British students hoping to attend a college overseas - including the Ivy League - should be prepared to work hard
Ben Mallet believes he won a place at Yale over Sunday lunch in Surrey. The meal was the setting for his interview conducted by an elderly Yale graduate in her mansion in Cobham.
“I got the lady on my side: we talked about everything from gardening to politics and back to gardening,” Ben, 20, says.
At the end of lunch the interviewer explained her plan for getting the state-school leaver from Kingston-Upon-Thames a place at one of the top institutions in the Ivy League.
“She said she would e-mail the admissions office every fortnight to ask them about the process of my application and recommend me to the admissions’ committee,” says Ben, who also earned places at Edinburgh, St Andrew’s and Exeter but will start his degree at Yale in a few days time after taking two gap years.
“It’s all about finding your friends and allies. During my application I sent monthly e-mails to the admissions offices and rang them up, telling them what I was doing and proving I was interested.”
The process of applying to the US is very different from the Ucas system. As well as the possibility of unusual interview scenarios, additional tests and an earlier start date, it requires an element of self-promotion that can seem a tad un-British.
“I think people from my position coming from a state school find it quite difficult because it’s not in our cultural make-up to be so salesman-like,” Ben says.
However, more and more British students are choosing US universities and schemes to help state-school students to apply are boosting numbers.
The most recent figures available show that in 2010-11, 4,189 UK students studied at undergraduate level in North America. Combined with those on postgraduate courses it was a record year for British participation.
Harvard reported a 45 per cent increase in British applicants between 2009-10 and 2011-12 and in the six academic years to 2010-11, Yale said its applications from UK students had doubled.
These figures do not include students who applied after the English tuition fee ceiling trebled and made US study more financially equitable. However the cost is still an important consideration when thinking about studying in the US.
Applying alone can be expensive, once study materials, application fees of between 50 and 100 dollars (£32 — £64), examination costs, entrance tests of $80 (£51) and travel to interviews are taken into account. And the cost rises with each application made.
“Spending a week having knowledge hammered into you for the SATs can cost thousands of pounds but I didn’t do that: I bought the books and taught myself,” Ben says.
Most applicants to the US will need to take one of two standard admissions tests — the SAT or ACT. They are equally valid but not all universities accept both so it is important to check with the chosen institutions before taking the exam.
More competitive universities require results of SAT reasoning with two or three SAT subject exams, or the ACT with writing. Students who are strong in science may prefer the ACT but online sample tests can help determine the best fit. These can be found at sat.collegeboard.org/practice/sat-practice-test and at actstudent.org/sampletest
The Fulbright Commission runs seminars on how to apply and holds the only US university fair in the UK, on September 28 and 29 at Kensington Town Hall, London. Registration is necessary.
This year, the commission also held a summer school in Yale with The Sutton Trust, an education charity, for talented UK teenagers from less well-off backgrounds who want to apply to the US.
Lauren Welch, from the Fulbright Commission, says: “We are helping them find the institutions that offer the most financial assistance on the basis of financial need or academic merit, so the hope is that the cost will be comparable, if not cheaper, than staying in the UK.”
There were more than 700 applications for the scheme and 64 were chosen to go to the free summer school in Yale.
It is recommended that applicants begin to look into the process in the lower sixth to give themselves time to register, practise tests and compose transcripts of results and predicted grades. But applications should be made in the autumn before starting university.
If successful, there is also the cost of visas to consider — approximately £160 — and travel to and from university each term. Some universities will help overseas students with vacation grants. Tuition fees vary but a guideline average in 2011 at public institutions was $20,770 (£13,132) per year, rising to $28,500 (£18,030) per year at private institutions.
However, financial aid based on need, academic performance or certain skills, including sporting ability, is a key feature of the American system. About two thirds of full-time undergraduates receive some type of grant and one third of international undergraduates say that a scholarship is their main source of funding.
Studying in the US
fulbright.org.uk/study-in-the-usa/undergraduate-study; educationusa.info/5_steps_to_study
Admissions tests: collegeboard.org (SAT); actstudent.org (ACT)
Scholarships: fundingusstudy.com
Common application: commonapp.org
University search: bigfuture.collegeboard.org
Visas: london.usembassy.gov
No comments:
Post a Comment