What are your reasons for applying to UK universities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anyone in the U.S. with a kid applying to U.K. universities needs to understand the major difference: In the U.K. the student goes to university to study effectively a single subject for three years. This is not a system for any student who leaves a U.S. high school and is at all unsure what they want to do in college, or who simply has varied interests and wants to explore them in college before settling on a major. That is just not how it works there.

So your high school senior had better be certain that the subject is the one in which he or she wants to work or get a grad degree, because there is no such thing, in the American sense, as a freshman or sophomore year with general courses, or really even electives to let you try other subjects. It's a good system if you know exactly what you want to do at the age of 18 but not good for a kid who might change his or her mind. But it's something students really have to grasp before they start making applications. Again--great for certain people. Terrible for others. Maybe there's more flexibility in some fields and/or at some unis, I'm sure, but generally it's very different from the four-year American course of study where you often don't declare a major until your junior year, and have some options for switching majors etc. Source: DH is from the UK, all our family and friends are there and we have two nieces who just graduated from uni, I went to grad school there, etc.

This.

The big difference between the US and UK education.

I have a niece in med school there (admitted directly after high school). She studied like three subjects for her school leaving exams in high school (like bio, psych and something similar) and nothing else. And she will study med stuff only in her med school years. American students are taught differently in high school - a lot wider and likely less deep in an area of study. That approach works for the Brits and many other. But it is way way different from schools in the US. Not really comparable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anyone in the U.S. with a kid applying to U.K. universities needs to understand the major difference: In the U.K. the student goes to university to study effectively a single subject for three years. This is not a system for any student who leaves a U.S. high school and is at all unsure what they want to do in college, or who simply has varied interests and wants to explore them in college before settling on a major. That is just not how it works there.

So your high school senior had better be certain that the subject is the one in which he or she wants to work or get a grad degree, because there is no such thing, in the American sense, as a freshman or sophomore year with general courses, or really even electives to let you try other subjects. It's a good system if you know exactly what you want to do at the age of 18 but not good for a kid who might change his or her mind. But it's something students really have to grasp before they start making applications. Again--great for certain people. Terrible for others. Maybe there's more flexibility in some fields and/or at some unis, I'm sure, but generally it's very different from the four-year American course of study where you often don't declare a major until your junior year, and have some options for switching majors etc. Source: DH is from the UK, all our family and friends are there and we have two nieces who just graduated from uni, I went to grad school there, etc.

A good friend of mine went to Cambridge (Kings college) and started out studying Arabic & Persian. After 1 year he switched to Russian and Persian so he effectively took 4 years to complete a 3 year degree. Granted, these subjects are inter-related and more easy to swap around with than say Medicine or Law. , but sometimes a change is acceptable, it's just on a case by case basis and heavily dependent on the performance of the student. If they're an excellent student already, the change is not such a risk.