Hello,
I will be entering this year at the LSE for BSc Politics and Philosophy. I am thinking of applying for transfer for fall next year. Is there anything I need to know/should do, as an international applicant from the UK. Also, what are the chances of me applying from the LSE to good liberal arts/ivy league colleges and getting in?
Thanks!
I do not think that your question can be answered. It is usually more difficult to transfer to top universities in the US than it is to get accepted as a freshman straight out of high school.
Of course another option is to complete your bachelor’s degree at LSE and then apply to schools in the US for a master’s degree and/or PhD. When I was a graduate student at a top US university I knew another master’s degree student who was from the UK (he home brewed some “English style” beer, which I thought was quite good as long as you did not expect to be drinking American style beer).
Why do you want to transfer? The London School of Economics at least has a very strong reputation from this distance. I am in the US with ties to the US and Canada, so I do not know UK schools nearly as well as you do.
What is your budget? Are you a citizen of the UK and if so does this make LSE very economical by US standards?
Have you looked at the foreign exchange programs that LSE offers?
Top LACs and Ivies will be extremely difficult to get in to regardless.
@DadTwoGirls asked some good questions.
Thanks for your response- appreciated. I want to apply to see where my application will go. I like LSE as a school, but the US college experience is something that I am really interested in (especially that of a liberal arts education). I am particularly struck on Amherst and Williams, but I know that transfer acceptance rates are 3-4%…
…the 4% is for domestic applicants. It’s a small fraction of that for international students. The number of credits that will transfer will be (at most) tiny. Are your parents happy to pay for 5 years of uni, with 4 of them being at US rates? If that’s really the path you want, a gap year and applying as a first year to a range of unis will give you better odds.
^ Though I wouldn’t give up a place at LSE.
Fire off apps if you want; just keep in mind that, unless you’re actually the progeny of someone internationally rich and famous and haven’t told us, your chances are close to infinitesimal.
I am assuming that you have understood the cost differential between a domestic UK student versus a public or private US college? Even with possible merit money you can pay for your entire degree in the UK plus room and board for close to the sticker price for one year tuition plus room and board at a US college… I don’t know how aid works for international students but US college education is expensive. I would absolutely get your degree from LSE then consider graduate school in the US. I have a graduate degree from LSE and it is always considered very prestigious when people ask me where I went to school (which is something oddly people in the US still do even when you graduated decades ago ;))
Do remember that life doesn’t end after undergrad. The LSE experience is more like a grad school experience, but if you have the money, there are opportunities to experience what you want later on. What exactly about the LAC experience appeals to you? I found that the b-school at a top MBA program (especially an isolated one like Tuck) will be similar to that of an American college experience. Actually, pretty much all of Dartmouth’s master’s programs would give you that.
Also, to American ears, combining LACs together with Ivies seems . . odd. Some Ivies have a reputation for being undergraduate-focused (like Princeton/Dartmouth/Brown). Also some Ivy-equivalents like Rice. But Cornell is much closer to a good state school like UMich in feel (think Edinburgh). And while Harvard does have their house system (like Oxbridge), Harvard and Columbia do not have a reputation for being undergrad-focused.
Finally, did you apply to St. A’s?
In the UK, St. A’s would be closest to a Dartmouth/LAC undergrad experience. What about Durham and Oxbridge with their colleges?