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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:St. Andrews gives zero boost. Even UVA and heck Penn State has more pull in some parts of America than St. Andrews does on a resume. The average American guy on the street, and hence the average hiring manager, wouldn’t be able to place it on a map.

Penn State? Come on, you're just a troll

Lmao St Andrews grads just are not working in like... supply chain management in suburban Pennsylvania... or other areas or fields where hiring managers don't know abt one of the top universities in the UK. St Andrews grads have international, cosmopolitan backgrounds, and opt for NYC, London, other global cities. The top fields that St Andrews grads go into are consulting and financial sector.

It's cliche, but choosing a college is about finding the right fit. Penn State isn't normally a dream school, but could be a great fit for those from PA wanting in-state tuition, rah rah types into college sports, those doing engineering/CS etc. St Andrews is a choice for a student who's a bit more refined, sophisticated, independent. StA is the opposite of a frat school

I agree with this. My step kid went to St Andrews. I rolled my eyes hard all through high school - someone upthread mentioned "overly tutored" kids and my step kid fell very neatly into that cohort. Went to a very liberal private school, was always given extensions, allowed to retake exams etc.

All that being said, St Andrews turned out to be the perfect place for them. My step kid grew SO much - is a much more compassionate and well-rounded person and is doing well now with a job in the UK, much more independent than I ever expected them to be at this age. So - I was wrong about pretty much everything, from high school to college (thankfully my opinion didnt matter!).

[Anonymous]

I’d place the top Canadian schools at around UMichigan, UVA level, and a school like St Andrew’s at about Sewanee level. For context, both DH and DS are academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know what y’all are smoking but I just asked a few of my UK-based colleagues what they think of St. Andrews and they said it is meh. Decent school but not too hard to get into. They also said that LSE is not considered as prestigious any more because they have been loading up with full freight international students and their admissions standards have gone down.

I mean your middle aged (presumably) colleagues hold a view likely representative of decades ago when they were applying to and going to university, St Andrews has long been a solid, decent university, but its ascent has been more recent.


The now world leading IR school was established in the 1990s, they started recruiting Americans in the 1980s, efforts that bore fruit more recently, alongside Will and Kate, which drew more students and made St Andrews even more selective. the rankings rise has been more in the past two decades, also alongside the addition of thousands of students and expansion and addition of programs and research.

Kinda like Northeastern in Boston, which was a commuter school two decades ago but has substantially beefed up its programs in recent years and is now a high caliber research university. Though St Andrews was never a commuter school and the St Andrews rankings rise was more organic than Northeastern's.

The fact that William and Kate went there was not exactly a boost to its status as an academic institution. I don’t know about Kate’s school achievements but William was not an academic high achiever by any means. Their going there attracted a lot of Americans who wanted to be like them/mix in their circles and also other Brits of a similar social class and level of academic intelligence. That might have pushed the application numbers up but it didn’t help with the quality of the teaching or research or any of the things that universities are typically judged on. So no, St Andrews is still not a top UK university, though it is perfectly ok and would be fine on anyone’s resume. But not a place you’d turn down Yale (or Oxbridge) for.

Yeah, Will and Kate didn't boost the academic quality, but it meant a massive boost in popularity, and thus selectivity, that totally helped increase the caliber of the undergraduate students at St Andrews.

I read somewhere long ago that Kate chose St. Andrews because Will was going there and she was interested in him but she had the stats for Oxbridge.

[Anonymous]

Slightly off topic, if you have a humanities kid with generally strong stats that wants to go to college in London, what are the best options? LSE and Imperial do not seem to fit, so UCL or King's College?

The only thing that concerns me is the career planning if DC wants to come back to the US after.

[Anonymous]

St Andrew’s is not an elite school in any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:St Andrew’s is not an elite school in any way.

depends on what you mean by "elite." This article suggests it's very highly regarded by its students.
https://www.ri5.co.uk/site/news/article/st-andrews-ranked-top-university-in-scotland-and-beats-oxford-to-rank-second-in-the-uk/

[Anonymous]

For the question about London, yes, I would say UCL and Kings College are the top humanities universities in the University of London system, with UCL considered better overall. This is based on overall perception and rankings (Times UK), as opposed to program-specific ratings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:St Andrew’s is not an elite school in any way.

depends on what you mean by "elite." This article suggests it's very highly regarded by its students.
https://www.ri5.co.uk/site/news/article/st-andrews-ranked-top-university-in-scotland-and-beats-oxford-to-rank-second-in-the-uk/

As already noted, almost half the students at St Andrews are international. Scottish degrees are generally 4 years while those in England are 3 (English students go to high school for one more year than Scottish students). Therefore, Scottish universities are not considered by a majority of university students in the UK. I think Scottish high school leavers have to complete English A levels before they can go to an English university. So, the students at St Andrews would be primarily Scottish and international. I'm not sure it makes sense to compare English and Scottish universities as though they are the same.

[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

uh, could that possibly be because there are only 15 universities in Scotland, whereas there are 5,000 in America? That’s not an impressive stat you raise. Scotland has had a long, difficult history establishing universities of quality which is why Bailliol College at Oxford exists (it’s the Oxford college for smart Scots)

[Anonymous]

I think it is so interesting that uninformed Americans are denigrating St Andrews as a place for rich American kids when the tuition (even including airfare) is less than University of MD. We are considering it for our high stats kid because it is a bargain - great school for less than you pay here.

[Anonymous]

How is it less than UMD? Do you mean out-of-state UMD? Pounds to dollars it's around 45K a year without airfare, books and misc. expenses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is so interesting that uninformed Americans are denigrating St Andrews as a place for rich American kids when the tuition (even including airfare) is less than University of MD. We are considering it for our high stats kid because it is a bargain - great school for less than you pay here.

Uh, uninformed Americans? The most pointed critiques of the school are coming from Brits themselves. The simultaneous combination of intense pretentiousness and mediocrity at St Andrews and among its boosters is a huge turnoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is so interesting that uninformed Americans are denigrating St Andrews as a place for rich American kids when the tuition (even including airfare) is less than University of MD. We are considering it for our high stats kid because it is a bargain - great school for less than you pay here.

Uh, uninformed Americans? The most pointed critiques of the school are coming from Brits themselves. The simultaneous combination of intense pretentiousness and mediocrity at St Andrews and among its boosters is a huge turnoff.

I truly have no dog in this fight other than curiosity because my DC attends another UK uni but the various league tables all rank St Andrews very highly. Sometimes prestige is a lagging indicator. Who knows?!?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankings_of_universities_in_the_United_Kingdom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is so interesting that uninformed Americans are denigrating St Andrews as a place for rich American kids when the tuition (even including airfare) is less than University of MD. We are considering it for our high stats kid because it is a bargain - great school for less than you pay here.

Uh, uninformed Americans? The most pointed critiques of the school are coming from Brits themselves. The simultaneous combination of intense pretentiousness and mediocrity at St Andrews and among its boosters is a huge turnoff.

I truly have no dog in this fight other than curiosity because my DC attends another UK uni but the various league tables all rank St Andrews very highly. Sometimes prestige is a lagging indicator. Who knows?!?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankings_of_universities_in_the_United_Kingdom

and yet no. 4, LSE is known as “Let’s See Europe” by my law school friends who couldn’t get into a T14 the first time around so wanted another shot or two at the LSAT

[Anonymous]

In the immortal words of Regina George, stop trying to make St Andrews happen. For the people who are even aware of it in my circles, it's known as the school that wealthy kids will go to if they can't get into a top 20 school in the U.S.