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[quote=Anonymous]Sorry for long post.

I went to St Andrews in late 1980s/early 1990s - my roommates then (as I’m sure now) were just missses at Oxbridge due generally to disastrous interview outcomes.  It became a bit of parlor game to listen to their high stakes, often zany recalls of those failed interviews…Whippet smart from UK and Commonwealth, generally.

All true about independent-minded, worldly mature kids.  The Americans were mostly JYAers - junior year anbroad -  and remarkably immature in those days. The other Americans were a few fifty year-olds-trapped-in-eighteen-year-old bodies boarding school kids mostly if not all from New England elite schools.  Well resourced kids would be what they would be called today.

Excellent choice for ADHD kids in particular (you get to really narrow focus earlier than US, really interesting crowd - one of my girlfriends was Danish, one from Hong Kong and one from Madagascar! All worldly, blazing quick minded and kind beauties. Best part (and I’ve never been a drinker) was the fact you could go to bars at 18).

How many American Universities give you a comprehensive exam in your major in your 4th year? None that I’m aware - to this day. That’s honestly why I left after 2 years.  My favorite professor noted Americans often received 2.1 or 2.2 (low scores if you wanted a job at top flight consulting in those days after graduation).

It wasn’t b/c Americans weren’t bright enough but he noted exam culture is like a golf stroke: these UK/European kids have had high stakes exams since 5th grade and very well practiced.

So I departed.

Ended up at Cornell - more upstate New York crowd with extremely high GPA which did the trick but I look back VERY fondly on those St Andrews days…hope this helps someone on the fence.[/quote]

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