@GMTplus7 because honestly, they’re a lot better and fairer Oxbridge are the two top universities in the UK and they, like top US colleges, have many qualified applicants, which is why they (uniquely) use an academic interview to determine which applicants they should admit.
Most other UK universities admit students based on predicted A-level scores, and AS-level scores and GCSE, which works in the UK since most UK students (and hence most of their applicants) follow the same A-level system and hence have a standard, fair set of grades (taken in 10th and 11th grade) to use as comparison - very much unlike the US.
Honestly, I’m slightly confused and annoyed about why some people tend to be so defensive of the US college application system, to the point where any legitimate points of criticism are dismissed as ‘whining’. The US college app system isn’t fair. The UK system isn’t fair, and the Oxbridge system isn’t completely fair either. I could point out areas of improvements for all 3 - obviously no system is perfect.
But when I talk about the US system and the flaws it may have, I get responses telling me to not apply if I don’t like it (again, somewhat childish, as though you cannot like something while acknowledging that has flaws) or accusing me of whining. Yes, the criticisms I’ve made are somewhat idealistic, but I think they’re pretty fair. I’m not outrightly slamming the US app system for no reason, I’m not insisting that the US system should change completely. I acknowledged the fact that US colleges can’t adopt the oxbridge system, and that they have all the rights to do what they want. But if people still can’t see why the system (esp from the pov of internationals who are also applying to other countries’ colleges) does seem to lack transparency and honesty… I’m not sure if I’m explaining it really badly or if some people are just close-minded.
@GMTplus7 Adding to what aznraffe said, while the difference is big, it isn’t a ‘heaven and earth’ difference. The interview addition, plus the occasional test during the interview sets applicants apart. Instead of going through the usual “one step” process, they opt for a “two step” one. Please stop saying “whine”, because whining and pointing out flaws possess a MAJOR difference. These are just two universities. Just two. Any country can have a few outliers, as opposed to the US’s somewhat larger number. No, the UK system is not perfect. No system is perfect. However, since this thread pertains to US universities, we are only discussing US universities.
@Aznraffe, @DarkEclipse,
I think my frustration, and that of many other parents who have been here for many years, is that we’ve had this conversation ad nauseum. A student complains that schools (and it always seems to be Ivy League schools that are the source of the complaint, as if there aren’t hundreds of wonderful schools that would provide an equally high calibre of education) don’t tell students what they want. We counter that these colleges tell applicants exactly what they want, but that some of what they want isn’t quantifiable. We know it’s frustrating, but if they were to change their process they would stop being the institutions to which you are so eager to be admitted. We understand that you are frustrated by what you see as a flawed admissions process, but many of us just don’t see that process as fundamentally flawed.
The charges of “whining” may come from the fact that although it is harder for international students to be admitted, the system isn’t all that different for domestic applicants. My daughter is part of about the worst demographic in the States for elite college admissions-she’s a white girl from Massachusetts. Is there any point in complaining that the NMS cutoff for MA is 20 points higher than the cutoff for Wyoming or that caucasian girls have to be stronger candidates on paper than AA boys? No. What boring places these school would be if 50% the student body was composed of white girls from MA and NJ. Or to put it another way, would international students like you be so eager to apply to Harvard if 90% of the international students were Chinese? If you want to apply to holistic admissions schools instead of ones with auto-admit cutoffs that’s great, but don’t complain about a process that has resulted in the student body you so badly jones to be a part of.
I would love to know what Community College (CC) the OP will be attending, what the COA is and how is he financing his CC education for the next two years. Do CCs offer scholarships to International Students? The OP said she is from a low income background, so I’m a bit confuse how she intends to cover the cost at a CC, which can be very expensive for an International Student, when you factor in the room and board cost (~$10K per year).
@Sue22 First, I would like to say I’m not interested in the Ivies. If you have the time, then you can go through my previous posts on this thread. Not one of them mentions the Ivies.
Second, I don’t mean that the process is flawed. Well, it is, but I’m not concerned with that. It is frustrating, and I was simply expressing that frustration on this thread.
Third, student body is not something I’m overly concerned with. I don’t look at colleges for that, nor do I care if they are 90% Chinese, or 1% White, or 98% South African.
I don’t get it, why do people think that internationals are always aiming for the Ivies? I never saw anything special to differentiate the Ivies from any other good school.
I know nothing about OxBridge (am US) except what I have read here but it sounds like the process is pretty subjective. Anything involving an interview is. The person interviewing may think you remind him of his sister or brother, this could be great or a disaster. He happens to ask you about the one thing in physics or history you love or hate and so on. As for applying with 3 As, there are some good schools in the US where even the top students will only get a B+ in certain courses taught by certain teachers. Meanwhile the other teacher on the grade gives out A+ to the top 20% of his class. Fair, no. What happens, yes. Should it be standardized yes. Will it be, no. Does this happen in law or medical school as well, sure it does. Schools like MIT will even ask on the application whether you would like to discuss a grade in a course. I do not think it is childish to say if you hate the process do not apply. I do not understand why my tax dollars need to educate the world. I am much more sypathetic to someone who cannot get fair acces to their own country. For example a woman in a country that discriminates. As for a random person who lives in another country, why are you applying for my spot, that my parents pay taxes for? if you need to travel abroad to get what you consider a good education and have never even been to the US, why are you complaining about the system? It is probably the same cost to fly and to apply to London or Ireland, if you like their system, apply there. Meanwhile your applying here means that maybe I will not get into my local college and will have to travel to get into a comparable college. This is in fact what happened. While I cannot say it was only international applicants, the rise in international applications did not help me get into my “local” ivy.
As for the poster who said students who scored in the 500-600 range are more interesting than students in the 700-800 range, not in my experience. Sure there are tools who score perfect scores but honestly most of the people who would prefer a personal shopper or a football player over an astronomer are the ones with scores under 700. Not uniformly true, I know a 2400 whose theme is shopping and she is concerned and interesting. I have been with the 600s my whole life, I want to go to a top school to get away from them, I have found that they stifle my desire to learn, they rol their eyes when I ask a related question we do not HAVE to know. Did I get into a HYPSM? No, are my scores in range, yes but they were not at the absolute top of the range and I think that hurt me. That and failing to win an academy award this week.
@Sue22 Trust me, I’m also sick and tired of the few annoying international applicants who constantly post about how they feel entitled to a place in the ivy leagues and are disappointed that they didn’t get one, or who don’t even consider applying to others. But this issue is not about that. I haven’t even mentioned ivy leagues at all my posts on this thread, because this issue is the same for all good US colleges, and in fact all US colleges where demand exceeds supply.
I think most internationals’ issue is that colleges market themselves a certain way that doesn’t reflect the reality of application, and internationals often don’t realise this until they get rejected. (Insert funny anecdote: one of my classmates was asking our GC what he could do to stand out in a US college app. The GC said, “Either become hispanic or apply for some anti-stem major… maybe film studies.” No one else got the joke.)
Obviously US colleges can (and arguably should) favour domestic applicants, or applicants from certain states, etc. But when these same colleges turn around and market themselves so well to internationals, making admissions doesn’t factor in these issues… that’s when you get all those annoying threads from international students not understanding why they didn’t get a place in an ivy league. If US colleges could be more transparent about this, it would actually REDUCE the number of threads from internationals complaining that they didn’t get into ivy leagues/other top US colleges.
@Psata82 I will be attending Honors College of the Houston Community College with scholarship covering full tuition + books. As for housing, I am now looking for resources to pay my rent and bills in a shared apartment with 1-2 roommates. I have enough for only about 6-8 months now.
@SaphireNY You’re misunderstanding the Oxbridge process. The interviewer isn’t an alumni, it’s a professor. And it isn’t a casual talk kind of interview, it’s essentially a sample tutorial, which is how many of the lessons are taught in oxbridge - small group tutorials. There aren’t really questions like “why are you applying to oxbridge”, it’s most like “here’s a question - how would you solve it?” And the grades are the grades you get in the AS or A levels - a test that pretty much all students in the UK take, so it’s fair and standardised across the board. In addition, some oxbridge courses have their own tests which applicants must take, so that there’s another fair way to assess and compare all applicants, including those from other countries. So yes, because grades are standardised across the country this way in the UK (and other countries doing the A-level system), the uni application system is more fair in that way. The one major flaw of the Oxbridge system is probably that some kids just do really badly in interviews, and can’t show off their true abilities, which is a pity.
I don’t why people keep saying “if you hate this one part of US colleges, don’t apply at all”. It’s like having a boyfriend who’s a really great guy all around and you like him a lot, but there’s a part of him that you think he could improve on… and so your friends tell you to just dump him. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. I can still think he’s a great guy and like him, while acknowledging that there are some things he could change to be better.
I’m actually curious, because I don’t know - do US tax dollars go towards private universities? I know they go towards public colleges, and for that reason I can completely understand those US colleges putting a fixed quota on internationals, especially if they’re transparent about it. For locals angry about internationals stealing spots in public colleges - I can understand that anger. But for private colleges, unless tax dollars go towards them, I don’t think internationals are really stealing places?
Hmm, film studies, that is perfect. I always suggest poetry, french literature or theatre but I think the last one is getting oversaturated. Sorry not an ORM and am not making fun but that is an interesting idea.
"I think most internationals’ issue is that colleges market themselves a certain way that doesn’t reflect the reality of application, and internationals often don’t realise this until they get rejected. "
Really? The admit rates are somehow visible to we Americans but invisible to internationals? What, are colleges deliberately indicating in their marketing materials that as long as you have grades / scores of X, you’ll get in? I don’t buy it. I think it’s that internationals don’t WANT to hear it.
“I don’t why people keep saying “if you hate this one part of US colleges, don’t apply at all”. It’s like having a boyfriend who’s a really great guy all around and you like him a lot, but there’s a part of him that you think he could improve on… and so your friends tell you to just dump him. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. I can still think he’s a great guy and like him, while acknowledging that there are some things he could change to be better.”
The analogy doesn’t work here, because your boyfriend has an incentive to work on the part of himself you don’t like because he wants you (or at least that’s what you hope to be the case). Like it or not, these elite colleges who are already overflowing with high caliber applicants don’t need to “work” on the parts of themselves that international applicants don’t like. Because they don’t need to please you. They only need please themselves.
@DrGoogle, imo OxBridge is (for the right student) easier to get into than Stanford. There are several key elements, but the first, and hardest, is that the student has to have a genuine focus on one subject (or group of subjects) that extends beyond the classroom. They also need to be good at standardized testing and able to discuss their field with adults. If that’s your kid (and they haven’t already finished the application process), go have a look at the Oxford & Cambridge sites. The regulars on the CC UK forum are pretty helpful as well (and 2 of us currently have offspring enrolled- one @ Ox & one @ Bridge (aka ‘the other place’…)
It seems to me that most countries have a much more uniform education system than we do here in the US. I haven’t researched it, but it appears that, for example, A levels within a country are fairly standardized for all the students who take them across that country.
We don’t have that at all. A kid from one school with a 3.1 gpa might actually, with the same level of effort, have achieved a 4.0 at the school in the neighboring city. Even within a school system there can be differences. I have a Facebook friend who regularly posts her child’s grades. The kid has had over 100% for the whole year in AP Chem. She did not feel that she did very well on the AP exam. My daughter attends a magnet math and science program. AP Chem is considered to be one of the most difficult courses in the school. Very smart kids are lucky to get out with an A - and some very smart kids consider themselves lucky to get out with a B! I don’t believe it’s possible to get over 100% in the class at my daughter’s school. But it’s extremely unusual for any of the students taking the class to get less than a 4 on the AP exam. 5s are common. But the AP score isn’t on your transcript. I think that if your school is known to a college, those differences are taken into account. But they can’t exactly publish a list of the high schools they’d take a lower gpa from.
I think that selective colleges want to leave themselves the opportunity to choose the students they deem to be the best fit for the school. And that’s what make them the schools that they are. A poster upthread mentioned that s/he did not care at all about the diversity of the student body at a school. But selective schools do. And I think they’re very upfront about that. They’re also pretty candid about the fact that many of the students they do not admit would do just as well as the students they do admit. They don’t have to admit unqualified prospects because they have so many to choose from. Perhaps some students get in with lower standardized test scores than some who are rejected. But the whole point of holistic admissions is the possibility that just having higher test scores doesn’t make you a better fit.
And you have to be sensible about it as well. My daughter has received so much mail from so many schools. One in particular, from Harvard, made us giggle. “You should consider applying to Harvard!” It’s marketing! She’s not getting in to Harvard - even though they suggested that she should…
Of course the process is not ‘fair’ to everyone. But it’s how it works in this country. I do think that it makes sense that if you don’t agree with the system, you should probably go with a system that appeals to you.
@Pizzagirl Actually, I would love to see international admit rates or 25th/75th percentile scores for internationals… that would be pretty interesting
I don’t know if I’m not expressing myself properly or if it’s because of the prevailing tone of conversations like this, but I think yall are reading a bit too much into what I’ve written. I’m not saying I HATE the US college app system. I’m not saying it needs to or should change, and in fact it most probably never will change. I just read this thread and wanted to offer my pov to try and explain why internationals feel that the US college app system isn’t that great.
I’m getting kinda tired of trying to explain this same one point, and the somewhat defensive “don’t apply!” attitude is really getting old. For the third time, I can love US colleges while having some criticisms about the application system, the two are NOT mutually exclusive!
Many of us don’t like waiting in line at the DMV to register our cars but we do because we want to drive. Same thing. And the same result from complaining about it…
I realize that this thread is about what some international applicants feel is wrong with US college admissions, but I’m really curious that the OP, a non-US citizen, has received a scholarship to a public community college. Does it surprise anyone else?
Oxbridge are the two top universities in the UK and they, like top US colleges, have many qualified applicants, which is why they (uniquely) use an academic interview to determine which applicants they should admit.