<p>You are living in fantasyland. What was no longer is. This myth you enjoy repeating over and over is that Americans are despised etc etc.
This is not the place to debate the issue. I will say if you were as proper as you claim to be you would stop repeating it in your classrooms when Americans are visiting your schools! You would refrain from the cheap shot when Americans are studying in your classrooms in your country- you would sincerely treat Americans with respect- As for your delusional postings about IBAC Higher Math etc. You couldnt handle the math that prepares those of us who will be attending MIT etc. It is not part of your program I know I have studied there and frankly you were behind 2 years! Yes 2 years. So please save the nonsense. No matter how many Brits you enlist to agree with you those of us who have studied on both sides know its a JOKE! The only way you can control the board is give Americans a hard time- grade them poorly and pretend to be superior. Frankly the word is out. We are able to study in depth other levels after we are through with calc bc by soph. or junior year. Getting into your schools is easy compared to the competitive process in the US because everyone in the world wants to come to the US.
I get the feeling from conversations I have had with Brits that they believe they are related to the Queen directly- no Brit is at all associated with the poor uneducated man on the street. Yet when calculating the American mind- Brits love to compare all or most of us to the bouncing clowns on the Jerry Springer show.
Get real. The accent and posturing will not get you far any longer.
I do not feel welcome in the classroom setting with a British prof. I have always welcomed everyone overseas into my heart but lately I am revolted by these obnoxious comments repeated out of jealousy. Americans are generous- but dont worry about us look over your shoulders chaps and watch out for the Asian population- the best are studying in US prep schools and colleges if they can get in… second tier go to Oxford and Cambridge.</p>
<p>“In Britain and Europe for that matter we have got class, breeding and sophistication, something brash Americans like yourself will never understand.”
Let me see who exactly has class and breeding- The Royal families- I have attended a few posh parties myself and frankly I was not impressed- and then there is HARRY- your newspapers refer to him as the “Spare”
And are Americans Brash because we have spirit and will not be fooled nor will we accept your claims of pub " breeding and class"
Your comments illustrate perfectly the mob mentality - Imagine being judged and graded by the lot of you! Brash indeed!!</p>
<p>March 3, 2006</p>
<p>Applications Decline at English Universities</p>
<p>By AISHA LABI</p>
<p>New figures from Britain’s Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, the central organization through which applications to British universities are processed, show a 3.4-percent overall drop in applicants for the forthcoming academic year. The number of students applying to institutions in England fell by 3.7 percent compared with applications received by the same January cutoff period last year, while the number of applicants to Scottish universities increased by 1.6 percent. Welsh institutions also saw an increase, of 0.5 percent.</p>
<p>The figures are noteworthy because a controversial tuition increase for universities in England goes into effect in September, and critics of the fee increase have seized on the drop in applicants as an indication that the new rates are deterring students from pursuing higher education. The steepest decline was a 4.5-percent drop in English students applying to English universities the group most directly affected by the new tuition rates of up to about $5,200 a year.</p>
<p>The new figures show no greater decrease in the number of applicants from poor backgrounds than from other social groups, but student leaders insist that the decline reflects fears among young people that the debt burden they will incur under the new tuition regime will be overwhelming.</p>
<p>“These figures represent about 13,000 students who have not applied, and there’s a real concern that so many people will not have the opportunity to go to university because they’re scared of debt,” said Julian Nicholds, a vice president of the National Union of Students. He said the new figures are an ominous sign for the government’s goal of increasing participation rates in higher education among young people to 50 percent. “It just doesn’t make sense, trying to get more people into university and yet charging them three times as much…”</p>
<p>The new figures also show that, while the number of applications to British universities from students in European Union countries, who pay the same rates as British students, rose by 14 percent, the number of applications from overseas students declined by 4.3 percent.</p>
<br>
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<p>You can get rid of the invading American fast food and other shops by one sure-fire method: Stop Spending Your Money There. You’ve got no one to blame but yourselves. You are the ones making it profitable for these terrible American companies to invade. If everyone in the UK stopped eating at McDonald’s on Sunday, all their shops would be out of business by the following Thursday.</p>
<p>So OK, BirdloverFla, where have you studied in the UK and how old were you? You talk about
which suggests you are still at high school. But then you say
which suggests you’ve studied in a British university. So which is it? Have you ever actually studied at Oxbridge? And your friends who had such a bad time there, were they Oxford undergraduates, visiting students from an American university, or on a summer school? </p>
<p>
So what is your real evidence for this? Did they get lower marks for comparable work produced by British students, or was it just that they got a lower percentage in Britain than they previously had in the States? </p>
<p>I really wonder which came first, the chip on your shoulder or the way the British reacted to you.</p>
<p>And bluefuture, calm down on the hyperbolic responses. There are enough opportunities on these boards to respond in a measured fashion to phobias like BirdloverFla’s without going round stirring up your own pond wars.</p>
<p>Jamesie,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s not true. You are preying on people who don’t know much about O-levels but I came from Hong Kong and I know what you wrote is an exaggeration. For example, our additional math textbooks had past exam problems from HKCEE (O-level in Hong KOng) and UK’s O-level at the end of each chapter and they were arranged in 3 different categories based on their difficulty. The ones taken from UK were rarely considered “level III” problems; I wouldn’t say some of them were easy but if you are a decent student and you study, they should be very doable. The grading system is also fairly lenient. If I remember correctly, some subjects, especially the sciences, give good numbers of A at UK (not in HK though :()</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You are again exaggerating the difficulty, at least as far the sciences and math subjects go. You guys actually have pretty easy curve with some subjects awarding A to 30-40% of the candidates. The overall average for all subjects is over 20%–as documented by an article in Economist last year.</p>
<p>Oldspc, I will cool it now.</p>
<p>BirdloveFlas, for the final time. provide me with a link or some evidence to back up your statements. What is this math you are required to know for MIT? What syllabus is it on, APs? SATs? I have looked over these, which compared to the further Maths A-level are laughable. Not to mention the STEP or AEA. Check them out for yourself.
Provide me with link for this.</p>
<p>I now believe statements you make are not meant to have fact, just irritate me’ IE we are two years behind.</p>
<p>‘You are living in fantasyland. What was no longer is. This myth you enjoy repeating over and over is that Americans are despised’,</p>
<p>Im being totally honest, guys. Visit European countries and the middle east and i am sure your views will unfortunately change.</p>
<p>How American to say: ‘Let me see who exactly has class and breeding- The Royal families-’, </p>
<p>you do make me laugh…</p>
<p>There seem to be incredible advantages to attending Oxbridge if you are really positive about what you want to study. However, there are also drawbacks, and I don’t believe that a really great American education is inferior. Possibly, if we were just to compare an Oxbridge senior with a Harvard College senior, the Oxbridge student would know more in his field. However, this isn’t much of a practical problem for the Harvard kid. First of all, the Harvard student probably does have a wider range of knowledge. Secondly, in his chosen field, the Harvard student is going to go on to graduate level study. </p>
<p>In the liberal arts and humanities in particular, I can’t see how Harvard students would be at a disadvantage. An English major at Harvard may not have been required to read as many books. But if that student comes out of Harvard with the ability to analze literature within the context of other works and its historical period, than who has read more books becomes a vanity issue, not an indictment of American education.</p>
<p>In terms of which nation has a more rigorous high school system, I can only say that if British students were that much better prepared, than it would seem that they should be the top students in American colleges. I see no evidence that this is the case.</p>
<p>Within the UK, Cambridge seems to be widening its reputational advantage over Oxford.</p>
<p>From the Times 2005 report:</p>
<p>"The views of more than 1,000 heads at Britains leading state and independent secondary schools were sought to gauge how well universities were performing in the eyes of the schools that send most children to university each year.</p>
<p>Heads were asked to identify across 30 subject areas the universities that provided the highest-quality undergraduate provision. They were asked only to cite universities and subjects that they felt comfortable with from their direct experience.</p>
<p>Just under 250 heads responded to our questionnaire, citing institutions more than 9,000 times in total.</p>
<p>Cambridge was ranked top, cited overall on nearly half of the occasions it might have been. It held a clear lead over Oxford in second place, which was cited 40.9% of the time. Universities were only scored on the subjects they offered, so multifaculty institutions held no statistical advantage from the likelihood of being cited more often."</p>
<p>sorry but i have the bad experiences overseas and so have some of my cousins. im rather tired of being told how inferior the American system is- i was braced to work extremely hard to keep up…i found out it was utter nonsense some story they tell themselves. the workload was a breeze- i left because i was afraid i would lose my edge and back i went to the us. HAPPILY. anyway thanks for speaking up!</p>
<p>I am an exchange student at Cambridge, so I am getting a kick out of all your replies.</p>
<p>Heh. I can confirm a couple things in this thread: Cambridge rocks Oxford (and by a longshot for the sciences), and British A-levels are much easier for liberal arts vs. the sciences (there was just an article about this in the paper; hence again, whatever numbers bluefreak wants to bring up). To their credit, I haven’t caught any derision from profs (who have an incentive to respect foreign scholars) and not once have I been labeled or mistreated by students (amazing, given the proportion of time they spend drunk). </p>
<p>But there’s no question, Oxbridge don’t compare to the elite American universities. Exams here are more <em>essays</em> than worked out problems. There is less work, less group study, and less depth in everything they do. They may cover in four years what we covered in ~3, but ask them to do a problem and they’re clueless. I don’t want to bring up Harvard’s own minimum requirements for science degrees, but Oxbridge students just wouldn’t be comparable. </p>
<p>I will give them this: it’s a lot of fun here. Formal Halls, bumps, bops, and ents; plays in many theaters, running all term; a College-based sports system with an insane number of fields, and official bars inside the “dorms”; even the Supervision system can be nice sometimes. </p>
<p>But the labs are generally funded worse than back at home, and this is no place for people serious about science. [Caveat: DAMTP may be pretty good–haven’t taken any courses there.] To me, it seems British education has been held back by the whole public funding thing, and Oxbridge punished for their history with an unfortunate spirit of conservatism.</p>
<p>I’m enjoying my time here, and there are exceptions, so some of the people are pretty smart (most I know are pretty well-rounded: sport, languages, concentration). But some of the differences I’ve seen are just astonishing.</p>
<p>After graduating yale for undergrad, I spent a year at cambridge (johns), and echo much of the above sentiment of mekpeaceandfood. The laboratories at Cambridge are the best funded in the UK and they pale in comparison to US labs. Undegrad students had one exam per year and studied about 1/2 as much as their peers at US institutions (At oxford, there are no exams for the second year, amazing). Time at Oxbridge is filled with traditions, drinking and societies. It was a breathtaking experience, but in terms of academic seriousness, I felt it was lacking. American high school students are no doubt less prepared than their uk counterparts when entering college. But, if anything, the british mind is numbed and pigeonholed by the time the May ball rolls around their third year. Frankly, I find the notion that a 17 year old can “know” exactly what they want to (singularly) study an absurdity and there are many in england agitating for a position akin to US uni’s. Its almost a declaration of intellectual cowardice. The classes I most cherished at yale were on topics I will never study again. Though my days in the sciences continue, I am most fond of my teachings in english, biophysics and philosophy - and they were the classes that challenged me the most. We have the rest of our lives to be experts in a field. Why rush? There is NO advantage in the long term whatsoever, neither in understanding, nor in ability to succeed. </p>
<p>That said, go maggie.</p>
<p>I showed up belatedly to this thread, but I will put my oar in on various topics, from the perspective of an American parent of an Oxford fresher who is completing his second term.</p>
<p>Re: Anti-Americanism - he hasn’t experienced any. Occasional outbursts of how Bush is hated in group gatherings. There are very few undergraduate degree students from the US - 40-50 entering each year, based on the stats on Oxford’s web site, but tons of visiting US students and a hefty number of US graduate students. None that my son has met have complained about Anti-Americanism. So that seems to be a non-starter - everyone has been quite welcoming and friendly.</p>
<p>Re: Rankings - let’s remember that many factors are employed to measure “greatness” that have nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of undergraduate education. Grants, endowments (past a certain point, no effect). Some rankings are heavily skewed towards the sciences - sciences are very important, but humanities and social sciences hold up the other half of the sky. You don’t need huge laboratory facilities or research reactors to provide superior education in literature, languages, etc. </p>
<p>Re: Distinguished faculty. This reflects both salaries and chosen career path direction. Harvard and other very wealthy schools have a large number of famous professors because they are able to buy them. However, based on the experiences of a number of Harvard students I have talked to in various majors (including my son’s Harvard interviewer), it can easily happen that a student will never get to know any of those professors, as they don’t teach much, when they do it is most often lectures, and they typically spend much of their time with graduate students. Oxford may have fewer famous professors, but the ‘rank and file’ are serious, dedicated scholars whose departmental evaluations are weighted more heavily on their ability to teach well. As an undergraduate, you get to know your tutors very well, over a long period of time. This has many advantages, not the least in producing more detailed and personalized letters of reference for grad/prof school. </p>
<p>Re: Liberal arts education - what is a liberal arts education? Speaking from my own perspective, I do not think you can equate it to simply taking a wide variey of classes in various separate subjects. There is no real bridging among disciplines in academia, with very few exceptions (e.g. Cognitive Science). If you take a linguistics class and a philosophy class and a geology class and a psychology class, what you get are unintegrated slices of different approaches, different methodologies, and no synthesis except what you forge yourself - which is hit or miss, no matter how intelligent you are - and there are no real incentives for doing so. One does not get graded for being an integrated intellectectual.</p>
<p>In the classical sense, I would say you cannot really achieve a “liberal arts education” anywhere, except perhaps at St. John’s College, where the foundations of western civilization are explored starting with the Greeks, tutors teach all subjects over time, and the parallels and synergies are raised in seminars and preceptorials every single day. Unifying concepts, like the Golden Mean, are encountered from every aspect in math, science, languages, history, literature, and philosophy. I believe it is that level of integration and perspective to which we refer when we speak of a “liberal arts education.” (And BTW, I never achieved it, because I left after two years 
). </p>
<p>Re: Specialization. My son chose Oxford instead of Harvard for a number of reasons, but one of the most important was that he really liked the course description and he wanted to limit himself to a few subjects (3, in his case). He has many academic interests and was worried that he would scatter his energies if he allowed himself too much freedom to explore. This is ‘chacun a son gout,’ as far as I am concerned. If you want to sample various subjects for two years, don’t go to Oxbridge, and if you want to master one, or a few, subjects and get right down to it, Oxbridge is the place.</p>
<p>Re: Worth the cost. I cannot imagine a more attractive value proposition than the one that Oxford provides. My son has four tutorials a week this term (three 1:1, one 1:2) plus 10 lectures, labs, and experiments. He writes three essays a week and does stats problem sets. The essays are read carefully, criticized for quality of argument, depth of content, and style. Every position taken must be verbally defended during the tutorial discussion, and the student must be able to argue both sides of an issue. (Wish we had more of this in our political campaigns). It is a very intense, very challenging pedagological method, in form as well as in content. He can never be late, never fail to hand in his work, and the bar is always set higher and higher. Because there is so much individual attention, a student is always motivated to strive. (Edison’s remarks about genius fit here - the perspiration part). For my son, the tutorials were a big selling point.</p>
<p>We pay international tuition rates, and we are completely convinced that he is getting more than his money’s worth. Even very fine liberal arts colleges do not provide the degree of focus on each student that is the way of life at Oxford - my stepdaughter attended Williams and she never had one tutorial, only a few classes with under 15 students, and only one small seminar with 6 students. </p>
<p>Residential colleges: No one has mentioned the glories of the colleges on this thread, but this aspect of Oxbridge is a tremendous experience. The colleges are small (on average about 300 undergrads), nurturing, relaxed, and homelike (many with 10 foot thick walls, peaceful as a cloister). Single rooms are another big advantage, especially when you have to read so much every week and write lots of essays. </p>
<p>Compared to a US college, roughly 50% of a student’s life is involved with the college (sleeping, eating, tutorials, college common room, college bar, college sports teams, college-sponsored entertainment) and 50% is involved with the university (lectures, labs, exercise facilities, exams, and university-wide clubs and groups). Like virtually all Oxford undergrads, my son adores his college and finds it a very comfortable environment and a great ‘home base.’ (To the tune of ‘NYC’ - “B N C, what is it about you?”).</p>
<p>Re: Oxbridge taking lessons from the US regarding fundraising. This is true. I haven’t been asked for a penny towards fundraising efforts - they really need a robust parent and alumni outreach program, they are leaving lots of money on the table.</p>
<p>Re: Disadvantages. There are two minor annoyances - there are three terms and you have to vacate your room in the breaks. Leads to frantic packing the last day or two and a mad dash for the storage room. (Of course, it does teach you to be organized). Also, flying back and forth across the pond - requires planning and Priceline. The only other negative that my son has mentioned is that you do not get grades week to week - he misses grades as a yardstick of progress. None of the essays count towards your final grade, only the exams. And the exams are interesting and challenging, with fascinating open-ended questions, but they also require that you illustrate your conceptual understanding with all of the details and factual knowledge that you have been imbibing. Therefore, there is a lot of effort spent cramming (revisions) before exams. The final exam in 3rd year is your grade for the entire course - that’s pressure!</p>
<p>One day I’ll understand why some Americans get so angry over the mere suggestion they’re not infinitely superior. It’s genuinely bizzare that so many are incapable of reasonably arguing this issue and are reduced to stereotypes, insults and describing things as “absurd” or “museums” without any qualification.</p>
<p>I agree with the “different not better” argument that was posted a while back. But seeing some of you are incapable of accepting it, could you possibly explain to me the following facts:</p>
<p>Of the 18 students admitted to Harvard’s 2008 class, roughly half had been rejected by Oxbridge; some from relatively uncompetitive courses.</p>
<p>If British courses lack the depth of Harvard, why did I encouter stuff I studied in grade 10 in Harvard classes? Why did I encouter stuff I did in grade 11 in seminars? Why did I encouter stuff I did in grade 12 in advanced classes? Why did I encouter stuff I did in grade 7 in a Junior Tutorial at Harvard (I **** you not)? More importantly, why were students all around me struggling with a some of this very basic material? I appreciate classes may have to start from a low basis to ensure everyone has the basic knowledge but I can’t see why, if this is what’s being done, the students would struggle with material that a high school student found embarrasingly easy. </p>
<p>If British courses are pigeon holed, why are the majority of Oxford arts courses joint honours? Why does almost every single course have bridge papers, regarding, for example, the philosophy or history of the subject, or its application in unusual areas?</p>
<p>If American courses are so much more advanced, why do Juniors from Columbia do first year courses here? Why do Seniors (!) do second year courses? Why do Stanford students tell me that at their seminars how much you talk is more important that what you actually say?</p>
<p>I can only speak for myself. I did not appreciate being insulted by burned out alkie profs. I did not enjoy the consistent punitive education practices I experienced. I cannot imagine an American prof putting someone through the passive agressive BS I endured because I was " that yank". I was thrilled about the program initially. After taking in the culture of the British system I must say that I felt pity for those who grew up in a punitive learning environment. I spent much of my time helping out my new friends by tutoring them. By AA standards all of my profs were alcoholics and the bullying- moodiness and behaviors I experienced were most definately associated with this drinking culture. I did not find this to be the case in the US. We party yes but we do not live from drink or reception to reception.</p>
<p>If cambridge is so easy then why do MIT exchange students go into a year below in many subjects? And if the level really is so different how come the exchange students from cambridge are so successful? Also, I cant believe what some people say about the facilities -mekpeaceandfood have you ever been to the brand new center for mathematical sciences? Many other labs are new as well - nanotech, chemistry etc. Everyone i have talked to who has been on the mit exchange has said that many of the problems there have no theoretical depth and are just mind-numbing number crunching compared to cambridge problems - i.e. see the student guide to the exchange, maths, NST tripos exams etc. If you look up cambridges research spending - search old threads I think youll find that its research spending is really high, higher than MIT i recall. The workload is probably more - it is just highly concentrated towards the end of the year before exams. just wait mekpeace until you see the people in the library til 4 am every night during the last term.
And where is the individual attention in the US? I’d rather have supervisions/ tutorials with individual attention anyday than be taught by a TA in a massive class. And focus > dilletantism to me. Not serious about science - have you never heard of say the cavendish, the damtp, the ioa, etc? Fact is while us may have good grad program their undergrad is lacking in individuality and depth.</p>
<p>I am not making the argument that american students are more advanced in their concentration or major compared to the british equivalent. On the contrary, the british student is more highly specialized as they study only one topic for their course. This, however, when looked upon from the graduate level is a minor one, and frankly is equilazed and then some in graduate school (don’t even let me go into the frankly pathetic graduate requirements in europe compared to the US). It is the trade off for being able to take other classes and expand one’s mind beyond a sole interest or speciality, which is a euphemism for intellectual boredom. When you are 40, you too will think it odd that you were forced to decide pretty much the direction of your academic life at the age of 17. Don’t you think if you had ALL the resources and professors and classes at Oxbridge at your disposal, you too might have discovered a hidden passion or talent that your high school teachers, in all their greatness, could not foster? Even, perhaps, choosing a field by interest or love, rather than by how well you do on the A levels? </p>
<p>Something which no one has brought up here, which I found shocking while at cambridge, is the apparent inequality among colleges. There is a major difference in an undergraduate gaining acceptance to trinity or johns, compared to some of the lower, poorer colleges. This sets up a class system in which undergraduates have different access to tutors, facilities, and bursaries - sort of an oddly tiered academia within cambridge (and oxford). On the other hand, the academic offerings. the facilities, even the food available to a harvard or yale student is really not dependent on their college affiliation. The college system of oxbridge sounds great, but only if you were able to get into a good college. Cambridge needs to centralize and standardize itself, a priority that Alison Richard (Newnham), the former provost and professor at Yale, has made it clear to alumni in the many newsletters seeking our money.</p>
<p>One final point and it is beyond reproach: Cambridge is better than Oxford ;)</p>
<p>yes there are differences between colleges, but not as large as you make them out to be - everyone does take the same exams and gets marked the same, so if your good, the college doesnt really matter.</p>
<p>Have A Drink Sargon Cambridge Will Look Even Better In An Hour. Yeah Yeah Yeah Mit Is Inferior Too Of Course-“american Courses Have No Depth…”
Who Invented This Story You Tell Yourselves One Of Your Bartenders Or Did Someone Dream This Up At A Reunion? No Matter How Often You Repeat This Little Story Its Still Nothing But Bs…save It For Someone Who Cares… Another Example Of Exactly What Profs Told Me Daily For No Reason At All Except To Bash The Us System. Such Hostility Toward Mit And Harvard…hmm I Wonder Why?</p>
<p>… and are the tutors the same?</p>
<p>and BirdloverFla, Camridge always looks beautiful, drink or no drink. It was the most inspiring place I have ever been too. And I look forward to returning there in the future for an academic post (hopefully).</p>