<p>They do let Americans work 20 hours/week while in school and 40 hours/week during breaks.<br>
I'll check out the British thread, thanks</p>
<p>Regarding the recs thing, usually personal tutors fulfill that requirement as far as I'm aware.</p>
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</p>
<p>Our new neighbors just moved here from Ireland and I find that I try to use the correct Irish/British terms for things and they try to use Americanisms. It's really pretty funny.</p>
<p>I know one boy getting his AI engineering degree at Edinburgh--and he had a half dozen major Silicon Valley players throwing big-money internships at him after two years undergrad. He took a year off to take advantage of one and had the time of his life in San Francisco--on their nickel. The big companies and major universities know which UK degrees are prestigious. Heck, all of Asia knows the ranking of the enitre UK system--American academics and major American businesses aren't that clueless.</p>
<p>Recommendations are not hard to come by--at least from the high school to university level--but they are not as 'effusive' as American recommendations. In my opinion, the rest of the world is not 'down' with the American concept of 'soft sell'. I'd ask for several recommendations without waiving confidentiality.</p>
<p>As for recs, my son has had to get recs for two outside scholarhips and his tutors were very willing to write them. However, instead of providing a lot of meaningful detail, as one might be likely to expect from an American professor (or for a college app, for that matter) they were quite succinct - "Mr. _____ is an excellent student and is coping very well with an extremely demanding course." I do hope he can obtain more words per rec for the grad school apps! :0 </p>
<p>One of the rec writers was the equivalent of a full professor, the other the equivalent of an associate professor - neither put D. Phil. after their names or any other titles except "Tutor" - this seems to be typical of the understatement at Oxford. And the university does not provide transcripts until after graduation. Don't know how my son will work with this for graduate school applications. I've told him to work up a list of all of his papers in all three subjects, as well as the primary reading material. This is not that easy to do, because typically there are few textbooks; the tutors list tons of articles as primary elements of the paper reading list.</p>
<p>The systems are very different, no question. However, he selected Oxford primarily for "The Education" and "The Education" is absolutely being delivered, in spades. What comes after may require some translation and a bit of tap-dancing.</p>
<p>I checked on the Dept of Ed site- Stafford Loans, but not Pell Grants, may be used in the UK.</p>
<p>Cupcake wrote:
Contrary to another poster above, I think if you're paying full international fees a US student will get into any UK university outside oxbridge very easily since they want your money. They need internationals to subsidise the rest. That's the way it works. It is very expensive!</p>
<p>It is very easy to apply using a single common application form at <a href="http://www.ucas.com%5B/url%5D">www.ucas.com</a></p>
<p>Oxford uni web-site has indepth information on US loans for UK study which is in part applicable to other universities as well</p>
<p>Binvolio's reply:</p>
<p>If you are misled by this post, you will be letting yourself in for a shock. Good UK universities are at least as, if not more, competitive than their US equivalents. Virtually all courses at good universities, say top 20 universities, are heavily oversubscribed, and their websites usually publish these statistics. Undergraduate students doing complete degrees, as opposed to semesters/years abroad, are a very small minority and contribute a tiny part of total university funding. For example, this statistic from the web page of the .student statistics section of University College London, part of the University of London- 58 undergraduate students paying full international fees out of over 11,000 total undergraduate students. Students are admiited to full degrees on merit. It is the Junior Year Abroad/Semester Abroad programs which are the money spinner for UK universities, but students on these programs are guest students of the UK university, and their degree awarding institution back in the US is responsible for them, not the UK university. In fact, there is some evidence that it is harder to get into a full degree program at a good UK university. They have to be convinced that students from a very different educational system can cope, and they are also aware that giving a degree place to an overseas student means taking one away from a UK, EU, or EEA student, to whom they tend to feel some responsibilty.</p>
<p>One other thing to note: there are differential fees according to type of course. BA is least expensive, then BSc, BEng, etc., and finally, Medicine which is truly prohibitive, especially in the final years.</p>
<p>ticklemepink wrote:
Is it necessary to have top grades and SAT scores in order to get in? My brother has SATs of about 1200 and is hovering around 2.7 for GPA. He would absolutely love to study in the UK- does he stand a chance of being admitted anywhere? I know definitely not Oxbridge...</p>
<p>binvolio replies:
Unfortunately he has no chance of being admitted to any good UK university. He might get in some place, like London Met, but that's not worth the trouble. They don't care much about GPA, but is he doing any AP classes? Typically, a decent university will want four or five, preferably at grade five.</p>
<p>binvolio, could you post the link to the UCL student stats page you got your data from? I've looked, and I pulled up this: <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/registry/statistics/contents/table/?table=i&year=06%5B/url%5D">http://www.ucl.ac.uk/registry/statistics/contents/table/?table=i&year=06</a></p>
<p>It states that in the academic year 2006-2007, 2291 undergraduate students were classified as having 'Overseas' (i.e. international) fee status, which comes to 20% of the undergraduate student population. </p>
<p>I personally don't agree with either you or cupcake - I don't think that UK universities (excluding Oxbridge) will let in just anyone as long as they can pay international fees, but at the same time I absolutely do not believe that cash-strapped unis will be averse to making a quick buck off their international students. Given the state of higher education funding in the UK at the moment, I doubt they can afford to be averse to it. </p>
<p>I'd also like to see your evidence that "it is harder to get into a full degree program at a good UK university." Source?</p>
<p>bin...your information is incorrect.</p>
<p>Even Oxbridge allows individual Ivy-study abroad students into it's colleges.</p>
<p>I think many of those foreign students are not from the USA. According to University College London's website, there are currently 257 American students studying at graduate level and 58 American students studying at undergraduate level at UCL. So only 58 of those 2291 students are from America.</p>
<p>To be eligible for consideration students, American students must have usually obtained passes in four, full year Advanced Placement (AP) examinations at grades 4/5. Alternatively the High School Graduation diploma plus a minimum of 1300/1600 or 1950/2400 in SAT I plus the successful completion of one year at a recognized US university would be considered. Any student who has 1950/2400 SAT and 1 year of college credit ( or passed 4 full year AP exams at grade 4/5) should be competitive for top 25 or 50 universities or LACs. Giving this criteria, I would say that the minimum requirement for consideration is very high.</p>
<p>
[quote]
We don't think you all voted for Bush!
And if you do get flak for it, just say you're Canadian...
[/quote]
Or, just admit why you did vote for Bush and engage in an interesting discussion of politics and society in general. Part of the interest in attending school abroad is to discover and discuss differences. Don't assume that all people from the UK hate Bush or his policies - not all do.</p>
<p>t1388 - Yes, but it's irrelevent whether they're from the US or not. The fact is that 20% of the undergraduate student body is paying full, international fees. </p>
<p>Binvolio said that: "this statistic from the web page of the .student statistics section of University College London, part of the University of London- 58 undergraduate students paying full international fees out of over 11,000 total undergraduate students." </p>
<p>This is a) demonstrably false, and b) hugely misleading.</p>
<p>Laylah- those statistics include non degree-seeking, or affiliate, overseas students. Additionally, they are counted in the overall overseas fees status category for 2006-7, but roughly half don't appear on table Q, because the HEFCE census date is 1 December.</p>
<p>The comment about difficulty is an opinion, although an informed one. I should have added that it is somewhat harder for Americans than UK students to get an offer for the same degree program. One of the
problems that UK admissions staff have with American high school qualifications is the paucity of external examinations, except for the SAT, which is not considered a valuable indicator- it counts, but not much, it's worth a glance. Hence the emphasis on AP exams. The IB is even better.</p>
<p>To cheers: I never said they didn't- of course they want affiliate students. Healthy fees with little responsibility. If affiliates who aren't up to it don't do well, who cares- they don't go into the university's statistics.</p>
<p>To t1388: Those criteria have been up in that page for at least three years...it gets harder every year. As noted, it's a minimum for consideration.</p>
<p>Dang- how do I make it show the post I'm replying to? I check "quote post in reply" but it doesn't work.</p>
<p>^^ Use the following [q uote] blah blah [/q uote] but without the space</p>
<p>Binvolio: first, copy the part of the message you want to reply to. You can do this by highlighting it and choosing "Edit" then "Copy" or by using keyboard commands--usually "Control" or "ctrl" and then the letter "C" at the same time. Then go down to the box to post in. Type: [quot.e] without the period. Then paste the portion of the response you want to post by choosing "Edit" and then "Paste" or "Control" and the letter "v" (on most computers). Then to end the quote type [/quot.e] without the period. That will quote the response. You can type above or below that section, or both. You can skip lines before or after, but it's not strictly necessary since the computer will take care of that on its own.</p>
<p>Other hints (again, take out all periods):
[b.] bold[/b.]
[i.] italics [/i.]
[u.] underlined [/u.]</p>
<p>You can look for the list of smily faces and how to make them under "Help & Rules" on the "Discussion Menu" on the left side of the screen, I believe.</p>
<p>
[quote]
like this?
[quote]
Seems laborious...but thanks</p>