Are you referencing the Shanghai/ARWU or Times rankings, perhaps?
If so, those rankings are based on the whole university, including grad and PhD. They are not undergrad-only rankings like USNews’ big ranking.
Princeton and Yale fall to the lower half of the Top 10 in those probably because, especially for Princeton, they lack medical, law, and/or business schools.
I see that as a plus for undergrads: fewer grad students competing for prof attention, research spots, and resources.
But for colleges in the US, they are top-shelf. Heck, great colleges like Brown and Dartmouth fall down those world U rankings because they don’t cater so much to grad students, a la Princeton. But they are phenomenal for undergrads.
The US is BIG with 10 times the population so it stands to reason you have a lot more top tier Colleges - I get that - We have Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and University College London as perhaps the first tier that compete head to head with the best of US/World universities, then perhaps a second tier of London School of Economics, Edenborough, Durham and relative newcomers like Manchester but it starts to get real fuzzy real quick after the top tier of internationally renowned Unis. We also have a self selected group of ‘research’ Universities called ‘The Russel Group’ that are not half as good as they make themselves out to be IMHO and I think most top tier US Colleges would beat them hands down for teaching.
I get that the Times /QS/etc rankings are not the thing to go by for an undergrad experience as they are about breadth and research output more that student experience (I didn’t to be fair but have understood that over the last few weeks of study).
I’m starting to think its 1st fit, then funding (of nr. equal weighting in my D’s case) but third is the value of the name in the UK, admittedly a low weighted third but I can’t ignore that.
As stated before the ‘old’ colleges Harvard Princeton and Yale are all know yet for most Brits Dartmouth is a port in South Devon and Brown is a colour. The ‘new’ names that would be recognised are MIT, oddly Berkeley (student uprisings in the 60’s?), and perhaps CalTech and Stanford, but the average person in non international business or Higher education wouldn’t have heard of them and I’d put money on that. So though not of primary importance it is something that needs to be factored in despite the great teaching she would get.
(The more I have studied this month the more I appreciate the actual teaching in US Colleges and how it’s generally so much better than at particularly ‘The Russel Group’ universities in the UK - US students get twice or MORE the teaching hours in a year their UK counterparts get and that is just for starters.)
Sure – prestige is alluring, especially when it might make a difference in job acquisition.
I don’t know whether UK hiring managers would be aware of the great quality of a Brown education, but if they pay any attention to US colleges, they likely would. My best guess is that companies that hire US grads have a vested interest in familiarizing themselves with US schools.
But likely most interested in familiarizing themselves with the universities whose graduates qualify as “high potential individuals” and automatically get working visas (ie not Brown):
ps: the list is ridiculous but hilariously they included PSL, which is basically open enrollment (it’s relatively hard to graduate from it but no more so than from, say, Montpellier or Grenoble or Lyon. PSL just has a lot of scientists and a lot of research output. It is nothing like McGill or Columbia.)
I’m shocked that people think that hasn’t already been addressed in a thread with almost 200 posts. The only thing missing was the introductory statement, “I didn’t bother to read the whole thread, but…”
This is obviously a relative term and appears in quotes so rather than 3%, a much higher percent that I cannot obviously quantify. Her chances for Cambridge have been quantified at a rough 50/50 as there are always the vagaries of the interview but her profile matches or exceeds that of the ‘average’ student accepted to Cambridge though there is nothing average about any such student. They do say that the US and UK are separated by a common language, but I had thought this was blindingly obvious. My apologies if this was not clear.
She also interviews very well with personal charm and a modesty.
If the program she is on selects her for restricted early to Harvard then she may well have a chance approaching that she has for Cambridge as they restrict the number of students that can apply to a less than one hand and have historically placed more than have been rejected each year. Her main competition is the others on her program from one perspective eg: an Olympic athlete and others that have quite mind blowing achievements against a background of major challenges. She has already been selected at the highest level hence the amount of professional support she is being given.
Possibly - but she will be entering a UK job market that will be nearly entirely UK grads so a name that has gravitas ‘may’ (note quote marks for other readers) stand out. Personally I love the idea of Brown, but my D seems to now be more set on Harvard which has this additional benefit.
I’m trying to see things from her perspective.
I’ve really looked into them and I have to say they are in a much better position to advise than I am and really know what they are doing. My aim here is to equip myself with as much knowledge as possible in case my D asks me. My main advice, if asked, would be to put her trust in the organisation. She will anyway, but if she asks me I can confirm that she should trust in the expertise on program.
I am not in a position to talk directly to them hence my presence on this site from which I have learnt a lot and am genuinely very grateful to the contributors here.
So there is an organisation pre sifting USA admissions effectively and able to raise the admissions stats to 50% chance? All for free? As a UK parent i would love to know what this organisation is - feel free to DM me if you prefer but it sounds amazing.
I wouldn’t really characterize the US News rankings as being “undergrad only”. They are highly dependent on 1) research output (publications and grant awards), and 2) reputation (which is highly dependent on #1). Quality of and focus on undergraduate teaching is a minor consideration.
The ‘average’ UK student debt is £45k on graduation? - that includes those who have say all their accommodation paid for by parents, it’s also not current for students now taking on student debt which will be significantly more and with compound interest of 5.25% and ‘going to be capped at 8%’ … apparently.
The present figures suggest that over 85% + of UK students will never pay this off so one could consider it a lifetime graduate tax of 9% of PRE TAX earnings over an ever decreasing (in real terms) threshold. Play with a student loan calculator online and you will see that the oft quoted figures are a myth. …and remember the Govt keeps changing the rules as to the lowest threshold for repayment, the interest rate and the maximum years you will have to pay it.
Yeah, but that’s £45,000 of spending you can put elsewhere immediately.
So going to Oxford is free at the point of use (or close to it).
Stick the money you would have spent elsewhere in an index fund and you’ll most likely end up with a profit over 40 years.
A few of my friends who went to Oxford did something like that. And if you plan to retire early, your capital gains is exempt from paying the tax so you could end up with a very large profit if you plan to be paid in capital gains.
But yeah, good luck to your daughter. I hope she gets what she wishes.
But if you’re relatively lower income, US schools are obviously much, much better. The level of aid they give is insane.
As far as the OP’s query, I just don’t see there being that big of an ED advantage at Brown given that it is need aware. SCEA Harvard preserves all her options since she can still apply to Brown (or any other colleges) RD. However, I agree with the comments above that she should not make any decision until after her tour of the US schools in case she develops strong likes/dislikes of any of them.
No, I am not referencing rankings. If I were referencing rankings, I’d be…uh…referencing rankings?
I am familiar with the differences between US centric university rankings and worldwide university rankings.
But was actually, literally referencing people. As in, people in other countries may care about other things.
For instance, not so much about US centric rankings, in fact they don’t care about magazine rankings much at all.
Historically established reputations of (comparatively) large research universities, frequently mentioned in the media for their research and preferably associated with large, historically important cities. That’s where it’s at for the rest of the world.
A strong contemporary media presence can make up for the lack of a city (Stanford). So can the history of being the worlds oldest English speaking university (Oxford). And so on.
People in the rest of the world who hire English speakers do not, specifically, hire graduates of US universities. They hire graduates of the world’s universities. They will not familiarise themselves with the perceptions of the population of any one country of that country’s higher education system beyond a certain superficial level. And they will not care about a graduate’s undergraduate “experience” or the level of “fit” they have found. In fact, some may worry that US graduates are rather coddled.
Which isn’t to say that the student shouldn’t care about their own experience! They absolutely should! For their own sakes.
