clara is very modern. St. Andrews is very old and often feels to me more like a school from when I went to college in the late 80s. Interestingly enough we live on the East Coast and St. Andrews is more well known here than Santa Clara. As far as internships and jobs, Santa Clara does a great job helping kids on the West Coast but needs lots of work still on this coast. St. Andrews held a networking event in NYC over Winter Break at one of the big investment banks and brought in people from lots of different industries. Santa Clara is like it’s location more Silicon Valley and St. Andrews more traditional. If you are studying business per se one is tech and the other investment banking. St. Andrews has a lot of entrepreneurship happening but it is not like Santa Clara where start ups are a part of daily life.
My son at St. Andrews travels a lot on longer school breaks but not so much on weekends as he does not want to miss any of the fun on campus. My son at Santa Clara often travels on weekends and comes home for longer school breaks. As I said they are very different cultures. Santa Clara is not that old and St. Andrews is 600 yeasr old and has tons of great traditions that come with that.
My son at St. Andrews gets a little dressed on a daily basis. More polos and nice button downs. My California boy is all t-shirts and what have you. They are totally different cultures and each of my boys really likes his school. I think my California son wishes Santa Clara had more cool coffee shops, restaurants etc right there but otherwise he likes the school. I think Santa Clara needs to do a better job of creating more interesting social activities. My son at St. Andrews does not just like his school, he is over the moon in love with it. He and all of his friends are counting down the days to return.
@privatebanker that is my first pass. Please ask any question as I could literally keep going on the differences for another 20 pages.
Oh and and on the money side St. Andrews costs almost half to attend given the current exchange rates of what Santa Clara costs. SCU about $67000 a year and St. Andrews about $37500.
As a UStA alum, St. Andrews has more pubs per capita than any other town or city in all of Europe.
Thank you. Good analysis
great analysis of StA. My daughter graduated last year and she loved her four years there - academically, socially, travel, everything. I’m glad I was not there the day she finally moved out of StA…I can only imagine how many tears were flowing.