<p>I am currently an economics student at McGill in Canada and I absolutely detest it.
I originally was admitted to the economics program because I am supposed to be an heir to my father’s company and I thought economics would be one of the best choices; however, my passion has always been for physics.</p>
<p>As a high school student, I was admitted to several of the top colleges including UChicago and NYU. </p>
<p>My stats include</p>
<p>College GPA: 2.5/4.0 I am a junior and I never…enjoyed nor tried in economics…
High School GPA: 94~% (if i remeber correctly)
SAT: 2100 (If I do it now, I am sure I can score higher… I never prepped for SATs in high school tbh;;
EC: Internships at PwC, Accenture, SK Group, and McGill University RA</p>
<p>I would like to know the process and chances of me getting into Cambridge as an affiliate student;;;</p>
<p>Unfortunately, your college GPA is far too low. There is almost zero chance of admission for you. Unlike American universities, Cambridge will accept you on academic criteria only. </p>
<p>You can apply as a freshman, however. For this you will need to submit your high school data along with standardized test scores.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply.
Yes I do realize that.</p>
<p>If I apply as a freshman, would I be considered a second bachelor’s student
and get my degree in 2 years? or would I still need to go through the electives and whatnot once again?</p>
<p>And well I never prepped for UK schools as a high school kid but exam score wise,
I have 5s and 4s on 23 (if i remember correctly) AP examiniations with 800s on 4 SAT Subject tests all of w3hich are sciecnes…
would that qualify me? or do you mean sth else by examinations?</p>
<p>You need to go and research what you are getting yourself into. There are no such thing as “electives” for a start, assuming you want to directly enroll at Cambridge (not a summer program). Start with the Cambridge website and use the search function on this board.</p>
<p>No, you would have to take a degree in the normal three years. </p>
<p>Fortunately, schools in the United Kingdom do not have electives, i.e. you only study the subject you want e.g. physics full-time for three years. Admission for the University of Cambridge for U.S. and Canadian applicants is quite difficult, you will need to have five AP exams with a 5-grade. The university will also look at your high school GPA.</p>
<p>You may want to look at the University of Oxford, which has an easier admissions process for U.S. applicants. You need to get a score of at least 2100 in the SAT (at least 700s in Critical Reading and Mathematics), and take three SAT Subject Tests and get 700 in each of them. You can give your AP scores in lieu of the subject tests; you will need three 5-grades.</p>
<p>If you don’t have the aforementioned qualifications, Oxford will look at your Canadian Provincial Exams:</p>
<p>We accept all Canadian Provincial Secondary School qualifications. A typical example would be the OSSD from Ontario where we would be looking for a minimum of 85%.</p>
<p>“Fortunately, schools in the United Kingdom do not have electives, i.e. you only study the subject you want e.g. physics full-time for three years”</p>
<p>Yes they do. Cambridge’s are very limited (for Economics they offer a small selection of social sciences papers) but at other universities they’re almost unlimited.</p>
<p>At UCL/Bristol/Durham for example, your electives could be in anything from German to Maths.</p>
<p>Yes, but the total number of electives one can take during the degree is very limited at English and Welsh universities compared to US universities (Scotland is a bit different).</p>
<p>I believe at US universities around 25% of the total number of courses are taken within the major, leaving 75% to cover distribution requirements and electives. In England and Wales there are usually no distribution requirements and maybe the opportunity to take a couple of electives per year, and even those electives may be quite restrictive.</p>
<p>TSRPolymath, I’m sure you can take a few ‘electives’ but they are usually part of the course you are currently taking. Not sure, if they compare with what U.S. students would call electives. </p>
<p>I was not aware of electives at other universities being so broad. I did an internship at UCL, and I wasn’t told about this during my two weeks.</p>
<p>Yes, but to say “Fortunately, schools in the United Kingdom do not have electives” is a bit of an exaggeration.</p>
<p>At Bristol, for example, the first year of the Physics degree grants you permission to take whatever you want as 1/3 of the modules.</p>
<p>Many universities offer electives to the value of ~20% of each year (@MeISHM, UCL Economics gives you 1.0 credits out of the 5.0 credits you do each year to spend on whatever modules you like)</p>
<p>Indeed, there are some degrees that offer flexibility. Mine is unusually flexible, and they actually required me to take at least half of my first year courses and a third of my second year courses from outside my main study area, which is politics. However, these electives are largely related to my major e.g. economics, social anthropology, criminology, law and leadership.</p>
<p>Hmm, that’s what I thought. I worked alongside some medicine/medicinal science students who stated that they were given three options to choose from. They something like pharmaceuticals, biochemistry, biophysics (something like this, not sure). The school cancelled all classes with less than ~100 students. </p>
<p>They also said that these aren’t ‘electives’ like you have in the United States. This is just in depth study of a specific branch of the course. In contrast to an institution like Harvard, where students can choose from over 3500 courses.</p>
<p>“They also said that these aren’t ‘electives’ like you have in the United States. This is just in depth study of a specific branch of the course. In contrast to an institution like Harvard, where students can choose from over 3500 courses.”</p>
<p>It varies!</p>
<p>There is a clear distinction, too.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Optional modules are subject/major-related options</p></li>
<li><p>Electives are just like yours, they can be in anything</p></li>
</ul>
<p>TSRPolymath - please do not give out such misleading information. The UK university system, including Scotland, is VERY different from the US system and some words have different meanings.</p>
<p>“TSRPolymath - please do not give out such misleading information. The UK university system, including Scotland, is VERY different from the US system and some words have different meanings.”</p>
<p>How was the information misleading?</p>
<p>It is true that UCL Economics grants you a certain amount of credits to spend on any modules you want, which can be from Economics if you want, or German, Maths etc.</p>
<p>It’s also true that Bristol do the same, and that many other universities do as well.</p>
<p>We also have ‘optional modules’ in the subject we’re taking at university - the name is slightly misleading, basically you <em>must</em> choose a module from that set, but you have a whole list of modules you can pick from.</p>
