<p>@dsultemeier: You might want to contact them first. Some universities have open days and so forth.</p>
<p>Oh I know they do. But they said two months for response and I have waited almost three.</p>
<p>I think its good that I haven’t heard though. It means I haven’t been rejected yet!</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Going back to the OP, if you want a global perspective from an Asian, I’d be more than happy to oblige.
Generally, Oxbridge is obviously on another level with UCL, Imperial and LSE all tied for a distant third</p>
<p>“LSE has a very very good reputation. I would think they are equivalently as good as Michigan.”</p>
<p>err I don’t think so. OP you’re at LSE…its prestige is GLOBAL and in some cases unrivalled (if one disagrees, looking at the list of its distinguished alumnis should do it). Nothing can go wrong while you’re at LSE. Columbia is of similar if not equal standing. Oh and lets just say HYPSM etcc… would LOVE you (esp if you graduatewith impressive marks). So for anybody unaware of this…sorry but I think you’ve been living in a hut for sometime. Americans especially have no excuse if europeans, asians and latin americans have had LSE rolling in their tongue for a while now.</p>
<p>How do I put this…Oxbridge is like HYP…always been there, will always somehow dominate the first 2/3 places in local rankings but LSE is sort of like Stanford…you know? S is not an ivy but has the wow factor, the alumni, the solid programs, great location, impressive facilities and research etc.</p>
<p>^^^^^^^^^Huh?</p>
<p>i liek pie</p>
<p>raison_d’etre,</p>
<p>I’ve been trying to understand what you’re saying but I’m having a hard time because
- I cannot separate HYP from S when it comes to academic prestige and
- I cannot connect any similarities between LSE and Stanford. </p>
<p>Stanford is a “farm” and LSE is in the heart of London.</p>
<p>Never heard of LSE until now :S. The only UK universities I’ve heard of are Oxford, Cambridge, and St. Andrews in Scotland.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That depends on the area of study. The best indicator of reputation in academic circles in the UK is the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which is a basically a peer review of the quality of the research output submitted by the different universities in different areas. According to the latest RAE (2008), LSE actually ranks # 1 in the UK both in economics/econometrics and law. By contrast, Cambridge for example ranks # 9 in economics. </p>
<p>I would say that, in academic circles, LSE’s economics department is nowadays clearly more prestigious than Cambridge’s or Oxford’s. In fact, LSE probably can claim to be the only school in Europe with an economics department that is considered in academic circles to be on par with the top U.S economics departments (i.e. MIT, Chicago, Harvard, Berkeley, Yale, and Princeton). </p>
<p>BTW, looking closer at the RAE rankings, LSE also does pretty well in other areas it specializes in. Besides economics and law, it is also ranked #3 in anthropology, top 10 in philosophy, politics/international studies and geography, and top 15 in history. Interestingly however, its RAE ranking in sociology (traditionally considered one of LSE’s strongest areas) is rather low (#19).</p>
<p>LSE is an excellent university, but it is not on par with Stanford. Stanford is on par with Harvard. And comparing LSE to schools like Cal, Columbia, Cornell and Michigan etc… is not accurate either. Those schools all have top ranked programs in the Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. LSE and Imperial combined would rival those schools, but LSE on its own would not.</p>
<p>That said, in terms of international reputation, LSE rivals the very best universities and is most comparable to Chicago and Columbia. Not too shabby if you ask me.</p>
<p>Schools like Michigan and Cal have the advantage of being at the top of every graduate field - business, medicine, law, the sciences, etc. To argue that they are not amongst the best in terms of international prestige is flat out wrong. </p>
<p>If you take the time to look around, you will find that most of our western world leaders come from a background of either law or business. And most of our eastern world leaders have a more technical/science background - Michigan and Cal have the distinction of being at the top of the field for both.</p>
<p>Anyone worth their salt in any of the above mentioned fields know that Haas and Ross are top ranked business schools with unparalleled access to career opportunities, that both Cal and Michigan are T9 law schools in the states … i could go on and on. That’s not even getting into Cal’s science PhD programs, which are arguably the best in the world.</p>
<p>London School of Economics = University of Chicago</p>
<p>Seriously, they are fraternal twins. Think about it.</p>