U of St Andrews - Admissions per State

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles (which as many of us know is one of the top private high schools in the US) has a detailed handbook on college admissions where they publish admissions statistics for individual colleges. Here are the percent of students admitted to UK universities from Harvard-Westlake over the last three years:

Kent: 100 percent (1 applied)
Manchester: 100 percent (1 applied)
St Andrews: 75 percent (40 applied)
Exeter: 50 percent (2 applied)
Edinburgh: 40 percent (10 applied)
LSE: 33 percent (3 applied)
UCL: 12 percent (8 applied)

Bristol: 0 (1 applied)
Cambridge: 0 (3 applied)
Glasgow: 0 (1 applied)
Oxford: 0 (7 applied)
Warwick: 0 (1 applied)

Wow

I have a close friend who went to Harvard-Westlake and St Andrews.

Harvard-Westlake is a major feeder school, one of the biggest in LA. The admit rate to attend Harvard-Westlake is about 25-30% and the tuition is $50,000 a year.

The students at Harvard-Westlake as a whole are brilliant and often get into competitive schools. Kids at Harvard-Westlake that are aiming for T10-20 schools apply to St Andrews as a backup if they don't get into one of their top choices.

That was the case with my son. He is starting his 4th year at St Andrews now. He was rejected at Stanford, Wharton and waitlisted then denied at Columbia. Accepted to NYU and USC but decided to go abroad instead to study Finance/Econ. 1540 SAT. Great ECs and high GPA.

Here are the 3-year admit rates for Harvard-Westlake for the top USA universities more perspective.

First, again, St Andrews: 75 percent

Boston College: 26 percent
Boston University: 27 percent
Brown: 13 percent
Carnegie Mellon: 25 percent
Columbia: 14 percent
Cornell: 22 percent
Dartmouth: 12 percent
Duke: 9.5 percent
Emory: 18 percent
Georgetown: 27 percent
Harvard: 19 percent
JHU: 8 percent
MIT: 6 percent
NYU: 35 percent
Northwestern: 8 percent
Northeastern: 33 percent
Princeton: 9.5 percent
Rice: 18 percent
Stanford: 12 percent
Tulane: 23 percent
UC-Berkeley: 26 percent
UCLA: 14 percent
UChicago: 29 percent
UMich: 25 percent
UNC: 7 percent
UNotre Dame: 7 percent
UPenn: 18 percent
USC: 18 percent
UVA: 31 percent
WashU: 22 percent
Yale: 14 percent

In addition to those schools, the following small top schools admitted far fewer than half and typically fewer than a thirdof H-W applicants:

Amherst
Bates
Bowdoin
Bucknell
Colby
Colorado College
Davidson
Hamilton
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Howard
Lehigh
Middlebury
Pitzer
Pomona
Swarthmore
Tufts
Vassar
Wellesley
Wesleyan
Williams

Finally, here's a good sampling of schools with similar admit rates to St Andrews (60 to 80 percent) at Harvard-Westlake:

American
Brandeis
Fordham
GWU
Loyola Marymount
Occidental
Pepperdine
Purdue
Santa Clara
Scripps
Skidmore
Syracuse
TCU
Ohio State
Penn State
UC-Boulder
UMaryland
UPitt
UWashington
UW-Madison

You can draw your own conclusions from here.

This has been very helpful data, not just for St Andrews but elsewhere. Thanks for sharing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles (which as many of us know is one of the top private high schools in the US) has a detailed handbook on college admissions where they publish admissions statistics for individual colleges. Here are the percent of students admitted to UK universities from Harvard-Westlake over the last three years:

Kent: 100 percent (1 applied)
Manchester: 100 percent (1 applied)
St Andrews: 75 percent (40 applied)
Exeter: 50 percent (2 applied)
Edinburgh: 40 percent (10 applied)
LSE: 33 percent (3 applied)
UCL: 12 percent (8 applied)

Bristol: 0 (1 applied)
Cambridge: 0 (3 applied)
Glasgow: 0 (1 applied)
Oxford: 0 (7 applied)
Warwick: 0 (1 applied)

Wow

I have a close friend who went to Harvard-Westlake and St Andrews.

Harvard-Westlake is a major feeder school, one of the biggest in LA. The admit rate to attend Harvard-Westlake is about 25-30% and the tuition is $50,000 a year.

The students at Harvard-Westlake as a whole are brilliant and often get into competitive schools. Kids at Harvard-Westlake that are aiming for T10-20 schools apply to St Andrews as a backup if they don't get into one of their top choices.

That was the case with my son. He is starting his 4th year at St Andrews now. He was rejected at Stanford, Wharton and waitlisted then denied at Columbia. Accepted to NYU and USC but decided to go abroad instead to study Finance/Econ. 1540 SAT. Great ECs and high GPA.

Here are the 3-year admit rates for Harvard-Westlake for the top USA universities more perspective.

First, again, St Andrews: 75 percent

Boston College: 26 percent
Boston University: 27 percent
Brown: 13 percent
Carnegie Mellon: 25 percent
Columbia: 14 percent
Cornell: 22 percent
Dartmouth: 12 percent
Duke: 9.5 percent
Emory: 18 percent
Georgetown: 27 percent
Harvard: 19 percent
JHU: 8 percent
MIT: 6 percent
NYU: 35 percent
Northwestern: 8 percent
Northeastern: 33 percent
Princeton: 9.5 percent
Rice: 18 percent
Stanford: 12 percent
Tulane: 23 percent
UC-Berkeley: 26 percent
UCLA: 14 percent
UChicago: 29 percent
UMich: 25 percent
UNC: 7 percent
UNotre Dame: 7 percent
UPenn: 18 percent
USC: 18 percent
UVA: 31 percent
WashU: 22 percent
Yale: 14 percent

In addition to those schools, the following small top schools admitted far fewer than half and typically fewer than a thirdof H-W applicants:

Amherst
Bates
Bowdoin
Bucknell
Colby
Colorado College
Davidson
Hamilton
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Howard
Lehigh
Middlebury
Pitzer
Pomona
Swarthmore
Tufts
Vassar
Wellesley
Wesleyan
Williams

Finally, here's a good sampling of schools with similar admit rates to St Andrews (60 to 80 percent) at Harvard-Westlake:

American
Brandeis
Fordham
GWU
Loyola Marymount
Occidental
Pepperdine
Purdue
Santa Clara
Scripps
Skidmore
Syracuse
TCU
Ohio State
Penn State
UC-Boulder
UMaryland
UPitt
UWashington
UW-Madison

You can draw your own conclusions from here.

This post is highly misleading—some cherry-picked statistics paired with uninformed takeaways.

For context: I studied Statistics at St Andrews, went to a top 3 MBA program in the U.S., and currently work in portfolio analytics at a Fortune 100 company. I also have close friends who went to Harvard-Westlake and attended St Andrews. I’m not usually one to list credentials, but given the prestige-obsessed tone of this forum, I hope it adds some weight to what follows.

Here’s what’s missing from the discussion:

1. Different Applicant Pool

Harvard-Westlake graduates about 300 students per year. Over the past three years, around 40 students from HW applied to St Andrews—that’s roughly 13 students per year, or just about 4% of each graduating class. This is a very small subset relative to the number applying to U.S. colleges.

And importantly, that subset is extremely competitive. These are students applying to Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, etc.—and they view St Andrews as a strong international alternative, not a fallback. They're not typically applying to schools like Bates, Fordham, or Purdue. So when someone claims “60–80% of HW students are accepted to St Andrews,” they’re referring to a self-selecting group of high-achieving applicants, not the broader HW student body.

That’s very different from U.S. schools like Syracuse or Santa Clara, which may attract a wider range of applicants from HW and therefore show a lower admit rate. And the matriculation data backs this up: only 2 HW students enrolled at St Andrews in 2024, and just 12 in the past 5 years. Many of the students who are accepted ultimately choose T10–20 U.S. schools instead.

2. Different Admissions Philosophies

U.S. colleges are highly sensitive to school context. They track how many students they admit from each high school and may cap the number of offers to elite private schools like Harvard-Westlake—even if more students are qualified—in order to maintain geographic and institutional diversity.

By contrast, UK universities—including St Andrews—don’t limit offers by school. If 10 HW students meet the criteria, they’ll admit all 10. There’s no quota. This explains why a small, high-achieving subset of HW applicants might enjoy a seemingly high admit rate—but that says nothing about the school's overall selectivity.

3. Selective Doesn’t Mean Everyone Gets In

Even exceptionally qualified students are sometimes rejected. One HW student, for example, had a 1540 SAT, top extracurriculars, and a high GPA—was accepted to NYU and USC—but rejected by St Andrews. The average SAT score at HW is already high (1464), and this student was well above that. So no, it’s not a guarantee, even for the best applicants.

Final Thought

Statistics aside, some of the commentary on St Andrews in this forum is frankly disappointing and sad. St Andrews isn’t the right fit for everyone, but it's a world-class university that offers an outstanding academic and personal experience for the right student.

I come here to provide helpful, informed insight for students and parents who are genuinely curious about the school. It’s disheartening to see people bash it with dismissive and uninformed takes. For what purpose? It comes off like someone projecting their own insecurities onto an anonymous forum.

Students and families already deal with enormous pressure in the college process. Let’s not make it worse with baseless elitism or misplaced negativity. Use this forum to elevate and inform, not to tear down a school or diminish the hard work of those who choose a path outside the Ivy League bubble.

Most of what is written here is wrong.

40 students applying (75% accepted) is not a very small subset relative to those applying to US colleges. It’s not as high as some Ivies/T20, but it’s very similar to Amherst (48 applicants, 27% accepted), Pepperdine (35, 63%), Purdue (36, 78%), Rice (39, 18%), Santa Clara which you mentioned (48, 56%), Syracuse which you mentioned (55, 67%), UC Riverside (46, 65%), Miami (55, 29%), UNC (43, 7%), Richmond (42, 36%), and a bunch of others.

“But,” you say, “this subset is more competitive than the others.” Well, no. 15 of the 40 had under a 3.6 GPA. Everyone that applied with above a 3.8 (10 applicants) got in, which only seems to have happened at Purdue, Indiana, Ithaca, Colgate, SMU, GWU, Kenyon, and Franklin & Marshall amongst schools with 10 or more 3.8+ applicants. 75% of applicants from 3.6-3.8 got in. Most of the rejections were below 3.6, showing again that if you can get above the stated minimums, you have very good odds. Also, did the minimums prevent kids from applying? Doesn’t seem that way, as 7 applicants had below a 3.4, including 1 below a 3.

Are US colleges sensitive to school? Not private ones. On the contrary, the NYT (I think) did an analysis a few years ago demonstrating how so few high schools supply non hooked kids at top private
colleges.

Meanwhile, you got the 1540 kid wrong, that kid got accepted to StA.

The only sad commentary here is the people trying to boost it unreasonably and unnecessarily. I agree with you that we should use this forum to inform. That starts with correcting misinformation from, yes, insecure people trying to make a school out to be something it isn’t. It’s a good school. It’s not a T20 or even T30 in the US. That’s fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles (which as many of us know is one of the top private high schools in the US) has a detailed handbook on college admissions where they publish admissions statistics for individual colleges. Here are the percent of students admitted to UK universities from Harvard-Westlake over the last three years:

Kent: 100 percent (1 applied)
Manchester: 100 percent (1 applied)
St Andrews: 75 percent (40 applied)
Exeter: 50 percent (2 applied)
Edinburgh: 40 percent (10 applied)
LSE: 33 percent (3 applied)
UCL: 12 percent (8 applied)

Bristol: 0 (1 applied)
Cambridge: 0 (3 applied)
Glasgow: 0 (1 applied)
Oxford: 0 (7 applied)
Warwick: 0 (1 applied)

Wow

I have a close friend who went to Harvard-Westlake and St Andrews.

Harvard-Westlake is a major feeder school, one of the biggest in LA. The admit rate to attend Harvard-Westlake is about 25-30% and the tuition is $50,000 a year.

The students at Harvard-Westlake as a whole are brilliant and often get into competitive schools. Kids at Harvard-Westlake that are aiming for T10-20 schools apply to St Andrews as a backup if they don't get into one of their top choices.

That was the case with my son. He is starting his 4th year at St Andrews now. He was rejected at Stanford, Wharton and waitlisted then denied at Columbia. Accepted to NYU and USC but decided to go abroad instead to study Finance/Econ. 1540 SAT. Great ECs and high GPA.

Here are the 3-year admit rates for Harvard-Westlake for the top USA universities more perspective.

First, again, St Andrews: 75 percent

Boston College: 26 percent
Boston University: 27 percent
Brown: 13 percent
Carnegie Mellon: 25 percent
Columbia: 14 percent
Cornell: 22 percent
Dartmouth: 12 percent
Duke: 9.5 percent
Emory: 18 percent
Georgetown: 27 percent
Harvard: 19 percent
JHU: 8 percent
MIT: 6 percent
NYU: 35 percent
Northwestern: 8 percent
Northeastern: 33 percent
Princeton: 9.5 percent
Rice: 18 percent
Stanford: 12 percent
Tulane: 23 percent
UC-Berkeley: 26 percent
UCLA: 14 percent
UChicago: 29 percent
UMich: 25 percent
UNC: 7 percent
UNotre Dame: 7 percent
UPenn: 18 percent
USC: 18 percent
UVA: 31 percent
WashU: 22 percent
Yale: 14 percent

In addition to those schools, the following small top schools admitted far fewer than half and typically fewer than a thirdof H-W applicants:

Amherst
Bates
Bowdoin
Bucknell
Colby
Colorado College
Davidson
Hamilton
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Howard
Lehigh
Middlebury
Pitzer
Pomona
Swarthmore
Tufts
Vassar
Wellesley
Wesleyan
Williams

Finally, here's a good sampling of schools with similar admit rates to St Andrews (60 to 80 percent) at Harvard-Westlake:

American
Brandeis
Fordham
GWU
Loyola Marymount
Occidental
Pepperdine
Purdue
Santa Clara
Scripps
Skidmore
Syracuse
TCU
Ohio State
Penn State
UC-Boulder
UMaryland
UPitt
UWashington
UW-Madison

You can draw your own conclusions from here.

This post is highly misleading—some cherry-picked statistics paired with uninformed takeaways.

For context: I studied Statistics at St Andrews, went to a top 3 MBA program in the U.S., and currently work in portfolio analytics at a Fortune 100 company. I also have close friends who went to Harvard-Westlake and attended St Andrews. I’m not usually one to list credentials, but given the prestige-obsessed tone of this forum, I hope it adds some weight to what follows.

Here’s what’s missing from the discussion:

1. Different Applicant Pool

Harvard-Westlake graduates about 300 students per year. Over the past three years, around 40 students from HW applied to St Andrews—that’s roughly 13 students per year, or just about 4% of each graduating class. This is a very small subset relative to the number applying to U.S. colleges.

And importantly, that subset is extremely competitive. These are students applying to Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, etc.—and they view St Andrews as a strong international alternative, not a fallback. They're not typically applying to schools like Bates, Fordham, or Purdue. So when someone claims “60–80% of HW students are accepted to St Andrews,” they’re referring to a self-selecting group of high-achieving applicants, not the broader HW student body.

That’s very different from U.S. schools like Syracuse or Santa Clara, which may attract a wider range of applicants from HW and therefore show a lower admit rate. And the matriculation data backs this up: only 2 HW students enrolled at St Andrews in 2024, and just 12 in the past 5 years. Many of the students who are accepted ultimately choose T10–20 U.S. schools instead.

2. Different Admissions Philosophies

U.S. colleges are highly sensitive to school context. They track how many students they admit from each high school and may cap the number of offers to elite private schools like Harvard-Westlake—even if more students are qualified—in order to maintain geographic and institutional diversity.

By contrast, UK universities—including St Andrews—don’t limit offers by school. If 10 HW students meet the criteria, they’ll admit all 10. There’s no quota. This explains why a small, high-achieving subset of HW applicants might enjoy a seemingly high admit rate—but that says nothing about the school's overall selectivity.

3. Selective Doesn’t Mean Everyone Gets In

Even exceptionally qualified students are sometimes rejected. One HW student, for example, had a 1540 SAT, top extracurriculars, and a high GPA—was accepted to NYU and USC—but rejected by St Andrews. The average SAT score at HW is already high (1464), and this student was well above that. So no, it’s not a guarantee, even for the best applicants.

Final Thought

Statistics aside, some of the commentary on St Andrews in this forum is frankly disappointing and sad. St Andrews isn’t the right fit for everyone, but it's a world-class university that offers an outstanding academic and personal experience for the right student.

I come here to provide helpful, informed insight for students and parents who are genuinely curious about the school. It’s disheartening to see people bash it with dismissive and uninformed takes. For what purpose? It comes off like someone projecting their own insecurities onto an anonymous forum.

Students and families already deal with enormous pressure in the college process. Let’s not make it worse with baseless elitism or misplaced negativity. Use this forum to elevate and inform, not to tear down a school or diminish the hard work of those who choose a path outside the Ivy League bubble.

Ok, let's look at the specific schools you've mentioned. You can compare oranges to oranges at Harvard-Westlake very easily.

St Andrews: 10 students with a 3.8 or above applied. All 10 got in.

23 students between a 3.4 and 3.79 applied. 17 got in.

Santa Clara: 7 students applied with a 3.8 or above. 5 got in.

27 students between a 3.4 and 3.79 applied. 15 got in.

Syracuse:

7 students with a 3.8 or over applied, and all 7 got in.

32 students between a 3.4 and a 3.79 applied, and 27 got in.

It sure looks like St Andrews falls pretty closely in line with these two schools.

[Anonymous]

We have a poster who says on the one hand that there have only been 12 Harvard-Westlake grads at St Andrews in the last 5 years combined, yet the poster is also "close friends with H-W grads who attended St Andrews." So I guess his "close friends" are pretty much the only H-W grads who went to St Andrews?

Also, the same poster is talking about a H-W grad with a 1540 on the SAT with a "top" GPA who was rejected from St Andrews but got into USC and NYU, while another poster says she's the mother of an H-W grad with the exact same profile who got into and is now AT St Andrews?

Zero credibility.

[Anonymous]

St Andrews is significantly easier to get into coming from the US. Harvard-Westlake is also a very competitive school. You cannot map US acceptance rates for international schools to their prestige.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles (which as many of us know is one of the top private high schools in the US) has a detailed handbook on college admissions where they publish admissions statistics for individual colleges. Here are the percent of students admitted to UK universities from Harvard-Westlake over the last three years:

Kent: 100 percent (1 applied)
Manchester: 100 percent (1 applied)
St Andrews: 75 percent (40 applied)
Exeter: 50 percent (2 applied)
Edinburgh: 40 percent (10 applied)
LSE: 33 percent (3 applied)
UCL: 12 percent (8 applied)

Bristol: 0 (1 applied)
Cambridge: 0 (3 applied)
Glasgow: 0 (1 applied)
Oxford: 0 (7 applied)
Warwick: 0 (1 applied)

Wow

I have a close friend who went to Harvard-Westlake and St Andrews.

Harvard-Westlake is a major feeder school, one of the biggest in LA. The admit rate to attend Harvard-Westlake is about 25-30% and the tuition is $50,000 a year.

The students at Harvard-Westlake as a whole are brilliant and often get into competitive schools. Kids at Harvard-Westlake that are aiming for T10-20 schools apply to St Andrews as a backup if they don't get into one of their top choices.

That was the case with my son. He is starting his 4th year at St Andrews now. He was rejected at Stanford, Wharton and waitlisted then denied at Columbia. Accepted to NYU and USC but decided to go abroad instead to study Finance/Econ. 1540 SAT. Great ECs and high GPA.

Here are the 3-year admit rates for Harvard-Westlake for the top USA universities more perspective.

First, again, St Andrews: 75 percent

Boston College: 26 percent
Boston University: 27 percent
Brown: 13 percent
Carnegie Mellon: 25 percent
Columbia: 14 percent
Cornell: 22 percent
Dartmouth: 12 percent
Duke: 9.5 percent
Emory: 18 percent
Georgetown: 27 percent
Harvard: 19 percent
JHU: 8 percent
MIT: 6 percent
NYU: 35 percent
Northwestern: 8 percent
Northeastern: 33 percent
Princeton: 9.5 percent
Rice: 18 percent
Stanford: 12 percent
Tulane: 23 percent
UC-Berkeley: 26 percent
UCLA: 14 percent
UChicago: 29 percent
UMich: 25 percent
UNC: 7 percent
UNotre Dame: 7 percent
UPenn: 18 percent
USC: 18 percent
UVA: 31 percent
WashU: 22 percent
Yale: 14 percent

In addition to those schools, the following small top schools admitted far fewer than half and typically fewer than a thirdof H-W applicants:

Amherst
Bates
Bowdoin
Bucknell
Colby
Colorado College
Davidson
Hamilton
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Howard
Lehigh
Middlebury
Pitzer
Pomona
Swarthmore
Tufts
Vassar
Wellesley
Wesleyan
Williams

Finally, here's a good sampling of schools with similar admit rates to St Andrews (60 to 80 percent) at Harvard-Westlake:

American
Brandeis
Fordham
GWU
Loyola Marymount
Occidental
Pepperdine
Purdue
Santa Clara
Scripps
Skidmore
Syracuse
TCU
Ohio State
Penn State
UC-Boulder
UMaryland
UPitt
UWashington
UW-Madison

You can draw your own conclusions from here.

This post is highly misleading—some cherry-picked statistics paired with uninformed takeaways.

For context: I studied Statistics at St Andrews, went to a top 3 MBA program in the U.S., and currently work in portfolio analytics at a Fortune 100 company. I also have close friends who went to Harvard-Westlake and attended St Andrews. I’m not usually one to list credentials, but given the prestige-obsessed tone of this forum, I hope it adds some weight to what follows.

Here’s what’s missing from the discussion:

1. Different Applicant Pool

Harvard-Westlake graduates about 300 students per year. Over the past three years, around 40 students from HW applied to St Andrews—that’s roughly 13 students per year, or just about 4% of each graduating class. This is a very small subset relative to the number applying to U.S. colleges.

And importantly, that subset is extremely competitive. These are students applying to Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, etc.—and they view St Andrews as a strong international alternative, not a fallback. They're not typically applying to schools like Bates, Fordham, or Purdue. So when someone claims “60–80% of HW students are accepted to St Andrews,” they’re referring to a self-selecting group of high-achieving applicants, not the broader HW student body.

That’s very different from U.S. schools like Syracuse or Santa Clara, which may attract a wider range of applicants from HW and therefore show a lower admit rate. And the matriculation data backs this up: only 2 HW students enrolled at St Andrews in 2024, and just 12 in the past 5 years. Many of the students who are accepted ultimately choose T10–20 U.S. schools instead.

2. Different Admissions Philosophies

U.S. colleges are highly sensitive to school context. They track how many students they admit from each high school and may cap the number of offers to elite private schools like Harvard-Westlake—even if more students are qualified—in order to maintain geographic and institutional diversity.

By contrast, UK universities—including St Andrews—don’t limit offers by school. If 10 HW students meet the criteria, they’ll admit all 10. There’s no quota. This explains why a small, high-achieving subset of HW applicants might enjoy a seemingly high admit rate—but that says nothing about the school's overall selectivity.

3. Selective Doesn’t Mean Everyone Gets In

Even exceptionally qualified students are sometimes rejected. One HW student, for example, had a 1540 SAT, top extracurriculars, and a high GPA—was accepted to NYU and USC—but rejected by St Andrews. The average SAT score at HW is already high (1464), and this student was well above that. So no, it’s not a guarantee, even for the best applicants.

Final Thought

Statistics aside, some of the commentary on St Andrews in this forum is frankly disappointing and sad. St Andrews isn’t the right fit for everyone, but it's a world-class university that offers an outstanding academic and personal experience for the right student.

I come here to provide helpful, informed insight for students and parents who are genuinely curious about the school. It’s disheartening to see people bash it with dismissive and uninformed takes. For what purpose? It comes off like someone projecting their own insecurities onto an anonymous forum.

Students and families already deal with enormous pressure in the college process. Let’s not make it worse with baseless elitism or misplaced negativity. Use this forum to elevate and inform, not to tear down a school or diminish the hard work of those who choose a path outside the Ivy League bubble.

Ok, let's look at the specific schools you've mentioned. You can compare oranges to oranges at Harvard-Westlake very easily.

St Andrews: 10 students with a 3.8 or above applied. All 10 got in.

23 students between a 3.4 and 3.79 applied. 17 got in.

Santa Clara: 7 students applied with a 3.8 or above. 5 got in.

27 students between a 3.4 and 3.79 applied. 15 got in.

Syracuse:

7 students with a 3.8 or over applied, and all 7 got in.

32 students between a 3.4 and a 3.79 applied, and 27 got in.

It sure looks like St Andrews falls pretty closely in line with these two schools.

Let’s say everyone who has over a 3.8 gets into community college and everyone who has over a 3.8 gets into Harvard. They must be the same!

You also need to consider St Andrews doesn’t place a large emphasis on ECs. If you’re an American student with a GPA over 3.8 and a SAT over 1500, from a school like Harvard-Westlake you’re probably fine getting in. Certain subjects are more competitive and that may not be enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles (which as many of us know is one of the top private high schools in the US) has a detailed handbook on college admissions where they publish admissions statistics for individual colleges. Here are the percent of students admitted to UK universities from Harvard-Westlake over the last three years:

Kent: 100 percent (1 applied)
Manchester: 100 percent (1 applied)
St Andrews: 75 percent (40 applied)
Exeter: 50 percent (2 applied)
Edinburgh: 40 percent (10 applied)
LSE: 33 percent (3 applied)
UCL: 12 percent (8 applied)

Bristol: 0 (1 applied)
Cambridge: 0 (3 applied)
Glasgow: 0 (1 applied)
Oxford: 0 (7 applied)
Warwick: 0 (1 applied)

Wow

I have a close friend who went to Harvard-Westlake and St Andrews.

Harvard-Westlake is a major feeder school, one of the biggest in LA. The admit rate to attend Harvard-Westlake is about 25-30% and the tuition is $50,000 a year.

The students at Harvard-Westlake as a whole are brilliant and often get into competitive schools. Kids at Harvard-Westlake that are aiming for T10-20 schools apply to St Andrews as a backup if they don't get into one of their top choices.

That was the case with my son. He is starting his 4th year at St Andrews now. He was rejected at Stanford, Wharton and waitlisted then denied at Columbia. Accepted to NYU and USC but decided to go abroad instead to study Finance/Econ. 1540 SAT. Great ECs and high GPA.

Here are the 3-year admit rates for Harvard-Westlake for the top USA universities more perspective.

First, again, St Andrews: 75 percent

Boston College: 26 percent
Boston University: 27 percent
Brown: 13 percent
Carnegie Mellon: 25 percent
Columbia: 14 percent
Cornell: 22 percent
Dartmouth: 12 percent
Duke: 9.5 percent
Emory: 18 percent
Georgetown: 27 percent
Harvard: 19 percent
JHU: 8 percent
MIT: 6 percent
NYU: 35 percent
Northwestern: 8 percent
Northeastern: 33 percent
Princeton: 9.5 percent
Rice: 18 percent
Stanford: 12 percent
Tulane: 23 percent
UC-Berkeley: 26 percent
UCLA: 14 percent
UChicago: 29 percent
UMich: 25 percent
UNC: 7 percent
UNotre Dame: 7 percent
UPenn: 18 percent
USC: 18 percent
UVA: 31 percent
WashU: 22 percent
Yale: 14 percent

In addition to those schools, the following small top schools admitted far fewer than half and typically fewer than a thirdof H-W applicants:

Amherst
Bates
Bowdoin
Bucknell
Colby
Colorado College
Davidson
Hamilton
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Howard
Lehigh
Middlebury
Pitzer
Pomona
Swarthmore
Tufts
Vassar
Wellesley
Wesleyan
Williams

Finally, here's a good sampling of schools with similar admit rates to St Andrews (60 to 80 percent) at Harvard-Westlake:

American
Brandeis
Fordham
GWU
Loyola Marymount
Occidental
Pepperdine
Purdue
Santa Clara
Scripps
Skidmore
Syracuse
TCU
Ohio State
Penn State
UC-Boulder
UMaryland
UPitt
UWashington
UW-Madison

You can draw your own conclusions from here.

This post is highly misleading—some cherry-picked statistics paired with uninformed takeaways.

For context: I studied Statistics at St Andrews, went to a top 3 MBA program in the U.S., and currently work in portfolio analytics at a Fortune 100 company. I also have close friends who went to Harvard-Westlake and attended St Andrews. I’m not usually one to list credentials, but given the prestige-obsessed tone of this forum, I hope it adds some weight to what follows.

Here’s what’s missing from the discussion:

1. Different Applicant Pool

Harvard-Westlake graduates about 300 students per year. Over the past three years, around 40 students from HW applied to St Andrews—that’s roughly 13 students per year, or just about 4% of each graduating class. This is a very small subset relative to the number applying to U.S. colleges.

And importantly, that subset is extremely competitive. These are students applying to Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, etc.—and they view St Andrews as a strong international alternative, not a fallback. They're not typically applying to schools like Bates, Fordham, or Purdue. So when someone claims “60–80% of HW students are accepted to St Andrews,” they’re referring to a self-selecting group of high-achieving applicants, not the broader HW student body.

That’s very different from U.S. schools like Syracuse or Santa Clara, which may attract a wider range of applicants from HW and therefore show a lower admit rate. And the matriculation data backs this up: only 2 HW students enrolled at St Andrews in 2024, and just 12 in the past 5 years. Many of the students who are accepted ultimately choose T10–20 U.S. schools instead.

2. Different Admissions Philosophies

U.S. colleges are highly sensitive to school context. They track how many students they admit from each high school and may cap the number of offers to elite private schools like Harvard-Westlake—even if more students are qualified—in order to maintain geographic and institutional diversity.

By contrast, UK universities—including St Andrews—don’t limit offers by school. If 10 HW students meet the criteria, they’ll admit all 10. There’s no quota. This explains why a small, high-achieving subset of HW applicants might enjoy a seemingly high admit rate—but that says nothing about the school's overall selectivity.

3. Selective Doesn’t Mean Everyone Gets In

Even exceptionally qualified students are sometimes rejected. One HW student, for example, had a 1540 SAT, top extracurriculars, and a high GPA—was accepted to NYU and USC—but rejected by St Andrews. The average SAT score at HW is already high (1464), and this student was well above that. So no, it’s not a guarantee, even for the best applicants.

Final Thought

Statistics aside, some of the commentary on St Andrews in this forum is frankly disappointing and sad. St Andrews isn’t the right fit for everyone, but it's a world-class university that offers an outstanding academic and personal experience for the right student.

I come here to provide helpful, informed insight for students and parents who are genuinely curious about the school. It’s disheartening to see people bash it with dismissive and uninformed takes. For what purpose? It comes off like someone projecting their own insecurities onto an anonymous forum.

Students and families already deal with enormous pressure in the college process. Let’s not make it worse with baseless elitism or misplaced negativity. Use this forum to elevate and inform, not to tear down a school or diminish the hard work of those who choose a path outside the Ivy League bubble.

Most of what is written here is wrong.

40 students applying (75% accepted) is not a very small subset relative to those applying to US colleges. It’s not as high as some Ivies/T20, but it’s very similar to Amherst (48 applicants, 27% accepted), Pepperdine (35, 63%), Purdue (36, 78%), Rice (39, 18%), Santa Clara which you mentioned (48, 56%), Syracuse which you mentioned (55, 67%), UC Riverside (46, 65%), Miami (55, 29%), UNC (43, 7%), Richmond (42, 36%), and a bunch of others.

“But,” you say, “this subset is more competitive than the others.” Well, no. 15 of the 40 had under a 3.6 GPA. Everyone that applied with above a 3.8 (10 applicants) got in, which only seems to have happened at Purdue, Indiana, Ithaca, Colgate, SMU, GWU, Kenyon, and Franklin & Marshall amongst schools with 10 or more 3.8+ applicants. 75% of applicants from 3.6-3.8 got in. Most of the rejections were below 3.6, showing again that if you can get above the stated minimums, you have very good odds. Also, did the minimums prevent kids from applying? Doesn’t seem that way, as 7 applicants had below a 3.4, including 1 below a 3.

Are US colleges sensitive to school? Not private ones. On the contrary, the NYT (I think) did an analysis a few years ago demonstrating how so few high schools supply non hooked kids at top private
colleges.

Meanwhile, you got the 1540 kid wrong, that kid got accepted to StA.

The only sad commentary here is the people trying to boost it unreasonably and unnecessarily. I agree with you that we should use this forum to inform. That starts with correcting misinformation from, yes, insecure people trying to make a school out to be something it isn’t. It’s a good school. It’s not a T20 or even T30 in the US. That’s fine.

You can’t come to these conclusions without having a better picture of the applicant pool.

US colleges do take more from feeders like H-W but they are still far more sensitive to schools than UK universities.

If you go back on this thread there are multiple examples of students with very impressive stats not getting in. Some students will take St Andrews over a T20 school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles (which as many of us know is one of the top private high schools in the US) has a detailed handbook on college admissions where they publish admissions statistics for individual colleges. Here are the percent of students admitted to UK universities from Harvard-Westlake over the last three years:

Kent: 100 percent (1 applied)
Manchester: 100 percent (1 applied)
St Andrews: 75 percent (40 applied)
Exeter: 50 percent (2 applied)
Edinburgh: 40 percent (10 applied)
LSE: 33 percent (3 applied)
UCL: 12 percent (8 applied)

Bristol: 0 (1 applied)
Cambridge: 0 (3 applied)
Glasgow: 0 (1 applied)
Oxford: 0 (7 applied)
Warwick: 0 (1 applied)

Wow

I have a close friend who went to Harvard-Westlake and St Andrews.

Harvard-Westlake is a major feeder school, one of the biggest in LA. The admit rate to attend Harvard-Westlake is about 25-30% and the tuition is $50,000 a year.

The students at Harvard-Westlake as a whole are brilliant and often get into competitive schools. Kids at Harvard-Westlake that are aiming for T10-20 schools apply to St Andrews as a backup if they don't get into one of their top choices.

That was the case with my son. He is starting his 4th year at St Andrews now. He was rejected at Stanford, Wharton and waitlisted then denied at Columbia. Accepted to NYU and USC but decided to go abroad instead to study Finance/Econ. 1540 SAT. Great ECs and high GPA.

Here are the 3-year admit rates for Harvard-Westlake for the top USA universities more perspective.

First, again, St Andrews: 75 percent

Boston College: 26 percent
Boston University: 27 percent
Brown: 13 percent
Carnegie Mellon: 25 percent
Columbia: 14 percent
Cornell: 22 percent
Dartmouth: 12 percent
Duke: 9.5 percent
Emory: 18 percent
Georgetown: 27 percent
Harvard: 19 percent
JHU: 8 percent
MIT: 6 percent
NYU: 35 percent
Northwestern: 8 percent
Northeastern: 33 percent
Princeton: 9.5 percent
Rice: 18 percent
Stanford: 12 percent
Tulane: 23 percent
UC-Berkeley: 26 percent
UCLA: 14 percent
UChicago: 29 percent
UMich: 25 percent
UNC: 7 percent
UNotre Dame: 7 percent
UPenn: 18 percent
USC: 18 percent
UVA: 31 percent
WashU: 22 percent
Yale: 14 percent

In addition to those schools, the following small top schools admitted far fewer than half and typically fewer than a thirdof H-W applicants:

Amherst
Bates
Bowdoin
Bucknell
Colby
Colorado College
Davidson
Hamilton
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Howard
Lehigh
Middlebury
Pitzer
Pomona
Swarthmore
Tufts
Vassar
Wellesley
Wesleyan
Williams

Finally, here's a good sampling of schools with similar admit rates to St Andrews (60 to 80 percent) at Harvard-Westlake:

American
Brandeis
Fordham
GWU
Loyola Marymount
Occidental
Pepperdine
Purdue
Santa Clara
Scripps
Skidmore
Syracuse
TCU
Ohio State
Penn State
UC-Boulder
UMaryland
UPitt
UWashington
UW-Madison

You can draw your own conclusions from here.

This post is highly misleading—some cherry-picked statistics paired with uninformed takeaways.

For context: I studied Statistics at St Andrews, went to a top 3 MBA program in the U.S., and currently work in portfolio analytics at a Fortune 100 company. I also have close friends who went to Harvard-Westlake and attended St Andrews. I’m not usually one to list credentials, but given the prestige-obsessed tone of this forum, I hope it adds some weight to what follows.

Here’s what’s missing from the discussion:

1. Different Applicant Pool

Harvard-Westlake graduates about 300 students per year. Over the past three years, around 40 students from HW applied to St Andrews—that’s roughly 13 students per year, or just about 4% of each graduating class. This is a very small subset relative to the number applying to U.S. colleges.

And importantly, that subset is extremely competitive. These are students applying to Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, etc.—and they view St Andrews as a strong international alternative, not a fallback. They're not typically applying to schools like Bates, Fordham, or Purdue. So when someone claims “60–80% of HW students are accepted to St Andrews,” they’re referring to a self-selecting group of high-achieving applicants, not the broader HW student body.

That’s very different from U.S. schools like Syracuse or Santa Clara, which may attract a wider range of applicants from HW and therefore show a lower admit rate. And the matriculation data backs this up: only 2 HW students enrolled at St Andrews in 2024, and just 12 in the past 5 years. Many of the students who are accepted ultimately choose T10–20 U.S. schools instead.

2. Different Admissions Philosophies

U.S. colleges are highly sensitive to school context. They track how many students they admit from each high school and may cap the number of offers to elite private schools like Harvard-Westlake—even if more students are qualified—in order to maintain geographic and institutional diversity.

By contrast, UK universities—including St Andrews—don’t limit offers by school. If 10 HW students meet the criteria, they’ll admit all 10. There’s no quota. This explains why a small, high-achieving subset of HW applicants might enjoy a seemingly high admit rate—but that says nothing about the school's overall selectivity.

3. Selective Doesn’t Mean Everyone Gets In

Even exceptionally qualified students are sometimes rejected. One HW student, for example, had a 1540 SAT, top extracurriculars, and a high GPA—was accepted to NYU and USC—but rejected by St Andrews. The average SAT score at HW is already high (1464), and this student was well above that. So no, it’s not a guarantee, even for the best applicants.

Final Thought

Statistics aside, some of the commentary on St Andrews in this forum is frankly disappointing and sad. St Andrews isn’t the right fit for everyone, but it's a world-class university that offers an outstanding academic and personal experience for the right student.

I come here to provide helpful, informed insight for students and parents who are genuinely curious about the school. It’s disheartening to see people bash it with dismissive and uninformed takes. For what purpose? It comes off like someone projecting their own insecurities onto an anonymous forum.

Students and families already deal with enormous pressure in the college process. Let’s not make it worse with baseless elitism or misplaced negativity. Use this forum to elevate and inform, not to tear down a school or diminish the hard work of those who choose a path outside the Ivy League bubble.

Ok, let's look at the specific schools you've mentioned. You can compare oranges to oranges at Harvard-Westlake very easily.

St Andrews: 10 students with a 3.8 or above applied. All 10 got in.

23 students between a 3.4 and 3.79 applied. 17 got in.

Santa Clara: 7 students applied with a 3.8 or above. 5 got in.

27 students between a 3.4 and 3.79 applied. 15 got in.

Syracuse:

7 students with a 3.8 or over applied, and all 7 got in.

32 students between a 3.4 and a 3.79 applied, and 27 got in.

It sure looks like St Andrews falls pretty closely in line with these two schools.

Let’s say everyone who has over a 3.8 gets into community college and everyone who has over a 3.8 gets into Harvard. They must be the same!

You also need to consider St Andrews doesn’t place a large emphasis on ECs. If you’re an American student with a GPA over 3.8 and a SAT over 1500, from a school like Harvard-Westlake you’re probably fine getting in. Certain subjects are more competitive and that may not be enough.

But only 25% of applicants to StA had over a 3.8, compared to 64% for Harvard. And most of the Harvard ones got rejected, while all of the StA ones got accepted. That was PP’s point, as the other poster claimed that schools like Syracuse and Santa Clara attract a wider range of applicants than StA and also that the quality of the applicant is too high to apply to schools like Bates, Fordham, and Purdue, and more in line with applicants to Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, etc. None of these things is true, as we can see from the data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles (which as many of us know is one of the top private high schools in the US) has a detailed handbook on college admissions where they publish admissions statistics for individual colleges. Here are the percent of students admitted to UK universities from Harvard-Westlake over the last three years:

Kent: 100 percent (1 applied)
Manchester: 100 percent (1 applied)
St Andrews: 75 percent (40 applied)
Exeter: 50 percent (2 applied)
Edinburgh: 40 percent (10 applied)
LSE: 33 percent (3 applied)
UCL: 12 percent (8 applied)

Bristol: 0 (1 applied)
Cambridge: 0 (3 applied)
Glasgow: 0 (1 applied)
Oxford: 0 (7 applied)
Warwick: 0 (1 applied)

Wow

I have a close friend who went to Harvard-Westlake and St Andrews.

Harvard-Westlake is a major feeder school, one of the biggest in LA. The admit rate to attend Harvard-Westlake is about 25-30% and the tuition is $50,000 a year.

The students at Harvard-Westlake as a whole are brilliant and often get into competitive schools. Kids at Harvard-Westlake that are aiming for T10-20 schools apply to St Andrews as a backup if they don't get into one of their top choices.

That was the case with my son. He is starting his 4th year at St Andrews now. He was rejected at Stanford, Wharton and waitlisted then denied at Columbia. Accepted to NYU and USC but decided to go abroad instead to study Finance/Econ. 1540 SAT. Great ECs and high GPA.

Here are the 3-year admit rates for Harvard-Westlake for the top USA universities more perspective.

First, again, St Andrews: 75 percent

Boston College: 26 percent
Boston University: 27 percent
Brown: 13 percent
Carnegie Mellon: 25 percent
Columbia: 14 percent
Cornell: 22 percent
Dartmouth: 12 percent
Duke: 9.5 percent
Emory: 18 percent
Georgetown: 27 percent
Harvard: 19 percent
JHU: 8 percent
MIT: 6 percent
NYU: 35 percent
Northwestern: 8 percent
Northeastern: 33 percent
Princeton: 9.5 percent
Rice: 18 percent
Stanford: 12 percent
Tulane: 23 percent
UC-Berkeley: 26 percent
UCLA: 14 percent
UChicago: 29 percent
UMich: 25 percent
UNC: 7 percent
UNotre Dame: 7 percent
UPenn: 18 percent
USC: 18 percent
UVA: 31 percent
WashU: 22 percent
Yale: 14 percent

In addition to those schools, the following small top schools admitted far fewer than half and typically fewer than a thirdof H-W applicants:

Amherst
Bates
Bowdoin
Bucknell
Colby
Colorado College
Davidson
Hamilton
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Howard
Lehigh
Middlebury
Pitzer
Pomona
Swarthmore
Tufts
Vassar
Wellesley
Wesleyan
Williams

Finally, here's a good sampling of schools with similar admit rates to St Andrews (60 to 80 percent) at Harvard-Westlake:

American
Brandeis
Fordham
GWU
Loyola Marymount
Occidental
Pepperdine
Purdue
Santa Clara
Scripps
Skidmore
Syracuse
TCU
Ohio State
Penn State
UC-Boulder
UMaryland
UPitt
UWashington
UW-Madison

You can draw your own conclusions from here.

This post is highly misleading—some cherry-picked statistics paired with uninformed takeaways.

For context: I studied Statistics at St Andrews, went to a top 3 MBA program in the U.S., and currently work in portfolio analytics at a Fortune 100 company. I also have close friends who went to Harvard-Westlake and attended St Andrews. I’m not usually one to list credentials, but given the prestige-obsessed tone of this forum, I hope it adds some weight to what follows.

Here’s what’s missing from the discussion:

1. Different Applicant Pool

Harvard-Westlake graduates about 300 students per year. Over the past three years, around 40 students from HW applied to St Andrews—that’s roughly 13 students per year, or just about 4% of each graduating class. This is a very small subset relative to the number applying to U.S. colleges.

And importantly, that subset is extremely competitive. These are students applying to Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, etc.—and they view St Andrews as a strong international alternative, not a fallback. They're not typically applying to schools like Bates, Fordham, or Purdue. So when someone claims “60–80% of HW students are accepted to St Andrews,” they’re referring to a self-selecting group of high-achieving applicants, not the broader HW student body.

That’s very different from U.S. schools like Syracuse or Santa Clara, which may attract a wider range of applicants from HW and therefore show a lower admit rate. And the matriculation data backs this up: only 2 HW students enrolled at St Andrews in 2024, and just 12 in the past 5 years. Many of the students who are accepted ultimately choose T10–20 U.S. schools instead.

2. Different Admissions Philosophies

U.S. colleges are highly sensitive to school context. They track how many students they admit from each high school and may cap the number of offers to elite private schools like Harvard-Westlake—even if more students are qualified—in order to maintain geographic and institutional diversity.

By contrast, UK universities—including St Andrews—don’t limit offers by school. If 10 HW students meet the criteria, they’ll admit all 10. There’s no quota. This explains why a small, high-achieving subset of HW applicants might enjoy a seemingly high admit rate—but that says nothing about the school's overall selectivity.

3. Selective Doesn’t Mean Everyone Gets In

Even exceptionally qualified students are sometimes rejected. One HW student, for example, had a 1540 SAT, top extracurriculars, and a high GPA—was accepted to NYU and USC—but rejected by St Andrews. The average SAT score at HW is already high (1464), and this student was well above that. So no, it’s not a guarantee, even for the best applicants.

Final Thought

Statistics aside, some of the commentary on St Andrews in this forum is frankly disappointing and sad. St Andrews isn’t the right fit for everyone, but it's a world-class university that offers an outstanding academic and personal experience for the right student.

I come here to provide helpful, informed insight for students and parents who are genuinely curious about the school. It’s disheartening to see people bash it with dismissive and uninformed takes. For what purpose? It comes off like someone projecting their own insecurities onto an anonymous forum.

Students and families already deal with enormous pressure in the college process. Let’s not make it worse with baseless elitism or misplaced negativity. Use this forum to elevate and inform, not to tear down a school or diminish the hard work of those who choose a path outside the Ivy League bubble.

Most of what is written here is wrong.

40 students applying (75% accepted) is not a very small subset relative to those applying to US colleges. It’s not as high as some Ivies/T20, but it’s very similar to Amherst (48 applicants, 27% accepted), Pepperdine (35, 63%), Purdue (36, 78%), Rice (39, 18%), Santa Clara which you mentioned (48, 56%), Syracuse which you mentioned (55, 67%), UC Riverside (46, 65%), Miami (55, 29%), UNC (43, 7%), Richmond (42, 36%), and a bunch of others.

“But,” you say, “this subset is more competitive than the others.” Well, no. 15 of the 40 had under a 3.6 GPA. Everyone that applied with above a 3.8 (10 applicants) got in, which only seems to have happened at Purdue, Indiana, Ithaca, Colgate, SMU, GWU, Kenyon, and Franklin & Marshall amongst schools with 10 or more 3.8+ applicants. 75% of applicants from 3.6-3.8 got in. Most of the rejections were below 3.6, showing again that if you can get above the stated minimums, you have very good odds. Also, did the minimums prevent kids from applying? Doesn’t seem that way, as 7 applicants had below a 3.4, including 1 below a 3.

Are US colleges sensitive to school? Not private ones. On the contrary, the NYT (I think) did an analysis a few years ago demonstrating how so few high schools supply non hooked kids at top private
colleges.

Meanwhile, you got the 1540 kid wrong, that kid got accepted to StA.

The only sad commentary here is the people trying to boost it unreasonably and unnecessarily. I agree with you that we should use this forum to inform. That starts with correcting misinformation from, yes, insecure people trying to make a school out to be something it isn’t. It’s a good school. It’s not a T20 or even T30 in the US. That’s fine.

You can’t come to these conclusions without having a better picture of the applicant pool.

US colleges do take more from feeders like H-W but they are still far more sensitive to schools than UK universities.

If you go back on this thread there are multiple examples of students with very impressive stats not getting in. Some students will take St Andrews over a T20 school.

You absolutely can come to these conclusions because we have the H-W data which allows us to compare across universities. What you can’t do is not have any data other than a couple of anonymous DCUM comments and claim that, in the absence of data, something is true. And what you especially cannot do is claim that the applicants are all super high achieving, on par with Ivy applicants, and call everything else “highly misleading” when the data we have is clear that that isn’t the case at all.

[Anonymous]

Where’s the data on the specific GPAs of H-W students being accepted to St Andrews?

As others have said here it’s much easier to get into St Andrews from a US high school compared to a UK school. However, there are students with exceptional stats that don’t get into St Andrews. You cannot map US acceptance rates for international schools to their academic rigor and prestige.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where’s the data on the specific GPAs of H-W students being accepted to St Andrews?

As others have said here it’s much easier to get into St Andrews from a US high school compared to a UK school. However, there are students with exceptional stats that don’t get into St Andrews. You cannot map US acceptance rates for international schools to their academic rigor and prestige.

Look, the H-W numbers are only one datapoint, but it’s a pretty detailed one and that is much to the school’s credit. There aren’t too many private schools in the USA that are willing to put the numbers out there like they do.

And what those numbers show are that the top students are generally not applying to St Andrews, the top students who get in don’t go, and that admission to St Andrews from the United States is about on par with a top 50 US university. There’s just no other way to get around it. And it’s perfectly fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where’s the data on the specific GPAs of H-W students being accepted to St Andrews?

As others have said here it’s much easier to get into St Andrews from a US high school compared to a UK school. However, there are students with exceptional stats that don’t get into St Andrews. You cannot map US acceptance rates for international schools to their academic rigor and prestige.

This has applications/acceptances by GPA: https://students.hw.com/Portals/44/handbook0125.pdf?ver=mCSTXqyrt4IYDI-PvMShlQ%3d%3d

This has matriculations: https://www.hw.com/Portals/28/Harvard-WestlakeProfile2024-25.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where’s the data on the specific GPAs of H-W students being accepted to St Andrews?

As others have said here it’s much easier to get into St Andrews from a US high school compared to a UK school. However, there are students with exceptional stats that don’t get into St Andrews. You cannot map US acceptance rates for international schools to their academic rigor and prestige.

This has applications/acceptances by GPA: https://students.hw.com/Portals/44/handbook0125.pdf?ver=mCSTXqyrt4IYDI-PvMShlQ%3d%3d

This has matriculations: https://www.hw.com/Portals/28/Harvard-WestlakeProfile2024-25.pdf

Thanks. I think it’s fair to say that this shows that St Andrew’s has carved a niche in the USA for average students in expensive private high schools and is far from being a top target for graduates of those schools and is not a hard admit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where’s the data on the specific GPAs of H-W students being accepted to St Andrews?

As others have said here it’s much easier to get into St Andrews from a US high school compared to a UK school. However, there are students with exceptional stats that don’t get into St Andrews. You cannot map US acceptance rates for international schools to their academic rigor and prestige.

Look, the H-W numbers are only one datapoint, but it’s a pretty detailed one and that is much to the school’s credit. There aren’t too many private schools in the USA that are willing to put the numbers out there like they do.

And what those numbers show are that the top students are generally not applying to St Andrews, the top students who get in don’t go, and that admission to St Andrews from the United States is about on par with a top 50 US university. There’s just no other way to get around it. And it’s perfectly fine.

This is just one data point. Top students are applying to St Andrews and some do decide to go over the opportunity to attend a T20-30 school.

How do you explain students from the US with competitive profiles that are not getting in?

[Anonymous]

My freshmen year roommate at St Andrews got a scholarship to Dartmouth and didn’t go. Another one of my friends at St Andrews got into Penn. Exceptional students do apply to St Andrews and some do decide to go.