Did anyone's DC get accepted/rejected at a UK school this year?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Sorry I may have included the tuition fees twice. The website is confusing: The tuition listed in the main site is £32,214. The PDF link in the 2) college fee section lists undergraudate fees as £30,678 +~. The two figures are different, so I mistakenly added that again. It's not a bargain but it's in line with US universities' charge. |
Anonymous
|
For a student who is not likely to get admitted to Oxbridge/Durham/Imperial, what are some UK universities that are a good option for a family with about $40k to spend per year?
|
Anonymous
|
Depends on what the student wants to study. Warwick, for example, is reasonably priced for excellent programs in economics and finance subjects. The University League Tables rank each institution’s strengths by subject.
Housing and living expenses are more difficult to predict. Some university accommodation is catered, some not. Science and engineering courses always cost more. Leeds, Bristol and Manchester have strong reputations and are easier to travel to than say, Aberdeen. Exeter is fairly easy to get to and is in the beautiful South. |
Anonymous
Most UK universities will charge around 16k uk pounds sterling a year for an international student. There are plenty of good universities in the uk Russell Group universities - York, Bristol, Exeter etc you should run some searches generally on each university as well as ranking lists and look into UCAS the application center for uk universities and colleges |
Anonymous
16k is for humanities. Lab-based courses are about 22k |
Anonymous
Correct. And it does vary in some institutions more than in others. That's why you need to check individual websites. |
Anonymous
| How about Trinity in Dublin, any experience there? |
Anonymous
that is not a UK university its an Irish one, part of the EU. There's an old thread on here about it if you run a search. |
Anonymous
| Trinity will be at the NACAC fair at the convention center in October. The only reason I know this is because my child is very interested. |
Anonymous
|
Also St Andrews, LSE...
|
Anonymous
GREAT university. |
Anonymous
| Queens College, Belfast is a UK university and an excellent one at that. |
Anonymous
Bristol, Manchester, York, Nottingham are all well-regarded in the UK with international tuition running around 18,000-25,000 pounds (about $22,000-$28,000 with the current exchange rate) depending on whether or not DC wants a humanities or lab-based course. Scottish unis are often worth a look at - they offer more flexibility in course of study than UK unis and are often more accustomed to dealing with US students. Edinburgh and St Andrews are the most highly regarded, but even they do not have incredibly high entry requirements (if I remember from when DD went to an Edi info session, it was a 27 on the ACT and two 4s on any two relevant APs as minimum qualifications). Glasgow and Aberdeen are also beautiful - they are ancient and the architecture can be very Harry Potter-esque! My DD was accepted into Edinburgh and St Andrews unconditionally and the reps from the unis were all very informative and helpful. If DC wants to be in London, it might be worth looking at some of the member institutions of the University of London (sort of analogous to the UC system, except all the unis are in the same city), including SOAS, Royal Holloway, QMUL, and City. Be wary though - the cost of living in London is astronomically higher than in other parts of the UK and from our experience with a UoL uni, housing was uncomfortably unguaranteed (it was possible that she could be living miles away from her school). With that being said, London is a fabulous place to live and go to school and was highly attractive to DD. Generally, we found that UK unis are very transparent with their entry requirements - a quick search of "x university international student qualifications" should do it! If not, be on the lookout for information sessions at locales such as the British School - we went to a few of these and found them to be incredibly helpful! |
Anonymous
|
If your DC is interested in a BA/BFA in Visual Effects, there is a top-10 globally ranked BA in Visual Effects program at Bournemouth University in southern England (Dorset area).
There are very few schools in the US and globally that focus specifically on Visual Effects. Which is ironic considering that's where most of the jobs are in the Computer Animation/Visual Effects industry. Most programs in the US are Computer Animation-specific. This means that they spend a lot more time on story development and character performance and less time on the Visual Effects portions of the pipeline. Thus, it helps to go with the Visual Effects major instead to get more training in rigging, lighting, rendering, compositing, etc. if you want to focus your career on Visual Effects. For international students, Bournemouth's tuition fees and housing costs for an international student run an estimated $28K-29K per year. Total. So the same price as for many Virginia schools for in-state students, partly because the housing cost is lower versus UK schools in London. Bournemouth is in a smaller coastal college town in south England. The total cost does not include food, which they would get on their own, but it includes everything else. And the biggest benefit in getting a degree in the UK is that you can finish in 3 years, not 4. College degrees in the UK are 3 years and are specifically focused on your field of study, without the year of "making you more rounded" by requiring courses you just finished taking in high school like in the US. You can add a 4th year, in between your 2nd and 3rd year, to have a school-year-long internship at a company in your industry. You pay a small fee to stay enrolled as a student for that year, and are earning money at your internship, so hopefully break even or pay just a little overall for that internship year. So you can 1) finish in 3 years or 2) finish in 4 with work experience under your belt to help you in job applications. Needless to say, Bournemouth is one of her top choices she's thinking of for college. They offer 3-week precollege courses in the summer to try out various majors, and we are strongly considering her doing their program before her senior year. It'll be pricey...around $4,500-$5,000 for roundtrip airfare, 3 weeks of courses and room/board on campus. But, after weighing this versus just a college visit, we've decided it's vital in deciding to go to school in a foreign country. She'll be there for almost a month on her own, and will get a sound taste of what the culture will feel like, what the student population will be like, etc. That way she can make a more informed decision if she is accepted. One of us will drop her off and mini-vacation, the other will pick her up and mini-vacation. Anyway, it's a hidden gem to us Yanks, and thought I'd give folks a heads-up if your child is thinking of a major along those lines. |
Anonymous
|
I was a Professor at a non-Oxbridge UK university. UK Schools/departments do their own admissions with only a little help from the University. The school/department/course sets a minimum bar for admissions (e.g., AAB for a good school). For UK students, there are a fixed number of slots and every good school can fill all the slots with AAA students.
They then have an essentially unlimited number of slots for students that meet the minimum bar. These students are cash cows for the school and the faculty on the admissions committee attempts to figure out how to justify that every full fee paying student meets the minimum bar. They do not lower the bar to ABB because that would hurt them in the league tables and the money associated with being high in the league tables is more valuable than the money from fee paying students. They keep the bar at AAB instead of AAA because that allows them to admit more full paying student. If your full fee paying student can get into one AAB school, they can get into any AAB school. |