How would British / UK schools stack up against American / US schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, UK schools are overrated. There's no real reason why a school like Oxford and Cambridge should ever be considered on par, let alone better, than HYPSM. Their inflated reputation has more to do with the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism than anything else.

A tangent, but Americans would do well to get over their Anglophilia. The British certainly don't think highly of Americans and our education system, so there's no reason why we should be over here fawning over the British and their schools and letting it get into their collective heads.

Oh dear.

I mean, are all these people refuting this British or what? I think it's a terrible look for Americans when Brits collectively look down their nose on us while we're licking their boots. America's tertiary education system is, amid the many (many) shortcomings of this country, one of the few things Americans can confidently say we're world leaders in. Our collective fixation on schools like Oxford and Cambridge is a holdover from Britain's sway on the world stage and our association of "British" with anything classy, upper-class, and better quality.

This is a tangential analogy, but it's sort of how like Brits will view an American accent with anything ranging from disinterest to outright disdain, while 100% of Americans will fawn over a British accent.

All this BS aside, in the 1990's the US was #6 in the world for education and now? #27

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, UK schools are overrated. There's no real reason why a school like Oxford and Cambridge should ever be considered on par, let alone better, than HYPSM. Their inflated reputation has more to do with the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism than anything else.

A tangent, but Americans would do well to get over their Anglophilia. The British certainly don't think highly of Americans and our education system, so there's no reason why we should be over here fawning over the British and their schools and letting it get into their collective heads.

Oh dear.

I mean, are all these people refuting this British or what? I think it's a terrible look for Americans when Brits collectively look down their nose on us while we're licking their boots. America's tertiary education system is, amid the many (many) shortcomings of this country, one of the few things Americans can confidently say we're world leaders in. Our collective fixation on schools like Oxford and Cambridge is a holdover from Britain's sway on the world stage and our association of "British" with anything classy, upper-class, and better quality.

This is a tangential analogy, but it's sort of how like Brits will view an American accent with anything ranging from disinterest to outright disdain, while 100% of Americans will fawn over a British accent.

All this BS aside, in the 1990's the US was #6 in the world for education and now? #27

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about (bolded one).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, UK schools are overrated. There's no real reason why a school like Oxford and Cambridge should ever be considered on par, let alone better, than HYPSM. Their inflated reputation has more to do with the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism than anything else.

A tangent, but Americans would do well to get over their Anglophilia. The British certainly don't think highly of Americans and our education system, so there's no reason why we should be over here fawning over the British and their schools and letting it get into their collective heads.

Oh dear.

I mean, are all these people refuting this British or what? I think it's a terrible look for Americans when Brits collectively look down their nose on us while we're licking their boots. America's tertiary education system is, amid the many (many) shortcomings of this country, one of the few things Americans can confidently say we're world leaders in. Our collective fixation on schools like Oxford and Cambridge is a holdover from Britain's sway on the world stage and our association of "British" with anything classy, upper-class, and better quality.

This is a tangential analogy, but it's sort of how like Brits will view an American accent with anything ranging from disinterest to outright disdain, while 100% of Americans will fawn over a British accent.

All this BS aside, in the 1990's the US was #6 in the world for education and now? #27

PP here. You're looking at figures for K-12 education. Even here, America's top secondary schools/systems (because, true to the grotesque inequity embedded in our society, each state/municipality/district varies wildly in quality) outperform the top secondary schools/systems elsewhere. Do you really think somewhere like FCPS or the Big 3 DC independent schools are anything but first-class?

What I'm talking about, if you had actually taken the time to pay attention, is tertiary education, where America is indisputably the world leader. This is in large part due to the intense concentration of wealth at the top schools. Harvard has an endowment bigger than half of the world's economies, at over 41 billion USD. Oxford, with more students, has less than 8 billion USD. If Oxford were in the United States, its endowment wouldn't even crack the top 10.

[Anonymous]

PP here. I should add re: secondary education. I mean, if we're really just looking at performance on standardized testing metrics, neither the U.S. or Britain would be in the running for top flight education and we'd all be looking to East Asia and Finland instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, UK schools are overrated. There's no real reason why a school like Oxford and Cambridge should ever be considered on par, let alone better, than HYPSM. Their inflated reputation has more to do with the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism than anything else.

A tangent, but Americans would do well to get over their Anglophilia. The British certainly don't think highly of Americans and our education system, so there's no reason why we should be over here fawning over the British and their schools and letting it get into their collective heads.

Oh dear.

I mean, are all these people refuting this British or what? I think it's a terrible look for Americans when Brits collectively look down their nose on us while we're licking their boots. America's tertiary education system is, amid the many (many) shortcomings of this country, one of the few things Americans can confidently say we're world leaders in. Our collective fixation on schools like Oxford and Cambridge is a holdover from Britain's sway on the world stage and our association of "British" with anything classy, upper-class, and better quality.

This is a tangential analogy, but it's sort of how like Brits will view an American accent with anything ranging from disinterest to outright disdain, while 100% of Americans will fawn over a British accent.

All this BS aside, in the 1990's the US was #6 in the world for education and now? #27

PP here. You're looking at figures for K-12 education. Even here, America's top secondary schools/systems (because, true to the grotesque inequity embedded in our society, each state/municipality/district varies wildly in quality) outperform the top secondary schools/systems elsewhere. Do you really think somewhere like FCPS or the Big 3 DC independent schools are anything but first-class?

What I'm talking about, if you had actually taken the time to pay attention, is tertiary education, where America is indisputably the world leader. This is in large part due to the intense concentration of wealth at the top schools. Harvard has an endowment bigger than half of the world's economies, at over 41 billion USD. Oxford, with more students, has less than 8 billion USD. If Oxford were in the United States, its endowment wouldn't even crack the top 10.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How familiar are you with the UK schools? Hard to compare as the American university system is its own beast and differs in some very significant ways from the British system. In general, American universities are much wealthier and at the elite level, much smaller. But in terms of prestige and academic quality (with an eye on research, since that tips the scale in global reputation tables) I'd very roughly put it somewhat like this.

HYPSM

Oxbridge = Columbia, Caltech

UCL/LSE/Imperial/St Andrews = Penn/Duke/Cornell/Northwestern/Chicago/Berkeley

KCL/Edinburgh/Durham = Hopkins/Brown/Dartmouth/Rice/UCLA/UMich

...or some iteration. There are way more elite U.S. schools, and they're typically much more selective.

Brit here. I agree that it’s hard to compare, and you also need ot factor in what your American student wants to do afterwards with their UK degree.
I think Oxbridge is as prestigious as HYS (not sure I’d include others but maybe).
The next rung down is Imperial, LSE, and possibly UCL depending on department. St Andrews isn’t up there at all - it’s popular with Americans but not particularly prestigious in the UK. Then after that come all of the Russell group, but exactly where they rank completely depends on the subject in question.

"Oxbridge" is always ranked as one of the top 3 universities in the world. I may be biased as a grad, but I would say both are better than Harvard.

I'd agree there's a bit of a British bias there. IIRC the British publications tend to rank British institutions favorably vis-a-vis their American counterparts. I think Harvard is pretty unanimously considered the most prestigious university in the world, and it has the endowment to back that up. For the record, I'm not a Harvard grad and think it's a flawed institution in many ways, but I'd be foolish to pretend its reputation doesn't stand for itself.

I think even the equivalencies in 19:46 are a bit generous. I'd generally put Oxbridge = Ivy League (+ Stanford, MIT et al), and maybe the rung immediately below that (LSE, Imperial, UCL) as = to schools like Duke, Northwestern, Hopkins, UCB. But I would even put schools like UCLA, UM, Rice head to head with that second rung in terms of student quality and academic caliber.

I agree, Oxbridge admits a much larger contingent of students than most Ivy League schools (maybe except Cornell) since each of them has about 30+ colleges that do their own admissions. And the acceptance rate is a lot higher too (around 20%). Don't get me wrong, they're all pretty elite, but if you really want to split hairs, the perceived difference between someone who went to Balliol versus St Edmunds Hall (where DC did an exchange year) is probably equivalent to the perceived difference between an average Harvard student versus a Cornell student.

This is misleading. Because you must meet the admissions criteria to even apply, the pool of applicants is much stronger than the pool of applicants that applies to HYPSM+. The 20% figure is not really apples to apples. You would need to figure out how many candidates to The American school that are similarly in the top 1-2% academically are accepted/rejected.

I would disagree based on DC's experience at Oxford. You also have to look at the applicant pool by college too at Oxbridge. The student outcome is also not as stellar as some would claim in previous posts. The starting salary less than in the US and job opportunities in the UK are not as plenty compared to what you have stateside - and I'm talking about the average student when compared to Harvard or the ivies.

Correction: you do not need to meet the criteria to apply, but to receive an offer, yes you need to meet the minimum standardized test scores (A-level or the correspondent in your country). The UK population is 1/5 of the US population and American schools recruit both nationally and worldwide. Even for overseas students the US still attracts the brightest talent to this day. Quite a few international kids at DC's ivy turned down Oxbridge to come here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, UK schools are overrated. There's no real reason why a school like Oxford and Cambridge should ever be considered on par, let alone better, than HYPSM. Their inflated reputation has more to do with the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism than anything else.

A tangent, but Americans would do well to get over their Anglophilia. The British certainly don't think highly of Americans and our education system, so there's no reason why we should be over here fawning over the British and their schools and letting it get into their collective heads.

Oh dear.

I mean, are all these people refuting this British or what? I think it's a terrible look for Americans when Brits collectively look down their nose on us while we're licking their boots. America's tertiary education system is, amid the many (many) shortcomings of this country, one of the few things Americans can confidently say we're world leaders in. Our collective fixation on schools like Oxford and Cambridge is a holdover from Britain's sway on the world stage and our association of "British" with anything classy, upper-class, and better quality.

This is a tangential analogy, but it's sort of how like Brits will view an American accent with anything ranging from disinterest to outright disdain, while 100% of Americans will fawn over a British accent.

All this BS aside, in the 1990's the US was #6 in the world for education and now? #27

PP here. You're looking at figures for K-12 education. Even here, America's top secondary schools/systems (because, true to the grotesque inequity embedded in our society, each state/municipality/district varies wildly in quality) outperform the top secondary schools/systems elsewhere. Do you really think somewhere like FCPS or the Big 3 DC independent schools are anything but first-class?

What I'm talking about, if you had actually taken the time to pay attention, is tertiary education, where America is indisputably the world leader. This is in large part due to the intense concentration of wealth at the top schools. Harvard has an endowment bigger than half of the world's economies, at over 41 billion USD. Oxford, with more students, has less than 8 billion USD. If Oxford were in the United States, its endowment wouldn't even crack the top 10.

Mic drop.

Who knew this forum had so many Brits? Looks like they've all gone quiet now, though...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, UK schools are overrated. There's no real reason why a school like Oxford and Cambridge should ever be considered on par, let alone better, than HYPSM. Their inflated reputation has more to do with the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism than anything else.

A tangent, but Americans would do well to get over their Anglophilia. The British certainly don't think highly of Americans and our education system, so there's no reason why we should be over here fawning over the British and their schools and letting it get into their collective heads.

Oh dear.

I mean, are all these people refuting this British or what? I think it's a terrible look for Americans when Brits collectively look down their nose on us while we're licking their boots. America's tertiary education system is, amid the many (many) shortcomings of this country, one of the few things Americans can confidently say we're world leaders in. Our collective fixation on schools like Oxford and Cambridge is a holdover from Britain's sway on the world stage and our association of "British" with anything classy, upper-class, and better quality.

This is a tangential analogy, but it's sort of how like Brits will view an American accent with anything ranging from disinterest to outright disdain, while 100% of Americans will fawn over a British accent.

All this BS aside, in the 1990's the US was #6 in the world for education and now? #27

PP here. You're looking at figures for K-12 education. Even here, America's top secondary schools/systems (because, true to the grotesque inequity embedded in our society, each state/municipality/district varies wildly in quality) outperform the top secondary schools/systems elsewhere. Do you really think somewhere like FCPS or the Big 3 DC independent schools are anything but first-class?

What I'm talking about, if you had actually taken the time to pay attention, is tertiary education, where America is indisputably the world leader. This is in large part due to the intense concentration of wealth at the top schools. Harvard has an endowment bigger than half of the world's economies, at over 41 billion USD. Oxford, with more students, has less than 8 billion USD. If Oxford were in the United States, its endowment wouldn't even crack the top 10.

What you completely fail to know however, numb-nuts is that ALL uk education is publicly funded. It makes no difference how rich a particular college may be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, UK schools are overrated. There's no real reason why a school like Oxford and Cambridge should ever be considered on par, let alone better, than HYPSM. Their inflated reputation has more to do with the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism than anything else.

A tangent, but Americans would do well to get over their Anglophilia. The British certainly don't think highly of Americans and our education system, so there's no reason why we should be over here fawning over the British and their schools and letting it get into their collective heads.

Oh dear.

I mean, are all these people refuting this British or what? I think it's a terrible look for Americans when Brits collectively look down their nose on us while we're licking their boots. America's tertiary education system is, amid the many (many) shortcomings of this country, one of the few things Americans can confidently say we're world leaders in. Our collective fixation on schools like Oxford and Cambridge is a holdover from Britain's sway on the world stage and our association of "British" with anything classy, upper-class, and better quality.

This is a tangential analogy, but it's sort of how like Brits will view an American accent with anything ranging from disinterest to outright disdain, while 100% of Americans will fawn over a British accent.

All this BS aside, in the 1990's the US was #6 in the world for education and now? #27

PP here. You're looking at figures for K-12 education. Even here, America's top secondary schools/systems (because, true to the grotesque inequity embedded in our society, each state/municipality/district varies wildly in quality) outperform the top secondary schools/systems elsewhere. Do you really think somewhere like FCPS or the Big 3 DC independent schools are anything but first-class?

What I'm talking about, if you had actually taken the time to pay attention, is tertiary education, where America is indisputably the world leader. This is in large part due to the intense concentration of wealth at the top schools. Harvard has an endowment bigger than half of the world's economies, at over 41 billion USD. Oxford, with more students, has less than 8 billion USD. If Oxford were in the United States, its endowment wouldn't even crack the top 10.

What makes the US' tertiary education the world leader? Money? Some of the money comes from foreigners who pay full freight, and the reason why it's so popular is only because in the past 50 years, the US dominated the global stage in various industries, including universities because the US was wealthy.

But, that is changing. And I think US university reputation will also start to eventually decline.

Part of the reason why so many non US colleges court Americans is to gain global popularity, which then give it some "prestige". It becomes a popularity contest, and not really about education quality.

If you look at nobel winners, for example, the US has more of them, BUT, if you compare it by population size, the UK actually outperforms the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, UK schools are overrated. There's no real reason why a school like Oxford and Cambridge should ever be considered on par, let alone better, than HYPSM. Their inflated reputation has more to do with the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism than anything else.

A tangent, but Americans would do well to get over their Anglophilia. The British certainly don't think highly of Americans and our education system, so there's no reason why we should be over here fawning over the British and their schools and letting it get into their collective heads.

Oh dear.

I mean, are all these people refuting this British or what? I think it's a terrible look for Americans when Brits collectively look down their nose on us while we're licking their boots. America's tertiary education system is, amid the many (many) shortcomings of this country, one of the few things Americans can confidently say we're world leaders in. Our collective fixation on schools like Oxford and Cambridge is a holdover from Britain's sway on the world stage and our association of "British" with anything classy, upper-class, and better quality.

This is a tangential analogy, but it's sort of how like Brits will view an American accent with anything ranging from disinterest to outright disdain, while 100% of Americans will fawn over a British accent.

All this BS aside, in the 1990's the US was #6 in the world for education and now? #27

PP here. You're looking at figures for K-12 education. Even here, America's top secondary schools/systems (because, true to the grotesque inequity embedded in our society, each state/municipality/district varies wildly in quality) outperform the top secondary schools/systems elsewhere. Do you really think somewhere like FCPS or the Big 3 DC independent schools are anything but first-class?

What I'm talking about, if you had actually taken the time to pay attention, is tertiary education, where America is indisputably the world leader. This is in large part due to the intense concentration of wealth at the top schools. Harvard has an endowment bigger than half of the world's economies, at over 41 billion USD. Oxford, with more students, has less than 8 billion USD. If Oxford were in the United States, its endowment wouldn't even crack the top 10.

Mic drop.

Who knew this forum had so many Brits? Looks like they've all gone quiet now, though...

I wrote a rebuttal and then I just trashed it because it really wasn't going to change the PP's opinion. Endowment is an imperfect metric by which to measure quality, particularly for European schools that are much more generously government-financed. However, if we'd like to pursue the endowment issue, Texas A&M holds the 7th largest endowment in the US and Michigan holds the 8th. Michigan is routinely derided on this site and I would hardly imagine that the DCUM set is rushing to send their children off to College Station. Conversely, Cambridge's endowment would rank somewhere around 12 or 13 in the US, higher than Duke, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Dartmouth, Cornell and Brown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, UK schools are overrated. There's no real reason why a school like Oxford and Cambridge should ever be considered on par, let alone better, than HYPSM. Their inflated reputation has more to do with the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism than anything else.

A tangent, but Americans would do well to get over their Anglophilia. The British certainly don't think highly of Americans and our education system, so there's no reason why we should be over here fawning over the British and their schools and letting it get into their collective heads.

Oh dear.

I mean, are all these people refuting this British or what? I think it's a terrible look for Americans when Brits collectively look down their nose on us while we're licking their boots. America's tertiary education system is, amid the many (many) shortcomings of this country, one of the few things Americans can confidently say we're world leaders in. Our collective fixation on schools like Oxford and Cambridge is a holdover from Britain's sway on the world stage and our association of "British" with anything classy, upper-class, and better quality.

This is a tangential analogy, but it's sort of how like Brits will view an American accent with anything ranging from disinterest to outright disdain, while 100% of Americans will fawn over a British accent.

All this BS aside, in the 1990's the US was #6 in the world for education and now? #27

PP here. You're looking at figures for K-12 education. Even here, America's top secondary schools/systems (because, true to the grotesque inequity embedded in our society, each state/municipality/district varies wildly in quality) outperform the top secondary schools/systems elsewhere. Do you really think somewhere like FCPS or the Big 3 DC independent schools are anything but first-class?

What I'm talking about, if you had actually taken the time to pay attention, is tertiary education, where America is indisputably the world leader. This is in large part due to the intense concentration of wealth at the top schools. Harvard has an endowment bigger than half of the world's economies, at over 41 billion USD. Oxford, with more students, has less than 8 billion USD. If Oxford were in the United States, its endowment wouldn't even crack the top 10.

Mic drop.

Who knew this forum had so many Brits? Looks like they've all gone quiet now, though...

I wrote a rebuttal and then I just trashed it because it really wasn't going to change the PP's opinion. Endowment is an imperfect metric by which to measure quality, particularly for European schools that are much more generously government-financed. However, if we'd like to pursue the endowment issue, Texas A&M holds the 7th largest endowment in the US and Michigan holds the 8th. Michigan is routinely derided on this site and I would hardly imagine that the DCUM set is rushing to send their children off to College Station. Conversely, Cambridge's endowment would rank somewhere around 12 or 13 in the US, higher than Duke, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Dartmouth, Cornell and Brown.

You're mistaken. Cambridge's endowment sits at around 9.5 billion USD. Northwestern's endowment is 11 billion USD.

Michigan and the Texas schools are absolutely gargantuan, which explains their endowment sizes.

Whether you'd like to admit it or not, the more funds a school has, the better able to provide resources for their students and attract/retain talent. Whether those friends or publicly or privately derived makes no difference.

[Anonymous]

I attended a rigorous international high school in Asia (think Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong) that sent students to both British and American unis. Many top students applied to both HYPSM/Ivies Plus as well as Oxbridge/LSE/UCL, and would always choose the American schools (especially HYPSM) over Oxbridge schools, unless they had family in the UK or something like that. I'm familiar with similar schools elsewhere and this was pretty much the case everywhere.

[Anonymous]

I have a similar background with above poster and I concur. The reason is not because the universities are better but because of recruiting and the fact F-1 students have a path to work in the US. The is no more desired job market in the world, particularly in STEM, than the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a similar background with above poster and I concur. The reason is not because the universities are better but because of recruiting and the fact F-1 students have a path to work in the US. The is no more desired job market in the world, particularly in STEM, than the US.

Agree. This is probably the (indirect) answer to OP's question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I attended a rigorous international high school in Asia (think Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong) that sent students to both British and American unis. Many top students applied to both HYPSM/Ivies Plus as well as Oxbridge/LSE/UCL, and would always choose the American schools (especially HYPSM) over Oxbridge schools, unless they had family in the UK or something like that. I'm familiar with similar schools elsewhere and this was pretty much the case everywhere.

That's true - American schools also give you more freedom to pick your major as opposed to studying a fixed subject matter for three years that you may end up not liking and alumni networks are generally stronger for American schools in the job market. The job market in the UK is not terrible, but also not ideal. Entry-level salaries are quite low compared to the US and employment options for international students are rather limited, however, the Oxbridge name does carry a lot of clout in other countries. Still, my impression with the people I've met from overseas is that if they can afford to send their children to the ivies or Oxbridge for undergrad, they usually would favor the US over the UK.