UK options for semester abroad

Applying to College
1

My son is going to study abroad for the fall semester 2016. He wants to go to the UK, most likely England or Scotland. He is a computer science major, but won’t be taking CS classes; he is also a theater minor, so is interested in theatre classes, history, art, and maybe other humanities (philosophy?). His program is designed so that he can stay on track for his major without necessarily needing any CS classes that term. It will be his junior year in school here.

He is looking at programs at Glasgow, Warwick, York, Lancaster, and maybe Queen Mary University in London (though I’ve been reading that Queen Mary is in a high-crime area, and that London is very expensive). His US university has arrangements with these schools, but he will be studying with the regular students, not segregated with only “study abroad” participants.

Any thoughts on these Universities, their locations, or anything else that might inform his decision?

2

York is a campus university, but pretty close to the city centre (and York is a great city), and solid academically. It has a strong theatre department (I know someone who did heir BAS in Theatre Writing, Directing and Performance) so if your S can take classes in that dept, he should be happy. The history dept is good there too. By art, do you mean fine art or history of art? York has the latter but not, I think, the former.

Warwick is also a campus university, but is actually in Coventry, so I’d put its location below York, but academically it’s as good, better in some subjects. Glasgow is also a solid option, but I can’t comment on the location. Parts of Glasgow are very gritty

Lancaster is lower on the academic totem pole - I’d reject it unless your son has some special reason for picking it.

I’d recommend getting more precise info on how free he will be to choose classes in various fields - he doesn’t want to be disappointed once he’s wherever he ends up by finding the options are more restricted than he expects, for instance if not all modules are open to visiting students.

3

In my opinion, If he’d want a good edge on theater Glasgow might be one of the best option he has. The richness of Scottish theater there can be his advantage.

4

I’d go with Glasgow (the university is old, “Russell group” ie., like the British top university group, and in a “posh” area), York, and Warwick.
I wouldn’t consider Queen Mary-London.

5

while you are at it, you might look across the Irish sea and see if his university also works with Trinity College Dublin. Super drama department, great college experience.

6

Thanks all - this is good info. It looks like the course options at Glasgow are way more diverse, but he’s continuing to look at York and Warwick.

7

I did a masters at York and hated it! Lovely city, hideous isolated campus. Lots of international students like me doing expensive low quality masters courses to make the university money. Maybe I was spoiled because I was a Cambridge undergraduate, but I despised everything. Very poor library and facilities including accommodation and computing.

One of my siblings went to Lancaster and loved it, even though when living in private rental accommodation in second year (the norm for most UK students) the accommodation was damp and low standard (but cheap). However, this is now 10 years ago.

Most of the UK is very very safe, and that’s why I wouldn’t go to QM. There are over 100 other universities where you are probably less likely to be mugged so why risk it?

I visited Warwick on an open day. Within minutes of being there a student tour guide made fun of my accent. Never went back. Never considered it for graduate studies. There was a thread in the parents forum about stupidest reasons your child has refused to look at a college. I know my experience at Warwick could be in there! But at the same time, why would anyone treat a lone, foreign vulnerable 17 year old girl like that?

I’ve been to Glasgow but not Glasgow uni. Like all cities it has it’s bad parts, but the city centre seemed very nice and safe to me. No idea what the area the uni is in is like. My next door neighbours are an English couple who met at Glasgow uni so all I know about it comes from this sample size of 2.

8

Hello!

So to be quite frank, in terms of reputation and ranking, Warwick is by far the strongest university. It is currently 6th (after Oxbridge, LSE, Imperial, Durham and St Andrews) in the CUG rankings, 48th in the world beating Brown, Dartmouth, NYU, Washington and is known for being the third fastest rising university in the world. It is top 10 in every single UK ranking. It’s reputation is stunning as it is connected with many Ivies, (Brown, Cornell, UPenn), and other fantastic institutions (Stanford, Uni of California, NYU) and also connected with other famous world universities such as Monash Uni, Australia, Uni of Tokyo, Japan and a whole loads more.

Being from London, Warwick is one of the hardest universities to get into after Oxbridge and Imperial. It is strongest for Economics (where it is 2nd), Maths (4th), and it’s WBS. It is in top 5 for everything in the LinkedIn rankings. It is top 10 for all STEM subjects and even for theatre they are 1st in the rankings, they also have a very well known Law school and extremely well known Arts department.

It is famous for it’s sports, especially the rowing team. (Search Warwick naked rowers).

It has one of the highest entry requirements and competes with Oxbridge, Imperial, LSE, UCL, Bristol, Edinburgh, Bath, St Andrews, King’s and Durham. Every single top private, independent school has a high percentage studying at Warwick alongside the universities mentioned earlier in this paragraph. Warwick is always a top 10 uni for their students to go to. They hardly target that of York, QMUL, Glasgow and especially not Lancaster. The average grade at Warwick is AAA-AA*A. The average grade at Glasgow, QMUL, York and Lancaster is much lower.

There are only two bad things about it. It seems very pretentious and full of snobby posh kids, however, if you look past the stereotypes, it is an amazing institution and in the UK is never compared with York and the other universities mentioned. Secondly, it is in between two very different cities. Coventry (which isn’t very nice) and Leamington Spa (which is a white, beautiful wonder).

York, Glasgow, QMUL and Lancaster are always in clearing. Their clearing grades usually fall to BBC, which means that their average student is not so academically strong compared to that of Warwick.

York however is a good institution to apply for, QMUL is amazingly good for medicine and dentistry, Glasgow is very good for the scottish, and Lancaster is okay.

In terms of rankings and reputation, Warwick by far has the strongest brand.

Warwick: 6th in the UK (never left the top 10), 48th in the world. (In the leading top 50)
York: 17th in the UK, 103rd in the world.
Glasgow: 30th in the UK, 62nd in the world.
QMUL: 33rd in the UK, 109th in the world.

Furthermore, Warwick is 3rd in the graduate rankings. It is leading for research. It is always in top 10, and also in top 10 for the hardest UK universities to get into.

On top of that, they are amazing for their art subjects. As mentioned before, they are 1st for film and theatre. So they are definitely, again, the leading uni in that specific field as well as overall. Their philosophy department is fantastic and has a great reputation. They have a well known arts centre, displaying classical films as well as current films. They have the largest art society section in the UK. The university works very well for your son in accordance to his computer science (they are 6th for Computer Science) love and his art love.

As a university, they have the widest range of societies and sports clubs for students to join. They invest a lot into the students academia as well as the other section of university. They host fantastic student social events.

It is much harder to get into Warwick than any of the other universities that you’ve mentioned, it outranks the others and is by far the most prestige (as viewed in the UK). The strongest law firms, such as Clifford Chance, or banks, such as Merrill Lynch, have Warwick students in their target list. As do every other leading firm in all businesses, PwC (a part from that of media). It has always been a target university for leading firms, and as mentioned before, is right now the 3rd most targeted. In terms of the atmosphere of the uni, the international and exchange students are adored.

Good luck on making the best choice for you! Out of ranking and reputation, Warwick out blows the other universities you are considering- but it should be based on personal preference!

Hope you do well! All the best.

9

Yet basically no-one in the US has heard of Warwick!

10

Thanks for all that great info. Unfortunately, as it turns out, my son doesn’t have the GPA required to study at Warwick. A 3.5 is required, and he has a 3.4. (Just had a rough term!) After considering everything we learned about the programs he qualifies for, he decided to apply to Glasgow. So we’ll see how that goes.

11

Glasgow gets my vote! My (American) son goes to school in the city (not U of G). I fell in love with the city when I brought him over initially to move him into his dorm. There are (I think!) 5 universities in the city-- so there are approx 40,000 students in the area. Glasgow is the largest Scottish city and home to many music and theatre venues. Great shopping areas and museums. There’s always something going on.