What are your experiences with Canadian, UK, or Australian universities for a US student?

College Search & Selection
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D24 is considering applying to some international universities for undergrad, and I would be interested to hear any personal experiences.

The idea is that she could get a 3-4 year undergraduate degree that would prepare her for a master’s level program, which she would do in the US, thus eliminating any issues with professional credentials.

Costs seem in line with OOS publics and less than most US privates, and the experience would be life-changing, I think.

Any downsides to this we may not have considered?

How difficult was the transition? Would you/your child do it again?

It’s so hard for me to keep up, because somehow “my top choice is a not super selective in-state” and “I would love to study overseas!” are co-existing for her right now.

Thanks for sharing any experiences!

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My son is a sophomore at McGill University in Montreal and very happy with his choice. Success in a (slightly) different) country takes an outgoing student who can appreciate the cultural differences and will not miss the more traditional aspects of the U.S. college experience–Greek life, big football Saturday afternoons, etc. In some cases, costs at Canadian universities may actually be lessemphasized text than many out-of-state U.S. public universities, particularly in light of the current exchange rate. Many European options are likewise surprisingly inexpensive compared to U.S. schools. At McGill, moreover, students receive a generous tuition reduction in semesters where they are studying French. Good luck and bon chance.

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One potential issue is that most of these schools do not give students the flexibility to switch majors. Students apply for a specific major and are accepted only to that program. For a student who is really already set on a course, that might not be an issue, but it was a worry for my son, and it is important that the applicant understand how this works and how it fits with their own goals and personalities. My own view is that students often benefit from the broader education they would typically receive in the US. I am a lawyer, and I always found it strange that my Commonwealth colleagues had gone straight from high school into what was essentially law school. It can lead to a certain narrowness. In the end, my son is doing it the other way around, doing his postgraduate work in the UK after doing his undergraduate degree in the US. The other thing we had heard was that schools in the UK tend to be more “sink or swim,” with less support from the school, but even as a postgrad, he is finding his professors and the school generally to be quite supportive and helpful. He’s enjoying it a lot. Hopefully, some parents of those who actually made the leap as undergraduates will chime in about their kids’ experiences.

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Agree that the early specialization in UK schools is a little unnerving when you consider how young people are to be making this decision.

For Canadian universities, most people are admitted to a faculty (e.g. science, arts, engineering etc) but not a specific major. International students coming to Canada generally spend their first year doing faculty-required prereqs and declare their major in their sophomore year. However, they can change their mind switch to a different major in the same faculty.

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One daughter studied at a small university in Canada. She had a great experience and got a great education.

Admissions in Canada is more predictable compared to the US. If your grades are high, it may become almost a non-issue. The cost was also quite good. For an international student where she went would have cost about the same as our in-state public university. Since she has dual citizenship, it actually cost a bit less in her case compared to our in-state public university (and way less compared to the LACs that we considered in our part of the US).

She had relatively more classes in her major and relatively fewer outside her major compared to universities in the US. She liked this, but of course not everyone would feel the same way.

She did change her major the end of her freshman year. I am pretty sure that she had to apply and be accepted to her new major, but it was not difficult. Specifically she started off as a languages major. She however started off freshman year taking “biology for biology majors”, which she needed to get permission to take. Doing well in this class (actually two, one per semester) was probably part of what made it easier for her to switch to being a biology major.

I think that having the experience of living in a “semi-foreign” country for four years was quite positive, and gives her a wider view of the world.

As a US citizen with a bank account in Canada, she had to declare this each year on her US tax return. She also had to declare her income in Canada on her US tax return. This is a bit of an annoyance, but she was making so little that she did not need to pay any taxes to either country. She did comment that the Canadian tax returns are vastly easier to prepare and file.

She has been thinking about graduate school, and is more likely to apply in the US. This has not happened yet (or at least we have not heard about it).

One thing to think about: There are quite a few very good universities in Canada. There are a few that are famous in the US (McGill, Toronto, UBC, Waterloo for CS). There are however quite a few other very good large ones, and a few small “primarily undergraduate” universities that are quite good. The small ones tend to be not well known at all in the US. This did not seem to impact her job search in the US, but I did notice that they interviewed her in quite a bit of detail. Since this happened during the COVID pandemic many of the interviews were on-line so I happened to overhear a few of them.

Years ago someone I know applied to a university in Australia for his PhD. His acceptance came in way later than his acceptances to schools in the US and Canada, since they are on a different calendar. I have no idea whether this has changed. In his case he had already said “yes” to a school in the US so he did not end up going to Australia.

One fairly obvious advantage to Canada over Australia is the distance – at least for Americans from the northern states Canada is not very far away.

I have no experience at all with universities in the UK.

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I have no personal experience with this, but my daughter has two close (American) friends who did undergrad in the UK. One was surprised by the pervasive drinking culture. She had thought that “Europeans would be more mature about alcohol.” The other kept up with the drinking of her classmates, a level that crossed the line into dangerous. Both felt it detracted from their studies although the first found friends who were more balanced, and ended up staying there for grad school.

I mention it because I was unaware of it until my daughter’s friends began to come home with wild stories. Parents like me, with alcoholism in the family, may have kids who are looking to avoid a dominant binge-drinking culture.

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Great points, and I think this would be a plus for her.

This would be more of a concern for me if she weren’t getting her associate’s in the spring along with her HS diploma, so she will have taken a wide variety of classes at a college by then. We will have to look closer at the policies surrounding changing of major at the potential colleges.

This is good information to have. Thank you!

It appears to still be a January/February start date. I think she has now decided against Australian schools because she would lose a semester due to this.

Thank you also for the information about bank accounts and taxes. I hadn’t considered that.

I’ve seen British TV shows that portrayed such, but it’s another thing altogether to imagine my own kid in that kind of environment. This will have to be a serious discussion if a UK school ends up near the top of her list.

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Drinking is big in the UK. No form of cannabis is legal but kids can start drinking much earlier than in the US.

My daughter seriously considered UK universities and we were in touch with some of them but ultimately right after school started her senior year she decided to stay in the US. I guess it just got real to her.

UK universities want to see AP test scores. That is the thing that is most equivalent to their A levels. If she wants to seriously consider UK universities be sure she is taking AP courses. I think IB may work too but not sure. My D22s school didn’t offer IB.

In the UK university system not only is going straight into your major (aka ‘course of study’) standard the way the classes (aka ‘modules’) are structured is also very different from the US system. For most classes/modules you have lectures and reading and no or very few assignments. Your grade almost all depends on your final exam. There are few or no other tests. You are expected to do the readings and practice on your own and take the exam.

I have friends who are professors in the US. Their school has a faculty led study abroad program with one of the Irish universities (similar to the UK universities) and they tell their students that they accompany not to try to do what the Irish students do for studying/going to class because they are not prepared to approach it that way.

That said I have a neighbor who went to Trinity College Dublin and loved it. She also did a year abroad working as part of her time at university (common). Abroad in this case means not Ireland. She went to Russia. This was about four years total.

English universities are 3 years but some do offer that year abroad working to make it 4 years total.

Scottish unis are traditionally four years and have ever so slightly more flexibility in taking modules in a subject that is not your intended course of study. Usually it is limited to two or three subjects. — for example you might be allowed to take modules in Psychology or History as well as your Course of Study in English, but you wouldn’t be allowed to take Computer Science or Business or maybe even some foreign languages.

We were prepared to send D22 over if she really wanted to go but ultimately I’m glad she stayed in the US for undergrad. She is planning on doing study abroad in London if she can junior year. I think university in the UK would have been a tough adjustment for her but many US kids do great. Our neighbor really loved Trinity.

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Our S24 is applying to St Andrews, and while we have not had that experience yet, we’ve gathered a lot of information that I thought I would briefly summarize, and explain why that particular university.

It appears to us the majority of US students who do something like this really love it. And a minority struggle, and some transfer back to a US college. As suggested in other posts, to love it you have to be the sort of kid who will embrace meeting students from other countries, a somewhat different approach to the undergrad experience, and a different way of teaching and evaluating.

On the last subject, obviously a lot of the other students have been prepped specifically for that system, and US kids have been prepped largely for the US system. I think it is good advice to think carefully about that, but again some US students do very well. I think some honest self-assessment is very important here.

The other issue is locking into a major early, and that is a large part of why we narrowed down specifically to Scottish universities. Their four-year structure allows a little more exploration the first two years before committing for the final two “honours” years, and they also tend to have quite a few joint degrees. Finally, grades for the first two years count for being able to continue a course, but not toward final degree grades, which takes a little pressure off the transition to a new system.

St Andrews in particular is also more specifically undergrad focused than many UK universities, and it tends to do well in student surveys and such. It also just seems like a fun university with a lot of traditions and very active student clubs.

St Andrews also really likes to recruit from US high schools–they send a rep to our college fair, for example, and generally a pretty high percentage of US kids. Indeed, it looks to me like St Andrews has by far the most US students in the UK, despite being on the smaller side:

So, we have a track record of kids from our HS going there, and there are quite a few US people sharing experiences online if you poke around, again with mostly very positive results. That said, we’ve also sent kids to Oxbridge, other London unis, the big Canadian universities, and so on. But the St Andrews pitch/reported experience has landed best with our S24.

A final note is that William & Mary and St Andrews have a really cool joint degree program where you spend 2 years at each university. It is only offered for a few majors and would not work for us, but I think it would be worth checking out if you wanted something more than the semester abroad sort of experience, but not the entirety of college.

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I don’t know whether St. Andrews is still doing this, but when my son considered the school, they had a program where international students (who are paying the higher tuition) would have their fourth year paid by the school. I assume this was to bring the costs into line with the schools in England that offer three-year degrees. St. Andrews has been doing really well in the rankings lately and has continued to attract a lot of US students, so maybe they don’t need to do this anymore?

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That does not appear to be a standard offer any more, but they do have some merit scholarships. There are apparently only 2 International Excellence Scholarships awarded a year, which cover full tuition and fees, but then 21 Global Merit Scholarships, which are 5000 GBP per year (so nearly a year total by the end). There are then more based on need, but I do not think that will apply to us.

Yeah, with exchange rates and the general popularity of the university, I can understand why they would be limiting such offers these days. They have a lot of different accommodation/catering plans (I can guarantee S24’s mother will get him whatever he wants), but I think COA should top out a little over 41000 GBP for 2024-25. That’s right at $50K at current exchange rates, which is still a huge savings over full market rate at US private colleges. Even tossing in travel costs.

And while I wouldn’t mind if they knocked another 5000 GBP (about $6100) off that too, it really isn’t necessary to make it attractive from a full-pay parental perspective.

Of course if you are eligible for a large need-based grant from a good US private college, that is another matter. And then of course there are usually going to be good in-state public options, or indeed perhaps automatic merit awards OOS too. But that’s going to be a very different experience.

Edit: By the way, rankings and St Andrews is always a complex topic because it is sort of like, say, Dartmouth or Brown in the US, where the undergrad programs would typically merit a higher ranking than the grad programs overall (although St Andrews does have some very good grad programs, it does not have the same breadth and size of very good grad programs as, say, Oxbridge). But as usual, the things that matter to my S24, in the US or elsewhere, are undergrad-specific things like the quality of teaching, undergrad experience, and so on.

St Andrews scores very highly on all that, and then you can also see how that has led to St Andrews students in most courses having very high average entry tariffs (their way of tracking the “numbers” of entering students). Indeed, overall and in many courses, St Andrews these days has the highest average entry tariff, or at least higher than one or both of Oxbridge. But that is not really indicative for Oxbridge specifically, because they have their own exams and a robust interview process that means getting into their courses is considerably harder than entry tariffs alone would explain.

But I think it is fair to say that St Andrews is emerging as perhaps the most preferred/competitive/selective university in the UK after Oxbridge, at least in many courses. And while that is not the only thing that should or does matter to my S24, it gives him some comfort when combined with the student survey results and other positive measures that it is a good choice.

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It’s my sense that people in the UK are having some difficulty wrapping their heads around how St. Andrews is being perceived/ranked these days, but I think it is a terrific choice. I will confess that what put my son off was the woebegone outdoor running track, combined with his general dislike of schools where the town and the school run together. (I myself was smitten.) He refused again to apply to St. Andrews for graduate studies, although the school is probably no. 1 for psychology. On the other hand, he is so far very happy at Glasgow, and Glasgow was ranked no. 4 for psychology in the recent Guardian rankings, so I think we’re OK. Glasgow has a beautiful campus as well as one of the best college towns I’ve ever seen. He’s also enjoying the diversity of the student body, including quite a number of Americans in both his classes and the running club. With regard to one of the points mentioned upthread, he has expressed surprise at the number of students he sees in the pubs every night of the week, but he notes that this at least in part because the under-21’s are in the pubs rather than hiding in their dorm rooms as they would be in the US. And, at least with regard to the weekly running club pub crawl, he says there’s no real pressure to drink to excess.

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Glasgow, by the way, ALSO does very well in the sorts of measures I was mentioning. I am kinda lobbying my S24 to apply to Glasgow too, and we will see what happens with that, but I personally think that is another fantastic choice for a US student looking for a great undergrad experience outside the US.

Here are The Guardian tables I am referencing, incidentally:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2023/sep/09/the-guardian-university-guide-2024-the-rankings

I don’t think the Main Table means much, but if you sort by Average Entry Tariff, you will see St Andrews is #1 with a 212–and Glasgow is #2 with a 211. I note Strathclyde at #3, also in Glasgow, is a special case as a tech specialist with high entry tariffs but also high student to teacher ratios, not so good value added scores, and so on. Not saying it would not be an option for some but it is not of interest to my S24.

Anyway, more useful is to look up a course. My S24 is looking at Biology, and if you look up that, you will see Cambridge is #1, Strathclyde #2, St Andrews #3, and Glasgow #4. In this course, they both also have high survey scores, and good value-added scores.

Point being, a lot of what I said in favor of St Andrews is true of Glasgow as well.

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Agree that the Guardian rankings by subject are helpful. It’s interesting to see that the Biology rankings also rank the Scottish schools so highly. I have been debating whether we are taking this thread OT, but maybe not - I think the point is that the OP’s student should also be looking at the Scottish universities. I think the dynamic is a bit different from the rest of the UK and perhaps more comfortable for a US student.

Our hotel in Glasgow was very close to Strathclyde. It’s a much more urban-feel campus than the University of Glasgow, as it is right in the middle of the city center, whereas Glasgow is in Kelvingrove, a bit set apart. But our waiter one evening was an American student at Strathclyde and he seemed very happy there. It seems to be generally STEM-focused, although I see that it also ranked highly for psychology.

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My two cents is your experience is exactly what the OP was asking for.

I also think just showing how someone can use tools like The Guardian tables as a potential US applicant might be helpful to the OP. No need to belabor it, but once you get the idea you can explore individual courses, and that will lead to potential UK universities perhaps worth additional exploration.

As a more random final comment, I will just note the older Scottish universities, and people educated or otherwise located there, played an outsized role in the creation of the modern scientific method and enlightenment more broadly. And I think that is still reflected in some of their strengths.

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Consider that US colleges & universities make studying abroad for a year or for multiple semesters easy.

Admission to masters degree programs is usually easy if it is not a terminal degree.

Your daughter should consider getting her masters degree in the UK. Cambridge, Oxford, and LSE offer lots of options for US students. Admission is easy & many programs are just 10 months in length. (My niece earned a Masters Degree at the University of Cambridge, then returned to the US to enter a Masters Degree Program for Investigative Journalism at Columbia. Entrance to both programs was easy–although she was well qualified academically & otherwise.)

However, do not expect to be recruited for jobs or career positions.

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So much good information here!! Thank you!

Canada got eliminated today by D24 for being too close. :woman_shrugging:

She has narrowed it down to one international school, University of Edinburgh. She meets the American student international requirements, but the school looks like a tough admit in general.

The average tariff listed for her major is something like 176, and I didn’t see a direct way to calculate it from ACT and AP scores.

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If she likes U Edinburgh, she should definitely look into UGlasgow and UAberdeen (the other 3 from the 4 Ancient Ones, from back when Scotland had a school system and 4 universities whereas England didn’t.) It’s just one application for all of them.

Tariffs don’t apply to international students. Typically you’d see what Highers are required (subjects&grade) and on the international page, for US system, there’s sth like “if a Higher A is required substitute an AP 5”.

Queen’s Belfast 4-year Liberal Arts program is also worth checking out.

UCD has lots of interdisciplinary programs under “Humanities” (like Global Studies, which combines the study of a critical language along with politics, economics, etc, for that region of the world.) Maynooth Arts is an interdisciplinary 1st year program: Critical Studies is a seminar-style class then students can pick 3 classes from 6 groups, including Humanities subjects, Economics, Math… 2 from these must be chosen for 3rd&4th year and students can also pivot to a traditional course at the end of the 1st year (depending on grades).

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So the first thing you should do is find this sort of page for any UK uni of interest:

What this does is give you the key for translating their minimum/standard course requirements into US qualifications.

So under test scores, it says this:

Test scores

Applicants are expected to complete three standardised test, and these can be a variety of different combinations provided they are in different subjects.

Examples of our minimum entry requirements in the standardised tests are:

  • ACT score of 27 plus two AP scores at 4+
  • SAT score of 1290+ (650+ in Evidence based reading and Writing and 620+ in Math) plus two AP scores at 4+
  • 3 AP scores at 4+

Applicants should submit all of their test scores, and our Admission Offices will consider the highest scores submitted for each. Please note, the University of Edinburgh does not Superscore the ACT but will consider a Superscore for the new and old SAT. The optional essay sections are not required.

At the point you apply, you do not need to have achieved all of these requirements, but you should be aiming to complete the requirements in your senior year. Please list on your UCAS application form all of the tests you have taken and intend to take.

Achieving these grades will not guarantee you a place at Edinburgh, but will make you a competitive applicant. Please note, our Admissions Office will consider the other aspects of your application, such as the personal statement.

Please note AP scores are used for admissions purposes only, and no advanced credit is awarded as there is no core curriculum in Scotland. AP Research is not accepted as meeting one of the three required.

OK, next thing you should know is that most of these universities recognize that not all US applicants are going to have the necessary APs offered at their high school (sidenote: Cambridge is the one uni I encountered whose message seemed to be, “Tough, go self-study and take them anyway”, but Oxford and all the other English and Scottish universities we looked at did not do that).

So they have this section on that subject:

We are aware that the College Board have now discontinued SAT Subject Tests and that there will no longer be an option for students to register for these tests. Our entry requirements are still based on SAT, ACT and AP test scores; however, if your school does not follow an AP curriculum and AP Tests are not available to you, our Admission Office may consider alternative academic evidence.

This flexible admissions policy has been confirmed for 2023 entry to undergraduate study on a trial basis. The University of Edinburgh recognises the shift in high school curriculum in the USA and is undertaking a review on entry requirements for future years.

Applicants who are unable to take AP examinations because the AP curriculum is not available must achieve the following to be considered:

  • A minimum 3.3 cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale, or equivalent, in your US High School Transcript. We will look for a rigorous academic curriculum with A and B grades in college-level classes, such as advanced and honours level classes, or equivalent, and no grades below a C in your Junior and Senior year.
  • Where we require a specific subject at AP grade 4, we look for a B+ in honours classes, or equivalent, taken in that required subject
  • Where we require a specific subject at AP grade 5, we look for an A in honours classes, or equivalent, taken in that required subject.

In the majority of cases we will also request:

  • the ACT with a composite score of 27 or above, or,
  • the SAT Reasoning Test with an overall score of 1290 with a minimum of 650 or above in Evidence Based Reading and Writing and 620 in Maths

Please note that the above does not apply for entry to our MBChB Medicine and BVM&S Veterinary Medicine. These degree programmes require students to take AP examinations to be eligible to apply, further information under the required subject section below.

OK, next you need to know that different courses have specific subjects they either require or recommend, and this section explains that:

Required subjects

Many of our degree programmes require that you have some experience of the subject at high school. This means that one or more of your entry qualifications must include specific subject requirements, such as an AP score in a certain subject relevant to the degree you are applying to.

Please check the relevant subject area below for your required subjects:

Note in context, this normally means an AP, but you can substitute an advanced class for an AP if necessary (as another sidenote, I actually confirmed this with an in-person St Andrews rep).

This may take some digging, but we were interested in Biology, and eventually we found this page:

It says:

Required subjects

The grades used to meet our entry requirements must include:

  • SQA: Highers: Biology and Chemistry, both at B or above. You must have a grade A in one of Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Applications of Mathematics or Physics. Advanced Higher Biology and Chemistry are recommended. National 5s: English at C and Mathematics or Physics at B. We accept Higher Applications of Mathematics at C in place of National 5 Mathematics at B.
  • A Levels: Biology and Chemistry, both at B or above. You must have a grade A in one of Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics or Physics. GCSEs: Mathematics or Physics at B or 6 and English at C or 4.
  • IB: HL: Biology and Chemistry at 5. SL: Mathematics: Analysis and approaches, Mathematics: Applications and interpretation, or Physics at 6 and English at 5.

Find out more about entry requirements

International applicants

We welcome applications from students studying a wide range of international qualifications.

Entry requirements by country

That last link will get you back to the above, but what this is basically telling you is you must have APs or advanced classes (by the time you graduate high school) in Biology and Chemistry, and probably Calc too.

OK, so now you know the basic requirements for your course–what do you actually need to be admitted?

This is not 100% clear. Depending on the course/uni, successful UK applicants may mostly just need those basic requirements, or they may in practice need to exceed them materially. It depends on how many applicants the course gets. That Guardian table communicates to UK applicants information on that subject.

But as a US applicant, that is not really meaningful to you. And US students play an interesting role in these unis–namely, we are an important source of additional revenue for them, and our importance as such has apparently increased since Brexit.

So . . . you kinda just have to apply and find out. But I think the consensus in our HS is if you are comfortably above those minimums–like in this case, maybe you are on track to have Bio, Chem, and Calc AP 5s, or Bio and Chem AP 5s and an ACT/SAT at the 30+/1370+ level, or an ACT/SAT at that level plus As in advanced Bio and Chem–then you are very likely to get admitted as a US applicant. If you are more just at those requirements–who knows?

Note you technically can get a conditional offer where they wait to see if you get all that, but it appears to us that conditional offers are less common for US students than UK students, which is probably a yield issue specific to US students. So like I think if you are obviously an A-grade STEM student with high test scores so far but are only taking AP or advanced Chem as a senior–technically you could get a conditional offer for their Biology course, but there is a good chance they will just give you an unconditional offer.

Note again all this is different for Oxbridge, which have interviews and actually admissions by constituent college and such. But with unis like Edinburgh, it is relatively straightforward.

So that was Bio, and you can do something similar for any course of interest. And if you have any questions, you can also reach out to them. Usually they have US-specific people in admissions to help advise how to navigate this, and they typically want to make it work for you if at all possible (except Cambridge, apparently).

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Deleted, as I realize what I was going to say was largely covered already.