How do Americans view universities abroad such as McGill, St Andrews, or similar?

[Anonymous]

My nephew went to Cambridge. Permanently emigrated to the UK. I didn’t want that for my DC. Great college tho.

[Anonymous]

^^ teaches at Durham university in the UK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Brit here. The St Andrew obsessed poster here is really off the mark. There are heaps of universities in the UK that are better than St Andrews before they would even come into the conversation. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, LSE, KCL, Durham, Edinburgh, Bristol… St Andrews is not even the best uni in Scotland, as Glasgow and Edinburgh, maybe even Aberdeen would be considered before them. St Andrews is not even in the Russell Group!

It would be like some kooky booster trying to convince people that Rutgers was one of the best universities in the US, a superlative destination filled with deeply intellectual and aristocratic students. Please.

In the year 2020 St Andrews is the top choice of applicants to Scottish universities. All of the national rankings place it top in Scotland, and within top 3 of the whole UK

[Anonymous]

Americans will know very little about foreign universities outside of the obvious ones like Oxford and Cambridge. Conversely, I've lived abroad and I find they generally have little knowledge of U.S. universities outside of a select few. That said, recruiters generally have a broader view and they can certainly access rankings resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brit here. The St Andrew obsessed poster here is really off the mark. There are heaps of universities in the UK that are better than St Andrews before they would even come into the conversation. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, LSE, KCL, Durham, Edinburgh, Bristol… St Andrews is not even the best uni in Scotland, as Glasgow and Edinburgh, maybe even Aberdeen would be considered before them. St Andrews is not even in the Russell Group!

It would be like some kooky booster trying to convince people that Rutgers was one of the best universities in the US, a superlative destination filled with deeply intellectual and aristocratic students. Please.

In the year 2020 St Andrews is the top choice of applicants to Scottish universities. All of the national rankings place it top in Scotland, and within top 3 of the whole UK

Top choice of American applicants maybe. At my kids DC based private school, the second and third tier kids apply to St. Andrews. These are still very smart and competitive kids but the first tier kids don’t consider St. Andrews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Americans will know very little about foreign universities outside of the obvious ones like Oxford and Cambridge. Conversely, I've lived abroad and I find they generally have little knowledge of U.S. universities outside of a select few. That said, recruiters generally have a broader view and they can certainly access rankings resources.

Recruiters are generally pretty idiosyncratic in school preference and aren't usually looking for global rankings to guide them. In my first job out of college I worked in recruiting for a F100 company. My boss gave me very rough instructions on how to screen resumes: American universities (in any event NEVER Indian ones), specifically ones I had heard of. I probably would have promoted a resume from, say, Oxford or Cambridge, because even though it's foreign I knew it was good, but the company relied on my familiarity with schools as a 22 yr old, and I didn't go hunting around for UK/EU school rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Americans will know very little about foreign universities outside of the obvious ones like Oxford and Cambridge. Conversely, I've lived abroad and I find they generally have little knowledge of U.S. universities outside of a select few. That said, recruiters generally have a broader view and they can certainly access rankings resources.

Recruiters are generally pretty idiosyncratic in school preference and aren't usually looking for global rankings to guide them. In my first job out of college I worked in recruiting for a F100 company. My boss gave me very rough instructions on how to screen resumes: American universities (in any event NEVER Indian ones), specifically ones I had heard of. I probably would have promoted a resume from, say, Oxford or Cambridge, because even though it's foreign I knew it was good, but the company relied on my familiarity with schools as a 22 yr old, and I didn't go hunting around for UK/EU school rankings.

Because you’re never going to get fired for hiring the grad of a well known, familiar school. It’s risk allocation on the part of the person doing the hiring. Of course it leaves out those kids who are qualified but went to somewhere unknown. The recruiter is taking a greater risk by doing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brit here. The St Andrew obsessed poster here is really off the mark. There are heaps of universities in the UK that are better than St Andrews before they would even come into the conversation. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, LSE, KCL, Durham, Edinburgh, Bristol… St Andrews is not even the best uni in Scotland, as Glasgow and Edinburgh, maybe even Aberdeen would be considered before them. St Andrews is not even in the Russell Group!

It would be like some kooky booster trying to convince people that Rutgers was one of the best universities in the US, a superlative destination filled with deeply intellectual and aristocratic students. Please.

In the year 2020 St Andrews is the top choice of applicants to Scottish universities. All of the national rankings place it top in Scotland, and within top 3 of the whole UK

Top choice of American applicants maybe. At my kids DC based private school, the second and third tier kids apply to St. Andrews. These are still very smart and competitive kids but the first tier kids don’t consider St. Andrews.

Yeah for American applicants, but in Scotland and the UK it's the most sought after university in the UK after oxbridge

Elite private schools like yours in DC, where a statistically significant portion of the graduating class are admitted to Ivies/Stanford/MIT/etc., are an anomaly in American education. It's not the norm for a school to have such a substantial portion of moneyed families and legacy kids who have incredible privilege/test prep/private college counselors, and the school counselors have relationships with the top schools. No hate to those schools and the families at them, but it's just not the norm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brit here. The St Andrew obsessed poster here is really off the mark. There are heaps of universities in the UK that are better than St Andrews before they would even come into the conversation. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, LSE, KCL, Durham, Edinburgh, Bristol… St Andrews is not even the best uni in Scotland, as Glasgow and Edinburgh, maybe even Aberdeen would be considered before them. St Andrews is not even in the Russell Group!

It would be like some kooky booster trying to convince people that Rutgers was one of the best universities in the US, a superlative destination filled with deeply intellectual and aristocratic students. Please.

In the year 2020 St Andrews is the top choice of applicants to Scottish universities. All of the national rankings place it top in Scotland, and within top 3 of the whole UK

Top choice of American applicants maybe. At my kids DC based private school, the second and third tier kids apply to St. Andrews. These are still very smart and competitive kids but the first tier kids don’t consider St. Andrews.

Yeah for American applicants, but in Scotland and the UK it's the most sought after university in the UK after oxbridge

Elite private schools like yours in DC, where a statistically significant portion of the graduating class are admitted to Ivies/Stanford/MIT/etc., are an anomaly in American education. It's not the norm for a school to have such a substantial portion of moneyed families and legacy kids who have incredible privilege/test prep/private college counselors, and the school counselors have relationships with the top schools. No hate to those schools and the families at them, but it's just not the norm.

I wonder if it’s such a sought after university for Brits though. 45% of students are foreign including 20% from the US. Most American students wouldn’t go to British universities outside Scotland for their undergraduate degrees as the system works differently and you have to choose a specific course like economics.

[Anonymous]

It’s not. I grew up in Scotland. The top students in my (private) school went to Oxford and Cambridge. The next tier went to Imperial College and Edinburgh. I don’t think a single person in our year applied to St Andrew’s. It’s reputation in Scotland was as a place where toffs who weren’t smart enough to go to Oxbridge or an Oxbridge-reject uni (Durham, Bristol, etc) would go to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not. I grew up in Scotland. The top students in my (private) school went to Oxford and Cambridge. The next tier went to Imperial College and Edinburgh. I don’t think a single person in our year applied to St Andrew’s. It’s reputation in Scotland was as a place where toffs who weren’t smart enough to go to Oxbridge or an Oxbridge-reject uni (Durham, Bristol, etc) would go to.

Seriously. The St Andrew’s boosters on here are completely nuts.

[Anonymous]

Never heard of them. Most would think Radford is more prestigious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP. McGill, University of Toronto and University of British Columbia are highly ranked globally. I believe University of Toronto is the highest among them, with University of British Columbia and McGill after. There are also other great schools in Canada.

If your son is interested in computer science, consider University of Waterloo.

Waterloo CS is really hard to get into. They also encourage students to sit their Euclid math competition, so some pre-planning is required.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never heard of them. Most would think Radford is more prestigious.

Most, lol? Most wouldn’t have heard of either. A fragment of the UMC will know of St Andrews (along with a few royals-obsessed celebrity-watchers) and only Virginians will have heard of Radford. The former will declare St Andrews posh (and hardly anyone will believe them); the latter won’t even try. Neither school is prestigious unless sending your kid abroad is seen as inherently prestigious (which is what the St Andrews boosters in the US are hoping for/counting on).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not. I grew up in Scotland. The top students in my (private) school went to Oxford and Cambridge. The next tier went to Imperial College and Edinburgh. I don’t think a single person in our year applied to St Andrew’s. It’s reputation in Scotland was as a place where toffs who weren’t smart enough to go to Oxbridge or an Oxbridge-reject uni (Durham, Bristol, etc) would go to.

I am also British and would agree with this. It is a good school, but certainly below Oxbridge and probably a little below Durham/Bristol/Edinburgh.

I have worked in recruitment for an international organisation, and we would look as favorably on a top tier European school as a US one.