<p>
[quote]
yeah basically. avg tuition is around 10,000 pounds a year/3 years.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I believe you are underestimating the cost of an Oxford education. As an international student, on top of the 10,000 pound/year university fees, you will also have to pay a fee to your college (which should be in excess of 2,000 pounds/year). Besides, you will need at least another 7,000-9,000 pounds/year for room and board and other private expenses.</p>
<p>right behind oxbridge in overall quality is imperial then lse then ucl...then who cares...</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
i catched from some posts back that foreign language is an important factor. yes, i know european students usually know two or more foreign languages, but these tend to be modern ones...wouldn't the admissions be impressed if u know greek, an incredibly difficult language? they know, i hope, that greek was lingua franca up to 1400's...outlasted latin, hands down. they probably must be bored with french, spanish, italian, german, dutch, latin, chinese...alsthough i do have some of this boredom: french.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>We're talking about England here, a country which is happy that the rest of the world embraced their language so they don't have to learn any other tongue. Being able to speak a foreign language was historically an Oxbridge entry requirement but it isn't now. It used to be compulsory to learn a foreign language at school from ages 11-16 in England (and basically foreign langauge = French for most people), but Tony Blair removed this requirement and millions of students dropped langiages, which has led to a recruitment crisis for universities trying to fill language courses and employers looking for bilingual staff.</p>
<p>If Greek is important to your course of study (ie you're applying to do Classics, where you will have to learn ancient Greek) then of course mention it in your application. If not, perhaps mention it anyway as an interest, but I doubt it would be deciding factor in your acceptance/rejection decision. </p>
<p>There are only 30 graduate students in my department and two of them are Greek. So I don't think speaking Greek will have any rarity value really. </p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
well, i'm an undergrad at ucla who skipped a year. would that impress any uk schools for grad?
[/QUOTE]
Doubt it. In England undergraduate courses only last 3 years anyway, so it just brings you into line with them. I guess if you have something such as a reference from a professor saying you're the best student they ever met so they advanced you a year then by all means include it. It couldn't hurt.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
i also hope to get internship at the getty, a presitigous museum.
[/QUOTE]
This will impress them more. Work experience is looked upon very favourably in the UK. Especially if it is in your field of study. The application process is all about showing you're focused on your course of study (the complete opposite to the US process which is all about being "well-rounded")</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
but i guess, uk schools care more about grades.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly.</p>
<p>just an update from an old thread...</p>
<p>I got into UCL and SOAS.. waiting on Oxford, which I have to say my interview went very well so I am hoping for a shot in hell, and also waiting on LSE and King's. </p>
<p>thanks for evryone's help!</p>
<p>Good luck,
Wishing you success in your attempt at Oxford and at LSE. I'm sure you will enjoy either SOAS or UCL. Don't worry or care about King's, it's inferior to all of the other uni's here.</p>
<p>If I may rank the unis in the UK, it would go this way:</p>
<p>Tier 1A - Cambridge/Oxford
Tier 1B - Imperial/LSE</p>
<p>Tier 2A - Warwick/UCL
Tier 2B - Edinburgh/St. Andrews/Bristol/Durham
Tier 2C - Nottingham/York/Bath</p>
<p>Tier 3 - Manchester/Sheffield/New Castle Upon Tyne/Cardiff/Loughborough</p>
<p>that just about looks right the tier rankings but since i go to warwick hehe i wouldn't mind Tier 1C :P</p>
<p>I'm not sure on that Tiering, Shanghai Jiao Tong ranks them as below () indicates world rank. Clearly the Jiao Tong methodology crushes specialist universities in favour of broadly based uni's (so LSE is in trouble) and tends to emphasise maths and sciences, but they are an independent ranking.</p>
<p>Cambridge (4),
Oxford (10),
Imperial (23),
UCL (35),
Manchester (48)
Edinburgh(53),
Bristol (62),
Sheffield (72),
Nottingham (81),
King's (83)
Birmingham (92)
Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool Sussex (102-150)
Cardiff, LSE, Queen Mary, Durham, East Anglia,Leicester, Southampton, St. Andrews (151-202)
Queen's Belfast, Aberdeen, Bath, Dundee, Lancaster, Newcastle, Reading, Warwick, York (203-304)
Open, Royal Holloway, Essex, Exeter (305-402)
Birkbeck, Brunel, Strathclyde, Surrey, Swansea (403-510)</p>
<p>
[quote]
that just about looks right the tier rankings but since i go to warwick hehe i wouldn't mind Tier 1C
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wow, King, you must be smart. I always thought Warwick students are really smart students. I'm impressed with that school. I always have been.</p>
<p>Anyway, you shouldn't worry with the way I grouped the universities in the UK. Though I have to agree with you that I should have elevated Warwick and UCL to Tier 1C instead of Tier 2A. Afterall, the gap between Tier 1B (LSE/Imperial) and Tier 2A (Warwick/UCL) is smaller than the gap between Tier 2A (Warwick/UCL) and Tier 2C (Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Bristol, etc).</p>
<p>Mikalye,</p>
<p>World rankings do not always reflect with national rankings.</p>
<p>Looking at the list above, I can really say that Manchester, Sheffield, King's and Birmingham, to name a few, are really good universities, but I really, really doubt it that they are better than Warwick.</p>
<p>No doubt,</p>
<p>And that leads to the question of what do you mean by good. You ask the average American university student to name UK universities, then they can probably name Oxford, Cambridge and LSE, but not really much further.</p>
<p>Imperial and UCL have established much stronger international reputations than any of the other UK universities, and if you are planning to work in the US, then one of these 5 schools would certainly mean more. Otherwise, there is no intuitive grasp of how (say) York compares with the University of Westminster. Any lookup is likely to be against international rankings such as Shanghai Jiao Tong.</p>
<p>Looking at the Guardian 2008 rankings: (perfect score is 100)
Oxford 95.31
Cambridge 91.94
Imperial College 82.29
St Andrews 79.35
UCL 79.23
London School of Economics 78.54
Edinburgh 75.18
Warwick 75.08
Loughborough 73.48
Bath 73.48
SOAS 71.59
King's 70.61</p>
<p>Or the Times rankings (2007)
1 Oxford - 1000
2 Cambridge - 973
3 Imperial College 878
4 London School of Economics 855
5 University College London 819
6 Loughborough 795
7 Bristol 792
8 Warwick 791
9 Bath 786
10 Durham 778
11 Edinburgh 774
12 Royal Holloway 761
13 Aston 758
14 Nottingham 754
15 York 750
16 Cardiff 740
17 King's College London 733
18 Leicester 732
18 SOAS 732
18 St Andrews 732</p>
<p>So based on an amalgam of these, my tiering would be:</p>
<p>1) Oxford, Cambridge</p>
<p>2) Imperial, LSE, UCL</p>
<p>3) Warwick, Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh, Bath, Loughborough, St. Andrews</p>
<p>
[quote]
So based on an amalgam of these, my tiering would be:</p>
<p>1) Oxford, Cambridge
2) Imperial, LSE, UCL
3) Warwick, Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh, Bath, Loughborough, St. Andrews
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, you can put it that way. Because, like I said, there are lots of factors involved in ranking schools and personal preference does count as well. But I'd like to assume (and believe) that UCL is closer to Warwick than it is to LSE/Imperial. I'm basing that on branding and reputation in the UK, Europe and the commonwealth countries. Nonetheless, they're all fine schools.</p>
<p>For the most up to date global ranking, have a look at the Times Higher Education Supplement ranking of gobal universities:</p>
<p><a href="Http://www.thes.co.uk%5B/url%5D">Http://www.thes.co.uk</a></p>
<p>Their top 20 universities in the world are:</p>
<p>1 Harvard
2 Cambridge
3 Oxford
4 Yale
5 Imperial College
6 Princeton
7 California Institute of Technology
8 Chicago
9 UCL
10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
11 Columbia
12 McGill
13 Duke
14 University of Pennsylvania
15 Johns Hopkins University
16 Australian National University
17 University of Tokyo
18 University of Hong Kong
19 Stanford
equal 20th: Carnegie Mellon University and Cornell</p>
<p>etc.</p>
<p>Of course, these rankings are for major research universities- so the specialist institutions like the LSE are squeezed out, and so are the US liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>
[quote]
For the most up to date global ranking, have a look at the Times Higher Education Supplement ranking of gobal universities:
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, I accept that THES is the most recent data point, but it tends to overstate UK universities. 40 percent of their ratings are based on academic surveys (peer review) and being a UK based publication, most of those surveyed are in the UK (some 29% being North American in the current survey). Their surveys are a recent data point but hardly a definitive one. For example, contrast the top 15 in both the THES, and the Shanghai Jaio Tong surveys (the Chinese one obviously has no relevant Chinese bias).</p>
<p>THES - 10 American, 1 Canadian, 4 UK
1 Harvard
2 Cambridge
3 Oxford
4 Yale
5 Imperial College
6 Princeton
7 California Institute of Technology
8 Chicago
9 UCL
10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
11 Columbia
12 McGill
13 Duke
14 University of Pennsylvania
15 Johns Hopkins University</p>
<p>SJT - 12 American, 1 Japanese, 2 UK
1 Harvard
2 Stamford (19th in the THES survey)
3 Cambridge
4 University of California - Berkeley
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
6 California Institute of Technology
7 Princeton
8 Oxford
9 Columbia
10 Chicago
11 Yale
12 Cornell
13 University of California - San Diego
14 Tokyo
15 University of Pennsylvania</p>
<p>SJTU is widely criticised for a high number of methodological errors as well as bias.</p>
<p>I don't actually dispute that. My point is that they all have different biases, and you need to know what the biases are in order to correctly interpret the results. Shanghai Jiao Tong for example skews towards Hard Sciences, and crushes specialist universities (so LSE is trashed). The THES skews British, but is otherwise fair. The UNWR survey massively skews north american.</p>
<p>The important thing here is that there is no definitive survey.</p>
<p>I think most UK mathematicians (and informed mathematicians from overseas) would have Cambridge as the first tier, then Warwick, Oxford and Imperial (in various orders) as the second tier. For an undergraduate choosing a course this also reflects difficulty of getting in for students in England and Wales. All require at least 3 out of 3 A grades in A-level exam, but Cambridge demands higher grades in something called a ""STEP" paper than the others. </p>
<p>The next few are harder to call and really depend on what matters to you. Bath for example is very good but small, Manchester is probably the biggest department in the UK, at least the biggest single mathematical departments and the most undergraduates (see Some</a> League tables of UK University Maths Departments 2008 which has an analysis of size and other data), Bristol did well in the Research Assessment Exercise in 2001 and at the time of writing is way out ahead in terms of the value of grants held (see also link above).</p>
<p>Many of the UK newspaper league tables seem to go on rather old (and sometimes inaccurate) government supplied data, so they are not much help. If you are able to visit the UK, then of course one of the best sources is to talk to current students. Chatting on web forums is probably the next best thing but will always be a biased sample.</p>
<p>" I am an American looking to study undergrad at either Oxford(big stretch, but worth an application), UCL, London School of Economics, Warwick or King's College."</p>
<p>You will probably get into Kings.
You might get into Warwick.
UCL might be a bit of a reach.
You have no chance at Oxford or LSE.</p>
<p>"SAT - 2100 (760, 680, 660.. "</p>
<p>Your SATs are poor.
Oxford expect a minimum of over 700 for each section.
Realistic applicants generally have 770 to 800 for each section.</p>
<p>"My rec is fantastic"</p>
<p>Oxford and LSE are completely uninterested in your extracurriculars.
They are only interested in your academic potential.</p>