<p>Ahhh, I was agreeing with much of what cupcake had to say in the first half of the above post, and then cupcake had to go and spoil it with the second half of the post, where there are overwhelming generalities that are just simply wrong.</p>
<p>Re: Laura Spence, Cupcake is exactly right. She seemed to be looking for a liberal arts education, which she definitely was not going to get at Oxbridge. Harvard is a much better fit for her. Indeed, most of cupcake's comments re: specialisation are exactly right. Finding the right school system is an integral part of choosing a school, there are students who would be much better off in the UK, and those who would be much better off in the US. It depends on entirely on the student.</p>
<p>As to the second half of cupcake's post, that is just misguided.</p>
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The UK students who go to study in the US are, in the vast majority of cases, the rich public school pupils. Often those who are not smart enough to get into Oxbridge but can pay their way into a US college.
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<p>True, but they cannot pay their way into most top US colleges any more than they can pay their way into UK schools. The admit rate for internationals at the top US schools is broadly lower than the admit rate for Oxbridge (MIT for example has an international admit rate of 4%, Princeton 7%). It may be true however that they can pay their way into a good, but not top, US school more easily than they can pay their way into a good, but not top, UK school.</p>
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People here are SHOCKED that the US supports a system [legacy admissions] that essentailly the UK has spent 100 years trying to stamp out).
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<p>Again, that varies dramatically from university to university. </p>
<p>At the University of Michigan, applicants are rated on a selection index of 150 points, where 100 points is usually enough to be admitted; students with legacy receive four points. At Harvard, the admissions dean personally reads every application from alumni children and uses the legacy status as a tie-breaker between comparable candidates, according to a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning articles published by The Wall Street Journal published Jan. 13, 2003. At Stanford, they say: Among equally qualified candidates, [legacy] could be a plus factor... Such consideration, however, is never enough to admit a student who would not be compelling in our process without such consideration. At MIT, legacy does not contribute to admissions decisions.</p>
<p>There is certainly some debate about legacy admits, but it is a relatively small group of people. Money does pay a part of admissions. A family who has a track record of donating buildings to large institutions is going to receive favourable treatment at almost any US university, but this applies not merely to those who are rich, but those who are really, really, really rich and generous with that, which is such an infinitismally small part of the admissions pool as to be irrelevant. Beyond that, US universities have a track record in urging alumni to donate money, a lot of which goes towards student financial aid. The schools that do weight legacy applications, argue that this encourages strong alumni support. There is some dispute as to the value of this.</p>
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Over half the pupils at Oxford went to a free "state" school in England, like I did!
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<p>Again, here the statistics favour the US, rather than the UK in terms of elitism. Cupcake is proud that "over half" went to a state school.</p>
<p>64% of Harvard Students went to a State School. 74% of MIT students went to a state school. 65% of Stanford students went to a state school.</p>
<p>Oxford does not publish exactly comparable figures. The only statistic they are prepared to give was that 46.1 percent of Oxford students were from "maintained" schools as opposed to 43.7 percent from the independent sector, statistics almost identical with Cambridge figures. The remainder is comprised of Sixth Form College or foreign students.</p>
<p>By these measure, the US schools are much more solicitious of state school students than Oxbridge. Cupcake is just barking up the wrong tree when suggesting otherwise.</p>
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At state schools, students most apply for what on this board we would consider to be safeties. Through fear of getting 6 rejections.
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Is there any source for this statistic, or is this just anecdotal? I have no hard statistics, but anecdotally, most of the state secondary school students that I encounter (quite a few) do apply to at least one reach amongst their six applications. </p>
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Most people in the UK would never dream of applying to a college where you have to pay to apply for a start (seen as extremely unfair and untrustworthy. UCAS application fee is minimal)
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<p>A legitimate difference. Almost all US schools offer an entrance fee waiver for those unable to afford the fee, but there is indeed a fee to apply. This goes some way to covering the costs of the application.</p>
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and do not think ECs should be assesed, because essentially that is assessing what activities parents can afford to pay for.
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<p>Again a difference, particularly that in US state schools, EC's are considered to be part of the curriculum, so in most cases are not charged for. Therefore, it is reasonable to assess these. </p>
<p>The top schools have enough highly qualified applicants to fill their classes several times over with students with appropriate test scores and grades. So there is a subjective element which is usually looking for those students who contributed the most to the life of their secondary school, in the hope and expectation that they will do so again in university. If, for example, you started a band while in high school, this might help you at a US top school, as they hope you will start a band in university. Again, there are exceptions. Caltech, for example, does not focus on EC's.</p>
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Of course the difference is that all schools here are publically funded so people feel they pay taxes and have a right to equal access.
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<p>Which is broadly true in the US as well. Every state funds a university system which is highly subsidised for residents of that state (and much easier for residents to gain admittance to). Some states university systems are world class (such as the University of California system, and the University of Michigan). There is also a private tier of universities in the US, as there is at every layer in the UK educational system up to University. One difference is that there is a snobbery that exists in at least some UK public schools (which are private) towards those in state education, that does not exist in the same way in the US educational system. It is extremely rare to hear of say Brown University students looking down on UC Berkeley students as they are only in a State university. That is regrettably not true of UK Secondary schools.</p>
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UK students whose families earn under a certain amount pay nothing at all for their college and the costs are the same wherever you go (apart from living costs, which are more expensive in London).
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<p>Which is also true to a much greater case at the top US schools. For students whose families earn less than USD$180000 per year, Harvard guarantees extensive financial aid that will not include student loan packages. The exact amount is capped at 10% of a families income, if above $120000, and substantially lower beyond that. The point at which a Harvard student pays for nothing, including room and board kicks in at a family income of about $60000. This is much higher than in the UK. This is typical of the top schools. Yale, Princeton, MIT are all broadly similar.</p>
<p>Indeed, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Dartmouth, Williams amongst other schools definitely do not consider financial status in any way in the admissions decision.</p>
<p>Cupcake is quite right in that the Laura Spence story is not a reasonable portrayal of Oxbridge admissions procedures and that US students are at risk of generalising wildly and inappropriately about UK admissions. Then Cupcake proceeds to generalise wildly and inappropriately about US admissions.</p>
<p>The real issue here is that finding out about an educational system other than the one in which you were raised is hard, and it is too easy to reach wrong conclusions based on fragmentary information.</p>