For international relations, Look into Sciences Po (MUCH stronger than the Sorbonne, which is open admissions for undergrads), type college universitaire - they have 6 campuses dedicated to various areas of the world (North America and sub Saharan Africa; Latin America and Spain; Germany; central Europe; Asia, especially China, Japan, Korea; Mediterranean countries and the middle East.)
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Be sure to check out the Scottish schools, including Edinburgh, and the Irish school, including trinity Dublin - all of which run closer to the 4-year American system than any of the English schools and are very good for IR and language studies.
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Yes SAT subject tests work in place of APâs for some UK schools you are looking at
@Tigerle With respect, you have no obligation to reply to my question.
â Your knowledge of my life is limited to what i have put on CC.
â>You know nothing about me, my life, and my experience. In turn, you have no means of putting my CC profile in context.
â Therefore, you are in no place to make blanket statements about me, or my âlearning and working style.â
If you canât provide a respectful/supportive answer, I donât need it. Thanks.
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^Heâs talking about the fact that entrance requirements for the various courses of various UK Unis are all easy to find on their websites, and in the UK, uni education is much more self-directed. Thereâll be lectures, tutorial sessions, etc., but students are expected to be much more independent. And marks tend to come down to end-of-year exams that may test stuff covered 7 months ago. And students are expected to prep themselves for those tests.
Someone with that type of initiative should be able to find out pretty quickly whether SAT2âs are acceptable for what.
One way to look at it is that undergrad at an English uni (or most continental European unis) tend to be like junior grad-school (masters program at what Americans would consider an underfunded public).
OP, I did not mean to upset you or hurt your feelings. I am sincerely trying to be helpful in providing a much needed reality check.
I realise it is asking a lot for a US student to immediately understand just how different a another educational culture can be, even if every one there speaks English. But you are considering moving into this culture, so you NEED to understand, otherwise there is no point even applying.
Let me describe the learning the learning style (call it working style, researching style, whatever) that is expected at a place like Oxford or Cambridge.
You will be directed to vast amounts of material related to the topic at hand, you will be expected to work your way through it on your own, choose what is helpful and discard what isnât (you will never be able to read it all), absorb and process it and produce a piece of work (eg an essay on a topic in history or politics) that will then be pulled to pieces by a tutor or supervisor (possibly in a way that you may find neither respectful or supportive, again being used to a different educational culture).
You have to ENJOY working like that. Considering you havenât been trained to work in the British system, unlike a large number of British students youâd be competing with, it had better come naturally to you.
If, once you had hit the official Oxford and Cambridge admissions pages, you didnât then spend as much time as you could reading up on all the information provided on the general and specific qualifications required, considering which course at which university youâd choose and how you might fulfil the requirements, and then came back asking the questions you couldnât find an answer to by yourself, then you havenât shown this to be your natural learning style and neither place would be a good fit.
Come on, prove me wrong! I will sincerely enjoy helping you further with further questions about Oxbridge you do not find information on so easily, I could happily talk about them forever.
There is a reason people are cautious in encouraging even highly qualified and motivated students to apply to Oxford and Cambridge. (Seriously, back when the admissions prospectus for Oxford was a 300 page black and white tome in teeny tiny print, people used to say understanding the process was the first admission requirement you had to overcome. I am not making this up. Itâs MUCH easier now).
There is a reason people are recommending St. Andrews, which is making a conscious effort to recruit American students, by making the admissions system more comfortable for them, which hopefully goes for the educational experience there as well. I canât speak to that, but other posters have talked about the great experiences their children have had.
It also has a terrific reputation for international relations, so steering you there is again, meant to be helpful. Not dismissive of your qualifications.
Look into the joint programme with William and Mary, too, which might be an even better fit, and the admissions process might play even more to your strengths.
PS: And with the way you have reacted to my style of posting, donât even DREAM of applying to a university in continental Europe. This is not a reflection on you, again, but on the differences in educational âstyleâ, as it were. As uncomfortable as my style of posting appears to have made you - would you want to be this uncomfortable for four years? I wouldnât want you to be!
All the best and good luck!
Tigerleâs advice mirrors my English husbandâs experience and outlook. When our son expressed interest in going to school in England, DH didnât give him much input. When I asked DH why he wasnât doing much to explain how things worked in England or how to apply to college, DH explained that the English system is much more hands off and if son didnât have the inclination or skills to do his own research on basic things like the application and entrance requirements, son wouldnât survive the actual process of getting his degree anyway.
DH described the traditional English college - like UCL and KCL from your list - as almost completely results oriented. You can attend class or not, do assignments/problems or not, pretty much youâre on your own. The professors will answer questions and present some subject matter and a list of suggested materials and research, but independent study is primary and your entire grade is based on the final exam.
When I asked him if a student could be dead in his dorm or flat for three weeks without anyone noticing or caring, he replied that this was true but that eventually someone would notice when the body started to smell or the student missed the final exam. (Dry English humorâŠ)
Yes, and while @Tigerle mentioned Oxbridge, the education at other UK unis will be equally hands-off, just with differences in rigor (math at Warwick would be just as challenging as at Oxbridge and the 4th year of Informatics at Edinburgh would consists solely of what are typically grad-level CS classes in the US while, as the UK is a smaller country, you donât have to move too many places down to where the rigor would be more like what you would find at a typical public flagship here).