How did St. Andrew's become such a big draw for Americans?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop with the St Andrew’s boosting. It’s a third rate school and its location makes access to US-based internships and jobs near impossible.

Yet for the past decade it has been ranked alongside Oxbridge is a variety of UK ranking schemes and a growing number of firms are hiring St Andrews grads.

BS. Just stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop with the St Andrew’s boosting. It’s a third rate school and its location makes access to US-based internships and jobs near impossible.

Yet for the past decade it has been ranked alongside Oxbridge is a variety of UK ranking schemes and a growing number of firms are hiring St Andrews grads.

BS. Just stop.

NP. And this is just stupid. It has been ranked highly in a variety of UK ranking schemes. That’s just a fact. Don’t know about growing number of firms hiring StA grads. Like it or hate it, I don’t care, but you can’t argue it’s not highly ranked as the PP stated.

[Anonymous]

DC studied at St. Andrews for a semester. Academically, it was much easier than his SLAC (and high school, for that matter). He had a great time but found the location too remote to make travel to other regions convenient. It’s isolated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the 2025-2026 academic year, international undergraduate tuition at the University of St Andrews is £31,670 for Arts, Divinity, or Science, and £37,730 for Medicine. The total estimated cost of attendance for the 2024-2025 academic year was £45,678, which includes tuition, accommodation, travel, books, and living expenses.

that equals just under $61K per year (with potential 10% increases year on year) for 4 yrs.

tuition £31,670
Catering £2,332 (intersemester break will be on a self-catered basis)
Accommodation £7,625 (38 weeks)

that's 41627 or $55,429.

travel is about 500 rt from east coast if you plan ahead, which is easily done. can be 450. can be 550. maybe 3500k all in, including my own trips.

I have another kid at Yale. and it's over 90k - not including 3k for health insurance or anything else. so not half but not bad!

also "Fees will be adjusted annually, with increases typically ranging from 3% to 5% to reflect inflationary pressures to which we may be exposed". never heard of a 10% increase but it's been about the same as yale - 3-5%

[Anonymous]

If we could stop, on the one hand, the “your kid just didn’t get into any decent US school” nonsense on the one hand, and the “St Andrews is as good as Oxbridge” nonsense on the other, then we could just let all these tiresome St Andrews threads die a peaceful death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC studied at St. Andrews for a semester. Academically, it was much easier than his SLAC (and high school, for that matter). He had a great time but found the location too remote to make travel to other regions convenient. It’s isolated.

funny, my kid did a semester there and said it was much harder. she was at vassar. she did say it was dark and gloomy. it is isolated in some ways, but just over an hour from the Edinburgh airport which has a lot of flights. my kids traveled a LOT. can't really see the excuse of not travelog unless you didn't want to. it's quite accessible and cheap

[Anonymous]

It’s about 1.5 hours to EDI. The trains are pricey, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC studied at St. Andrews for a semester. Academically, it was much easier than his SLAC (and high school, for that matter). He had a great time but found the location too remote to make travel to other regions convenient. It’s isolated.

I guess it depends how you define isolated. It’s 1,5hrs to the capital city. Colby is an hour + to Portland, ME and people describe Waterville as isolated. But 1,5 to Edinburgh gets you to an intl airport and vibrant city - even for a day, pretty do-able.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apparently about 20% of the student body is American and it's been nicknamed the "Nantucket of Scotland." What's the draw and why this one university particularly?

The same reason white people apparently are claiming how great the weather is in the third world 100% humid South. One part white kids that can't compete in their home schools, and another part white flight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the 2025-2026 academic year, international undergraduate tuition at the University of St Andrews is £31,670 for Arts, Divinity, or Science, and £37,730 for Medicine. The total estimated cost of attendance for the 2024-2025 academic year was £45,678, which includes tuition, accommodation, travel, books, and living expenses.

that equals just under $61K per year (with potential 10% increases year on year) for 4 yrs.

tuition £31,670
Catering £2,332 (intersemester break will be on a self-catered basis)
Accommodation £7,625 (38 weeks)

that's 41627 or $55,429.

travel is about 500 rt from east coast if you plan ahead, which is easily done. can be 450. can be 550. maybe 3500k all in, including my own trips.

I have another kid at Yale. and it's over 90k - not including 3k for health insurance or anything else. so not half but not bad!

also "Fees will be adjusted annually, with increases typically ranging from 3% to 5% to reflect inflationary pressures to which we may be exposed". never heard of a 10% increase but it's been about the same as yale - 3-5%

You didn’t include visa or health surcharge for StA
And I’m on the east coast & not finding any $450/500 r/t flights home for Xmas…. Where are you looking?
And, Yes, it is less expensive than Yale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s about 1.5 hours to EDI. The trains are pricey, too.

But buses are free with your Young Scots card! And also 1.5hrs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we could stop, on the one hand, the “your kid just didn’t get into any decent US school” nonsense on the one hand, and the “St Andrews is as good as Oxbridge” nonsense on the other, then we could just let all these tiresome St Andrews threads die a peaceful death.

💯 agree!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s about 1.5 hours to EDI. The trains are pricey, too.

Between Leuchars railway station and bus station in town, one takes the 99 bus.

Trains both north and south stop at Leuchars pretty frequently. There is a rail stop near EDI airport. United Airlines typically has 2 daily R/T flights from EWR.

Leuchars is on the East Coast Main Line, so long haul trains south to Newcastle, Durham, York, and London are quite regular.

Same day regular train tickets are pricey. Advance purchase rail tickets are much lower cost. Students also can get a rail discount - not sure of details of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s about 1.5 hours to EDI. The trains are pricey, too.

it's about $100-120 uber. it's not nothing but when you're traveling with 2-3 friends, it's a perfectly normal price to pay for getting to the airport, esp in a car. and it's more like 1hr 15 minutes.

Again, if you dont want to go with 3 friends to Paris or somewhere for a long weekend - paying $25 to get to the airport and then $125 for a rt ticket to Paris.. then you are a college kid who just has no interest in going to Paris for a long weekend. which is fine, but acting like it's SO HARD is bizarre. stay home and scroll, bro.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the 2025-2026 academic year, international undergraduate tuition at the University of St Andrews is £31,670 for Arts, Divinity, or Science, and £37,730 for Medicine. The total estimated cost of attendance for the 2024-2025 academic year was £45,678, which includes tuition, accommodation, travel, books, and living expenses.

that equals just under $61K per year (with potential 10% increases year on year) for 4 yrs.

tuition £31,670
Catering £2,332 (intersemester break will be on a self-catered basis)
Accommodation £7,625 (38 weeks)

that's 41627 or $55,429.

travel is about 500 rt from east coast if you plan ahead, which is easily done. can be 450. can be 550. maybe 3500k all in, including my own trips.

I have another kid at Yale. and it's over 90k - not including 3k for health insurance or anything else. so not half but not bad!

also "Fees will be adjusted annually, with increases typically ranging from 3% to 5% to reflect inflationary pressures to which we may be exposed". never heard of a 10% increase but it's been about the same as yale - 3-5%

You didn’t include visa or health surcharge for StA
And I’m on the east coast & not finding any $450/500 r/t flights home for Xmas…. Where are you looking?
And, Yes, it is less expensive than Yale.

I bought xmas tickets in august. The Facebook parents page is really good. People regularly post when to buy tickets.

But sure .. add in the health surcharge. I think it was about $4k - one time payment - and that covered visa and all 4 years of healthcare.

I also didn't include that I get to charge the St Andrews tuition and fees to my credit cards and get miles out the wazoo. We traveled to Tokyo last year for free as a family of 4 - hotels included. Have loads left over. Could have used those for travel to st Andrews but we've never had an issue finding reasonable fares.