US HS students looking at possibly applying to UK schools

College Search & Selection
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I am a parent of an S24 in the US, and we are looking at applying to one or more UK schools this upcoming fall. I thought I would start a fresh thread for others considering the same, or for those who have not really thought about it much yet but are intrigued. Depending on what the community wants, perhaps we can continue this as a tracking thread down the road, but for now I was thinking we could share any insights we gain as we form our application lists.

I though I would start off with some of the pros and cons as we see it. We think the potential pros include getting to experience another country (without having to be fluent in a different language) for more than just a typical semester or year abroad. Typically you will also get a visa to continue working in the UK for at least two years, if you so choose. A lot of the “top” UK universities tend to be very international in general, so there are enough other US students not to feel too much like an outlier, but also a lot students from all over the world. UK universities are typically much more expensive for US students than for UK students (which, to be blunt, is undoubtedly part of why many of them market to US students), but often less (at current exchange rates) than full private school tuitions and some out of state tuitions.

And finally, a lot of the appeal for some families may be that UK universities generally have admissions criteria much more tightly focused on academic credentials. This means that for “unhooked” US applicants with high academic credentials, it is often far more likely they will get into a “top” UK university than a “top” US college.

Possible cons include a different system of evaluation that UK students are familiar with, but may prove challenging for some US-trained students. Also, merit/financial aid might not be much of an option. And, perhaps the biggest one, most UK universities admit you to a specific course (roughly equivalent to a major), and it can be very difficult to impossible to change courses. Notably, the 4-year Scottish system is a little more flexible than the 3-year system in the rest of the UK, where often you can keep a couple alternatives open in your first year, maybe one alternative in your second year, before committing completely for your final two “honors” years.

That seems enough for an opening post. Next up I will add some observations based on our research into admissions for US students.

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A few observations so far.

For background, we really started down this path seriously when a representative from St Andrews showed up at our HS’s College Fair sophomore year. I’ve done a lot of research and we remain very interested in St Andrews specifically, and perhaps other Scottish universities. We are currently not likely to apply to English universities, although nothing is decided.

To explain that, it turns out that there is a fairly clear spectrum in terms of how accommodating UK universities are to US applicants. Oxford, for example, seems fairly accommodating in that they will typically let you substitute four AP 5-scores, or a combination of three AP 5-scores and a high enough ACT/SAT score, for the three “A-levels” they normally require for admission to a given course. However, this is still a bit of a problem for us in that our HS doesn’t offer many APs, including required ones for our possible courses.

Oxford also uses a very important interview phase to select the actual admits, and while that is very understandable it adds an element of stress and uncertainty. Finally, you can apply without all the necessary AP scores yet, planning to take them as a senior, but then they will likely only give you a conditional offer. And that can be a little nerve-wracking if your conditional offer depends on scoring 5s on specific AP tests at the end of your senior year.

Cambridge in turn seems notably less accommodating to US students. It typically requires five AP 5-scores AND a high enough ACT/SAT. The APs also have to be in your junior or senior year, which implies it is far more likely you will end up with a conditional offer. It also seems to have more special entrance exams than Oxford, which are only offered at a few test locations in the United States. I note Cambridge also specifically states in response to the issue of a HS not offering AP classes that it does not see this as a barrier as you can still sit for AP exams anyway, as a self-study student.

To us it seems like at the opposite end of the spectrum from Cambridge are the top Scottish universities, like St Andrews, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. They explicitly state on their websites that while a variable combination of relevant AP scores (which can be 4s in some cases, although sometimes 5s are required in specific subjects for specific courses) and SAT/ACT scores (with lower minimums) can satisfy their requirements, they understand not all US students have such APs available, and therefore as appropriate they will consider high grades in advanced courses instead.

And in fact, we specifically discussed this with the St Andrews recruiter (he came back junior year), and he assured us that applicants from our school do not need to take AP exams for courses we do not offer, although he did say typically our successful STEM applicants had taken a calculus AP (which we do offer) and submitted ACT or SAT scores (but even those are optional).

Finally, I note St Andrews and Glasgow are actually both on the Common App (there are 23 UK universities in total on the Common App, including many others a US student might consider). You can also use the UK’s somewhat similar UCAS system–but not both!

And I note the St Andrews recruiter said that while either is fine, using the Common App was often helpful in his view because it made the US applicants stand out, and gave us a chance to really explain specifically why we were interested in that course at St Andrews (they have an essay for that).

And I further note it seems many US students who use the Common App to apply to St Andrews early enough in the fall then typically get an answer fairly quickly, and often if they get an offer it is an unconditional offer (even if, say, they still did not have all the planned AP scores). I also note that “restrictive” early action rules typically exclude non-US colleges. So, for example, we are thinking of applying to a REA college, rolling admission at a public university (also excluded), and St Andrews as our “early” schools.

In short, it appears that St Andrews really wants US students to apply, and is very accommodating to US students they think meet their academic qualifications. So are the other top Scottish universities. And there is a financial reason for this–Scottish students pay even less for Scottish universities than UK universities generally, and so US students paying the overseas tuition really help balance the books.

But also, I think they recognize this is an opportunity to pull in some academically-promising but “unhooked” US students who may not get into their favorite US schools. And in fact, if they can get out an unconditional offer early enough, they may have a longer opportunity to try to seal the deal.

So that is a lot of our current thinking. I’d be very interested in what others are thinking, and of course to hear from those who actually went through this process in the past.

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I know a couple of kids who went to St. Andrews as undergraduates. They had a great experience.

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That’s a big thing for my S24. It seems like people really have fun there, and I think he would get involved with a lot of sports and other clubs.

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The student whom I know better was involved in a club sport (field hockey), and had a radio show of her own (a bluegrass/ country music program, called “Tennessee Whiskey”) on the campus radio station, when she was at St. Andrews a couple of years ago. So I presume that there are lots of opportunities to get involved in activities outside of the classrooms.

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For a non-recruited athlete, it is great everything is a club sport, and they have a lot of teams at different levels in my S24’s favorite sports.

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My D22 was seriously considering UK universities. There are some in England that offer Liberal Arts Studies which allows you to have a broader module/class selection – I can’t remember which off the top of my head, might’ve been Leeds or Birmingham.

That reminds me, here’s a little glossary:

major = course
study = revise
class = module
teaching = tuition
college ≠ university

I’m sure there are more.

The main thing to me that could be a stumbling block (aside from being so far away) is the style of teaching is so very different. There are rarely assignments. Classes/modules are typically lectures with assigned readings. And there is one huge big fat hairy exam at the end that counts for all of your grade.

I found the folks at this website https://www.studyacrossthepond.com very helpful. They help international students apply to UK unis. It’s a free service.

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A glossary is a very good idea. I figured it out eventually, but I was misinterpreting “modules” for quite a while.

Another is in the UK as to exams:

take=sit

Some people in the US might sit for an exam, but apparently many in the UK drop the “for” and just sit exams.

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St. Andrews has been actively recruiting in the US for years. I’m not certain, but I think they have been on the Common App for about ten years now, if not longer.

You don’t mention the Russell Group universities, which are highly regarded. Durham, LSE and ICL and others are all part of the Russell Group. It isn’t just Oxbridge, and everything else.

By the time British students enter uni, (the common term), they already have a solid grounding in their chosen major. This is great when students want to hit the ground running. Not so great when students don’t like their course or for students who haven’t yet had much coursework in their chosen major. My British nieces and nephews have all encountered American students who seemed to be out of their depth while studying in the UK. Their higher education system is not a great choice for kids who need a softer introduction to the rigors of college.

And the problems for students who don’t like their courses are real. I personally know two young men who dropped out of uni. One had a term left, the other literally had one exam to complete. It’s likely there were other issues going on with them other than just not liking their major, but both felt that trying to switch lanes when they had done so much work was insurmountable.

Socially, it can be a real eye opener. You’d be hard pressed to find a 18 year old college student who hasn’t already learned about the pitfalls of alcohol. Pub culture is alive and well. There is less binge drinking but a lot more everyday drinking. Just like US colleges, there are societies (clubs) for students to get involved in.

I think students are a bit more independent there. Until relatively recently, college in the UK was extremely affordable. British parents, by and large, can’t grasp the excessive costs of college and college life in the US. The kind of money kids spend while in college here is WAY more than their British counterparts spend, with notable exceptions. Cooking meals together is common there.

Overall, I think the UK system builds independence and, ideally, discipline, including outside of academics.

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Yes, very much other UK universities would be well worth considering if we decide to apply outside of Scotland. Given my S24’s interests, we would likely be thinking Durham or UCL to go along with Oxford and the three Scottish universities I mentioned. Probably Durham, in fact.

But right now he is not 100% committed to either of his top possibilities for course/major, which as you point out is a serious concern. But he is doing some things this summer, and then going into fall, that may or may not resolve those concerns.

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By the way, Durham is another university that seems quite willing to work with US applicants. They have a standard option to submit either three AP 5-grades, or two AP 5-grades instead of three, with the third being replaceable by any of an ACT/SAT score, honors class, or dual enrollment course.

They also say for some courses they can do as few as one AP and two honors courses if your HS does not offer APs, although one is apparently a hard minimum. This makes sense as our APs are usually the closest we have to their typically very important final exams.

Anyway, my S24 should have two APs by graduation, but currently neither would be in his possible courses. At our HS, there simply are no such AP classes. But Durham has a specific email for North American applicant questions, and I suspect we could easily find out if his likely mix of qualifications would satisfy their requirements.

Finally, they have quite a few interdisciplinary courses. None are quite a good fit for us as of now, but definitely they should be a leading option for people who can find a suitable course.

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Expect no support from the administration at a u in the UK.

Team of dieticians to help a kid navigate gluten free, nut or egg allergy, recovering from an eating disorder? No. They’ll tell you to find a flat with a nice kitchen and cook for yourself.

Easy access to mental health services? No. Your kid will need to stay on top of whatever he or she needs in terms of counseling, meds, etc.

Sympathetic dean to help with a W when your kid has a bad break up the night before the final exam? No. Maybe the professor will be inclined to cut some slack or maybe not. Grandma is on her death bed in the US in the middle of term? Go or don’t go…up to you but don’t assume your kid can get a few incompletes to be finished when things settle down.

Etc. If your kid has needed scaffolding of any kind in HS (tutoring, time management coaching, executive function support, extra time on tests) then the UK is not a good option.

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Satisfying the minimum requirements is a terrible basis to go to a UK university unless your kid is happy being at the bottom of the class. A large proportion of Durham students applied to and failed to get into Oxbridge and went there as the next best option. So they’ll have As (or better) in A level in the subjects they are studying, which give far more depth than APs in the US. My niece got A* A* A and ended up at York (didn’t even think of applying to Oxbridge).

Think about it this way: Oxford and Cambridge don’t need the money so they set realistic entry criteria (and even then they discount APs so you have to do better in the interview). Other universities are desperate for cash so they’ll admit foreigners who simply wouldn’t be viable candidates if they were domestic students. And US students are then thrown in an unfamiliar, all or nothing exam situation whereas Chinese and Indian students are much more experienced in both the type of tests and the material.

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Excellent post. I’d go further though…I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being at the bottom of the class if a kid is learning, being challenged, being inspired intellectually.

But the kids I know who have gone off to the UK all excited that they “overmatched” ( i.e. gotten into a college which they believe is more prestigious than their US options) have ended up either coming home after a year to take time off, transferring, etc.

Bottom of the class is one thing. Being completely unprepared for the pace and speed of the UK semester is something else. With no guardrails in place ( show up for class or not. Do the readings or not) it can be a grim awakening for kids without exceptional time management and study skills.

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Maybe if you come back to the US. In the UK you put your degree class on your resume for the rest of your career. Most potential employers demand at least a 2:1 to even apply (fortunately nowadays 80-90% of students get a 2:1 or 1st). Gone are the days when a classmate of mine was a (sort of) proud member of the “Nines Club” (for getting a third all three years).

My S18 sometimes speculates about how his life would be different if he’d gotten an Oxford offer (he was rejected after interview for PPE). He’s very happy to have stayed in the US (where to give an indication of the competition, he was top in his year at a T20 university). The American who was in his Oxford interview group and did get an offer, with better stats than him (my S had 4.0UW, 8 5s in AP and a 1540 SAT) got a 2:1 in his first year and wanted to transfer back to the US.

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The situation where a kid properly overmatches in the UK and should go there is when they are obsessed with an academic subject (to the level of self-studying just for “fun”) and don’t care about box checking in other subjects or ECs. For example, UK universities highly rate competition math (so an IMO participant is effectively guaranteed entry at Oxbridge).

In that case they should be interested enough to seek out and take APs regardless if their school doesn’t offer them. This thread is a classic example:

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So my S24 is going to have taken more advanced classes than APs in both of his likely courses. He won’t have taken APs specifically because our HS doesn’t offer them in those areas.

Generally, others from our HS with similar academic backgrounds have gone to UK universities and done well. I agree barely scraping in unprepared might be a bad idea, but in these cases it is more a question of how to document the preparation than being unprepared.

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In our case, our HS does not offer AP classes in many areas because it offers other advanced classes it believes better prepare our students for high-level college studies in those areas.

For example, our HS offers no AP natural science courses. Instead, after taking the first level of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology (which many STEM students complete after sophomore year), you can take advanced electives. The school claims the main Advanced Biology elective is equivalent to a 200-level college course. There is also Organic Chemistry, a variety of Inorganic Chemistry electives, a variety of advanced Physics electives, and so on.

We regularly send STEM students to “top” US STEM universities, including MIT, Stanford, HYP, Berkeley, Hopkins, Penn, and so on. Some also opt for LACs like Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore, or the service academies. We’ve also sent kids to Oxbridge, St Andrews, UCL, and so on, although off hand I do not know what they were all studying.

Typically our STEM-oriented students will have taken AP Calc BC, usually by junior year, and then some of our advanced post-Calc BC math electives. But no science APs, except perhaps AP Comp Sci (the only other non-language AP we offer besides the Calc APs). And yet, they keep getting admitted to “top” US colleges, and many do quite well, because our school provides a very high level of college preparation without offering APs–again, in their view at least, well beyond APs.

OK, so given all this, generally speaking our students interested in advanced studies in STEM, and in fact many other areas, do not need to independently seek out APs for “interest” sake, and nor is it usually going to be relevant to US college admissions. However, I assume the students we send to UK universities have fulfilled their requirements somehow, and certainly they could be self-studying in addition to taking our advanced classes.

But personally, I am pretty confident in most cases the advanced classes would in fact be better preparation than the AP curriculum.

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That’s great. But it wasn’t clear from your initial posts. Most US students with one or two APs would sink without trace in the UK system. And even taking more advanced or “post-AP” courses doesn’t help with the UK exam system unless your school has rigorous, summative end of year final exams. Even many US colleges don’t put much weight on final exams.

I loved my UK college years. But the final exams were the most intellectually challenging experience of my life, with your entire future hanging on two consecutive days (12 hours) of exams, and I considered myself to be pretty good at test taking.

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Sure.

Taking a step back, one fundamental issue is at least non-Scottish UK students have typically gotten significantly greater depth in the areas relevant to their course during their “sixth form” two-year period. And APs are indeed generally not as advanced as A-Levels.

I don’t necessarily agree this is a quantity issue, though. Because more APs in subjects not relevant to your course are unlikely to help you (I guess other than more practice taking important tests). What you are typically missing is subject-specific in-depth study beyond the AP level.

I do think this can potentially be remedied. Some US high schools like ours go beyond the AP level in their advanced courses, in a way that actually allows more in-depth study in specific areas. Some US high schools follow the IB format, which generally is considered more ambitious than APs, although it is less specialized than the A-Level system. Some US students take college classes (although one has to be careful about the actual level/depth of those classes).

And I think it is a fair point the one thing these alternatives may lack relative to APs is the one, big, high-stakes exam. On the other hand, they could be significantly more in-depth than APs. Understanding a perfect analog to A-Levels is not possible, which is better preparation overall for study in the UK is probably a somewhat individual question.

Personally, though, I do think this is all part of why we are currently more comfortable with the Scottish system. The two pre-honours years reportedly provide some cushion to get up to speed with the different system, if necessary modify your intended course–and if that isn’t working out, to transfer.

Still, some US students do go into other UK universities and do well. But I agree people thinking about that path should make sure they understand that being well-prepared for such courses usually requires doing something different from a typical US high school curriculum.

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