<p>"This data suggests that British students feel they have a greater opportunity in US universities than they do at home and, assuming that these students have near perfect information, this is implicit evidence that US universities are, in fact, superior to their UK counterparts."</p>
<p>No! We (I'm British, living in England) are in exactly the same position as Americans considering the UK! It's just the other way around, and British students are asking all the same questions about the US. </p>
<p>A few things:
1) The UK government (well, Tony Blair had the 'idea') wants to get 50% of young people to go to university after leaving school. This is a damn stupid idea (why do most people need a degree!?!?!). As a result, there's more and more courses, and many of them are of lower and lower standard. The decent Universities keep their standard, of course, but there's a lot of students who get accepted into a University with something like EE or DD at A-level, and it really isn't worth their while, they'd be better off getting a job. In order to get people in to uni, the government keeps making A-level exams easier -- which has gone so far that the best places (Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, +others, in no particular order) are asking for AAA or more results, and for some courses setting their own, additional exams. When people in the UK complain about "lowering standards" in education, this is what they're complaing about.</p>
<p>2) UK population: 58 million. USA population: 250 million or something like that. So there's more decent colleges in the USA, but I think it's fair to say there's still the same proportion of top-rated places in both. </p>
<p>3) International reputation: Well, before one of my friends started looking, I only really knew about Harvard and MIT in the USA. How well known are other places outside of the USA? I don't know. How well known are UK places outside of the UK? Well, I can't answer that.</p>
<p>4) Money: I can't make a comparison, since I pay a lot less because I'm British. But there's not much money available, generally everyone pays the whole lot. UK students get grants if they're poor (well, if their parents are poor). But check to see. Some companies sponser students, I have a friend studying Physics at Warwick, and a scientific instument company is giving him £3000 a year (or something like that), in return he works for them for a year (and gets paid, obviously) when he graduates. </p>
<p>4a) For the reason why so few UK students go to the USA to study, look at the costs: all UK students get a student loan (if they want it) which is about £3000 a year, and an excellent rate (only a fraction over the rate of inflation), and you don't pay it back until you get a job and start earning more than £18000 a year or something like that. Tuition fees are £3000 or so a year if you're a UK citizen, and if you're poor you don't pay even that. Then there's the travel and everything. For a UK person, uni in the USA is a huge amount of money.</p>
<p>5) Accomodation: Yes, most UK places only give you accomodation for the first year. But, I'm getting to the end of my first year and I think I'm ready to rent my own place (with a couple of friends). Don't let it worry you, the University helps you find somewhere to live, and having you own house/flat is another freedom. Almost everyone chooses to live with one or more friends, and most places students live are near to the university anyway, and near to other students.
I've heard all the horror-stories with the rats and so on. Do you really think they'd let people live in building like that? No. The UK is health-and-safety crazy at the moment, you fridge will be more of a worry ("how old is that cheese?").</p>
<p>6) Concrete: sure, there's places that were built in the 60s/70s/80s. I visited Warwick, the whole thing is white concrete. It's a great place -- it's got an excellent reputation in the UK, academically, everyone's heard of it (and the Royal Family have nothing to do with it) but if you're looking for towers, steeples and crenellations, look elsewhere! Three friends are there though, they don't mind. I'm a scientist though, we tend to care less :-).</p>
<p>7) Not concrete: I applied to Cambridge, but I was rejected. I know a few people there though, one is studying Classics (mad, mad, mad!) and loves it. She loves having the 'formal hall' in gowns and so on, the huge libraries, the ancient architecture, and the atmosphere of the place. </p>
<p>8) Lectures/learning: I've read somewhere on this thread about UK places having 600 people in a lecture theatre -- that's not the case for anywhere I know, but look into it. Everywhere I know about (which is mostly from friends I have, and here, so: Imperial, Warwick, Cambridge, Durham) has lectures to between 20 to about 250 people. I'm at Imperial College London, studying Mathematics and Computer Science, my maths lectures are to about 250 people, the computing ones to about 120, and a few M&CS ones to 23. We have tutorials too, in Computing this is a group of 6, in Maths a group of 20 with two tutors. Cambridge I know has a similar setup for lectures, but tutorials (I think they have a special name for them) will be in groups of 2 or 3 with a professor, likewise for Oxford. Everywhere varies, this is something to find out. More important than the number in a lecture is the number in the tutorials, and how often they are (and labs, for science).</p>
<p>9) Breadth of study: a Mathematics degree in the UK will probably be 100% maths, for either 3 or 4 years. Same for most other degrees. Personally, this suits me fine, I'd hate to have to do more arty stuff now I'm at uni. Most places (AFAIK) have options to do odd courses from another subject (or a language), sometimes it's compulsory, sometimes not. </p>
<p>General advice: if you can visit a place, do so! If possible, go when there's an open day, and go again on another day to see what the place is really like. </p>
<p>Choose weather you want to live in a big city (like London, or Manchester, or Birmingham, or Edinburgh), a smaller city/town (Durham, Leicester, Sheffield, etc) or in the country (Warwick, can't think of other places). Some universities are spread around a place (like Cambridge, and many in London), some are all on a campus, either within a city or outside of it (Warwick is a few miles from a town/city, Loughborough is (I think) all in the same few blocks in a town). Personally, I wanted to live in a city, and London's the biggest and I'm here now and I love it, for others this isn't right for them.</p>
<p>Whereever you go you'll love it, don't worry too much. But don't go somewhere just because your parents want you to (worst thing you can do). </p>
<p>And ask on <a href="http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk%5B/url%5D">www.thestudentroom.co.uk</a> too (and get completely the opposite bias of opinion from on here!).</p>