UK schools and their US equivalents

International Students
1

Hello long time reader first time poster. So i am a naturalized US citizen originally from the UK. I see a lot back and forth on these boards comparing one school with another prestige etc etc. So lets begin with a few facts and assumptions. Lets say the bell curve for the the US and UK college admits are the same except the US curve is approx 7 times the size with 3.3 million US freshmen compared to roughly 500k UK freshmen. Admissions in the UK are very different, grades and your ability to pay tuition are the main criteria. For UK students tuition to UK schools is roughly the same wherever you go so cost is not a factor in determining which university you go to. In the US of course admissions is holistic while finance is a major hurdle to be negotiated. For this discussion I am assuming UK undergrad as 3 years and US undergrad 4 years (a massive leap of faith in the US I realize, and yes some UK courses are 4 years including all Scottish universities). So an approximation of prestige in UK is by entry standards, and these are in order of difficulty;

Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, LSE, St Andrews, Durham, UCL, Bristol, Warwick, Edinburgh, Bath, Strathclyde, Glasgow

These are the toughest schools to matriculate into on the whole, certain subjects with be harder at other universities and exceptions can be found, but those 13 schools mentioned represent 50,000 freshman intake more or less. If we take the header page from CC the top universities from Cal Tech to Vandy the freshman intake is approx 55,000, take out say UCLA and UNC and add the entire Ivy league and you are still at 55k. Again take out UNC,UVA,UCLA, UofM and add the liberal arts colleges mentioned and you are at 55-60k students. So the top 50k UK students and the colleges they go to and the top 50-60k US students and the colleges they go to (although given the holistic nature of the US I am greatly generalizing). In terms of percentages the top 5 UK schools represents the top 3% of Uk students while 60k represents approx top 1.8% in US.

Marks out of 10 for a maiden effort?

2

Here’s the thing, though:

If you compare the distribution of Who’s Who’s percentages, you see a big difference:
UK:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/may/20/whos-who-oxbridge-elitism
US:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/292515-schools-ranked-by-the-number-of-alumni-in-whos-who.html

In the UK, Oxbridge is far above everyone else with with only LSE even within striking distance.
In the US, that’s not really true. It’s hard to differentiate HYPSM from the other Ivies/equivalents from other good colleges/unis. It’s a gradual slope down. And that’s true if you look at other alumni success metrics as well, such as numbers at McKinsey/Goldman or PhDs produced, where in the UK, Oxbridge (and LSE) are far above the rest on the McK/GS placement metric (all other UK schools are a small fraction of the Oxbridge/LSE numbers) while in the US, there is a slope down and you can’t separate HYPSM out from the rest by any one metric.

Plus, with Oxbridge taking in 6.7K a year and the US being 5 times more populous, that would be equivalent to 33.5K in the US, which is more than the intake of all Ivies and equivalents combined.
Basically, in the UK, then you have

Oxbridge=HYPSM

LSE=Wharton (like LSE, Wharton is specialized and places just as well in to the prestige industries of IB and MC as the very best schools).

Imperial is a cross of GTech/Caltech.
All three are specialized tech institutes only. It works kids as hard as Caltech but is biggish and public like GTech.

UCL is the best of the rest, but UCL=UMich/NYU. Like UMich, it is a research powerhouse with strength across the board. Like NYU, it is in a major city with no real campus. Like both, it is a Street/City feeder.

Durham=UCSD. Both are collegiate, though UCSD is more of a research powerhouse.

Edinburgh=UT-Austin. Both draw heavily from their home state/nation and is well-esteemed there.

Warwick is an odd bird. Very well-respected in some departments but not seen as among the very best overall and a City feeder. In that respect, it is like NYU (a Street feeder).

St. Andrews=W&M. Both are old and smaller, liberal arts universities so not research powerhouses but more undergrad-focused.

Manchester(/Glasgow?)=Wisconsin. STEM research powerhouses but big and not very difficult to enter.

3

I was just getting it out there, however I would disagree on various points. As I alluded to in my first post, the UK tends to be on academics alone and individual courses even among the top group there are large disparities at the granular level… Take geography at Cambridge or the LSE, I would argue the cohort at UCL or Durham is every bit as qualified if not more so but lower in the overall standings, International Relations at St A’s or the LSE is perhaps harder than History and Politics at Oxford in terms of admissions. As for the elites in the US… how elite can the HYSP be if a third of the cohort are admitted on terms other than academics. They may not be be bad but some admits are down right average other than being an Olympic standard rower, certainly not the creme de la creme academically. One last point never ever grade an institution by is placings into McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, they recruit the best of a certain type, lets just leave it at that.

4

Yes, but that’s true if you go off of purely academics as well: only the best of a certain type would get in. In fact, with the way that the UK unis admit, it’s only the best of a certain type that does well at tests.

The main difference between the American elites and British ones is that the American elites want to get those who have the potential to be the best in a wide variety of spheres; they want among their alums leaders in all areas and ways while (for the most part) British elites want to get those who become experts in a narrow specific field. Just look at who alumni publications of American colleges celebrate. Yes, renown authors, academics, politicians, scientists, and entrepreneurs but also noteworthy dancers, TV personalities, cooks, athletes, military leaders, and community leaders and organizers.

And yes, in the UK, you can find certain departments that are stronger outside the very tip-top (just like in the US, UIUC has one of the best CS departments and engineering colleges in the nation, IU has arguably the best music school in the country besides being among the best in ballet and business, VCU has one of the best arts schools, UCincy has arguably the best-regarded design department in the country, etc.), but in aggregate, there’s still a big gap between Oxbridge (& LSE) and everyone else in the UK in per capita representation in a measure that takes in leaders in all fields like Who’s Who while there isn’t any such gap among American unis and colleges.

5

The premise of the original post was to identify for the benefit of US high schoolers, the universities considered elite in the UK by academic reputation as defined by the difficulty of entry. Cambridge then Oxford are the very top, followed by Imperial, LSE and St Andrews and so on. In the UK academic rigour is above all the dominant criteria in determining prestige unlike the US system where holistic admissions and ability to pay cloud the issue. But within the UK elite there is also reputation by discipline to consider, unlike the US where the college name alone seems to be sufficient, although PurpleTitan brought up some good examples in the US where this is not the case. A good example in the UK would be SOAS, it doesn’t make the overall list but is undoubtedly in the top 2 or 3 for Oriental languages. The good thing for US students is that the colleges in the UK elite come in all manner of size and locations so there should be something to suit everyones tastes. As an aside I think I would probably include KCL in there even if they technically not 14th in entry difficulty as they have more than their fair share of outstanding departments.

6

OK, if it’s for that purpose, then let me modify:
For the UK, follow the UK rankings.
But if they want to come back to the States,

  1. In academia, they’d probably be aware of the UK rankings. It’d be a mix of the UK rankings and my comps (the state schools I gave as comps tend to be quite respected in academia).
  2. On the Street, they definitely know that Oxbridge and LSE are targets. Possibly UCL, Imperial, and Warwick also.
  3. In consulting, Oxbridge & LSE would dominate, but at least they would have heard of other good UK unis.
  4. In tech, they’d rate Oxbridge highly. Probably Imperial as well. Maybe Edinburgh.
  5. Elsewhere, probably only Oxbridge, LSE, St. Andrews, maybe Edinburgh, maaaaaybe Imperial would be rated highly.

BTW, there are actually many examples in the US where certain unis in certain fields are deemed elite (and people in those fields would know that, though people outside them may not).

Finally, there actually is much less variation in size among UK unis than in the US. Sure, you have a few small ones like LSE, but almost all range from 10K-20K undergrads or about. Contrast with the US where you have tiny LACs and Caltech at around 2K, the elite private research unis ranging from 6-K-12K (besides MIT at 4K), and giant public flagships (many of which are research powerhouses) ranging from 25K-50K (besides UVa and UNC who are more around 15K or so).

7

You guys are trying really hard to compare them apples with oranges, if you ask me. The are not equivalent because they are qualitatively different.

American unis are for liberal arts education, i.e. more general and intended for studnets to experiment and “find themselves” to use 60s jargon. For their part, unis in the UK require specialization (a major) when you start out and that’s all you do with few exceptions. Oxbridge has the tutorial system, again unique.

The one thing you can reliably compare is cost, so if you can get into a really good UK uni at EU prices, it will cost about 1/3 or 1/4 what it would at a good place in the US.

I also don’t see where Elg gets the idea that 30% of HYSP applicants get in but do not deserves to do: if that is based on an article, I’d like to read it. What the advantages do is get the applics noticed among similarly outstanding ones. So a Harvard alum’s kid will get more attention, but they MUST meet the standard imho. It’s unfair, but they are not lower caliber in any way that would lower their stats.

8

Right, it’s really hard to compare in part because American unis are so flexible.
For instance, a physics major at an American school with a good physics department may spend as little as roughly a year’s worth of classes studying physics or as much as 3 years, including taking a ton of grad classes and doing grad-level research with profs. And that can occur at both Harvard (tough for almost anyone to get in to, including athletes and other hooked applicants) and UIUC (well-regarded physics department, but quite a bit easier to declare science and arts majors in). Which is why Americans who know a subject area (for instance, in grad school admissions) tend to judge individuals by resume/CV/references rather than difficulty of entrance.

Furthermore, the criteria may be quite different for Americans than for Brits at UK unis. For Americans, say for their hardest courses to enter, there seems to be quite a drop in difficulty of admittance between Oxbridge&LSE and St. Andrews&Durham.

9

@elguapo1, I don’t think it is that easy or simple to be comparing UK and US universities considering their huge difference in operating model and entry requirements.

The UK are public universities, which are big and focus on providing depth of education, who’s graduate operate in a very aristocratic and old-boy network environment, and there is no strong demarcation between postgrad vs undergrad education/reputation. The US universities are very different from these operating model.

Even when ranking US universities, the USNews separate them into 4 groups: National, Regional, LACs and Regional Colleges.

Worse still is that, if you want to make the comparison between universities from the 2 very different countries, you want to measure prestige and then decide to only look at entry tariff.

Prestige is a mix of different factors and definitely not something you can measure with one or two factors.

For example, Caltech has a far more higher entry tariff than Stanford. That does not mean it is more prestigious.

Even Vanderbilt has a higher entry tariff than Columbia. That does not mean it is more prestigious.

Columbia is more selective than Princeton, that does not mean it is more prestigious.

I don’t even think Imperial, with its high entry tariff is as prestigious as LSE.

It is like trying to look at prestige in Consulting and then look at only staff sizes or even just revenue per consultant. There is more art to lookinng at prestige.

Prestige is a mix of lots of factors that will include: entry tariff, selectivity, history/contribution to society, research power, reputation, financial muscle, alumni, graduate starting salaries, opinions of employers, opinion of academics etc.

You have to take in as much as possible of these to be able to find equivalents. That really is the only way to compare universities across borders. From UK to USA to Japan to South Africa. That said, you will have to think through their structural differences. For example, there are many elite, higly selective and high repute universities in Russia who don’t score highly on research tables because their professors work at the same time for attached public institutions which traditionally take the credit for the research.

If I was to consider all these prestige factors and come up with equivalents between UK universities and US private universities, I would go:

  1. HYPSM = Oxbridge
  2. The Lower Ivies and Caltech, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins = Imperial, UCL, LSE, KCL and Edinburgh (maybe also Bristol)
  3. NYU, Vanderbilt, Wash St Louis, Rice, Tufts, Notre Dame, USC, Carnegie Mellon, Emory and Tulane = (Bristol), St Andrews, Durham, Warwick, Glasgow, Manchester and Nottingham.
  4. Boston College, Wake Forest, Case Western, Northeastern and likes = The rest of the Russell Group + Bath & SOAS.

Note: They are not direct equivalents in regards to fields or size, but equivalents in reputation in what they do and how well they are known in their respective country and globally.

When comparing with US public universities, the top 25 US public universities (mainly the flagship ones) would probably all fall in the second and third groups.

10

@LutherVan, prestige is in the eye of the beholder. This is especially true in the US, where some people have Swarthmore up there with HYPSM (in terms of alumni achievements, it is) and others haven’t heard of the school.
BTW, Caltech, in the fields it is in, most definitely is seen to be just as prestigious as Stanford and Harvard. It’s a tiny school, so may not be as well known among the lay public (though it’s plenty well-known in the States), but pretty much everyone who knows of it puts it on par with MIT, Stanford etc. in its core subjects. In that regard, it’s akin to LSE vis-a-vis Oxbridge.
In terms of the percentage it sends on to PhD programs, it blows everyone else away.

Also, in the US, 3 and 4 can’t really be differentiated (it depends a lot on who you ask). Also, almost all Americans would also put Rice in group 2.
Finally, like I said, in the US, there’s a gradient and a very strong upper/upper-middle class, so by any one alumni achievement metric you look at, HYPSM just doesn’t separate from everyone else (granted, HYPSM and the WAS LACs do hold the distinction of being top 25 in all alumni success metrics). This is a clear difference from the UK where if you look at alumni achievement rates, there’s a clear gap between Oxbridge (& LSE) and everyone else.

That’s why I stand by my comps: in terms of alumni accomplishment rates/prestige, the gap between Oxbridge and UCL is equivalent to the gap between HYPSM and UMich (and all the Ivies/equivalents are somewhere between the 2). Everyone else besides Oxbridge and LSE (and maybe Imperial) is lower than UCL.

11

I would just like to point out that these are not the ONLY schools of marked distinction , especially in the US.
In fact so many great , accomplishments and accomplished alumni have attended so many US schools , too many to list here. Suffice to say, prestige has a price tag but I seriously question the true value. At least in the states the conversation has started as to the cost/benefit analysis and where true value is. It will take a long while to change perception but I think the hand writing is on the wall.

12

@PurpleTitan, I will have to disagree with you about some of the things you said about Caltech’s prestige.

As much as I appreciate prestige is in the eye of the beholder and I know Caltech is so bloody good, when looking at prestige, you have to look at it in the eyes of the majority.

Another point is about people that know Caltech regard it as highly as HYPSM. I will disagree with that too because we have to agree that a large portion of those that know Caltech will be many of those that apply to the university. Now, despite Caltech enrolling students with test scores that are the highest average in the US bar none, if you look at its yield rate (i.e. those it gave offers that accepted the offer and enrolled), it is less than 40%. Far lower than the 65-85% for those in the HYPSM.

If it was that prestigious, many will not be turning down a chance to go there like that. One can only assume, considering the high average quality of those that accept and enrol in Caltech, that the ones that turned it down are of equal calibre and are likely to have turned it down for universities in HYPSM and other Ivies (those that seek and get most high quality students).

That said, I know it is highly regarded for its field, but I just don’t think it is as prestigious as HYPSM.

As for Rice being in Group 2, I think you are misunderstanding me. I don’t give opinions based on American views. I give opinions based on American and outside-America views. I can appreciate the American view can be different from global views. But in most of my analysis, I try to appreciate views from outside America as well.

In regards to the dominance of Oxbridge, as much as I am aware it is not to that magnitude in the US, I do believe if you take each and every of the valid prestige factors I listed above and rank US private universities (that is, minus LACs and even publics), you will get HYPSM dominating the top 10, just like you get Golden triangle dominating the top 10 for those same factors for the UK. Please do try it.

I think you need to realise Imperial’s prestige is only recent, less than 30 or so years. It does not have the history and alumni of UCL. Its alumni success is actually not that elite.

http://www.nairaland.com/141689/rough-guide-best-most-reputable/11#35066791

http://www.nairaland.com/141689/rough-guide-best-most-reputable/11#35131816

http://www.nairaland.com/141689/rough-guide-best-most-reputable/9#19407351

http://www.nairaland.com/141689/rough-guide-best-most-reputable/9#24401696

That said, Imperial has been better in producing millionaires.

As I have told you earlier, you cannot make such conclusions about equivalence by a singular factor (i.e. the gap between HYPSM and UMich; gap between Oxbridge and UCL), you have to look at multiple factors.

Complex things require multiple factors, not singular ones.

13

In general Oxbridge ~= HYPSM ( still HYPSM has the slight Edge due to having way more resources but the OXbridge name is super strong so it almost balances it out).

However at the next tier of US universities, i.e Columbia, Penn, Chicago, Duke there is not a direct equivalent in the UK. LSE, Imperial are not on the same level because they are kind of one-trick ponies as opposed to being strong in a big variety of fields and also they seriously lag CPCD in levrl resources, research output as a whole even selectivity.

The divide between Oxbridge and Lse, Imperial is much bigger and more pronounced than that between HYPSM and Columbia, Pen, Chicagi, Duke.

14

By the way, when I state we should look at things from a global perspective, I recently saw this.

http://www.bestcollegereviews.org/features/the-30-most-influential-colleges-and-universities-of-the-past-century/

The 30 most influential universities in the last 100 years. An example of one of my own perceptions of prestige when I stated “history/contribution to society”.

  1. Harvard
  2. MIT
  3. Oxford
  4. Cambridge
  5. Berkeley
  6. Stanford
  7. Yale
  8. Chicago
  9. Princeton
  10. ETH Zurich
  11. Columbia
  12. Cornell
  13. Caltech
  14. UCL
  15. Johns Hopkins
  16. KCL
  17. Paris
  18. Edinburgh
  19. Imperial
  20. UPenn
  21. NYU
  22. Duke
  23. Toronto
  24. Dartmouth
  25. Bauhaus
  26. Tokyo
  27. UMich
  28. Brown
  29. Georgetown
  30. CalArts

You can see again that HYPSM are ever present from the US and the Golden Triangle are ever present from the UK.

15

@LutherVan, my point is that when you look at absolute numbers/percentages rather than ordinal places, HYPSM are not so far above the other Ivies/equivalents as Oxbridge is above the other UK unis (besides LSE). In PhD production, admission to elite professional schools, Who’s Who entries, placement in to McKinsey & Goldman, etc., you’ll find that there are always some American unis that are better than some or all of HYPSM and most of the other Ivies/equivalents are close behind. In the UK, as I mentioned, Oxbridge numbers blow away all other UK unis (beside LSE) in both Who’s Who entries and placement in to McKinsey & Goldman (everyone else besides LSE has a small percentage compared to either of Oxbridge).

That’s just not true in the US, where, for instance, even if you limit to private research U’s,

  1. In Who’s Who’s percentages, Yale leads the way but both UPenn and UChicago have higher percentages than HSM (by a lot) while Columbia is also above Princeton (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/292515-schools-ranked-by-the-number-of-alumni-in-whos-who-p1.html). In absolute numbers, among privates, it goes UPenn, Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Northwestern, Stanford, NYU, Chicago, Columbia, Duke, ND, Brown, MIT, Princeton.
  1. Granted, if you look at elite professional school admission percentages, HYPS lead, though Duke and Dartmouth best MIT and a bunch of others are close behind (http://inpathways.net/ipcnlibrary/ViewBiblio.aspx?aid=1577).
  2. In science PhD percentages, among private RU's, it goes Caltech, MIT, Rice, Chicago, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Brown, Yale. In absolute numbers, among privates, it goes Cornell, MIT, Harvard, BYU, Stanford, Brown, Princeton, Duke, UPenn, Yale.

As you can see, Caltech leads everyone by a mile in PhD production. I’ll concede that they aren’t as elite as HYPSM to the general public, however.

Finally, I’m going off of alumni success factors. Multiple ones. Because whether alumni are successful is what actually matters, not people’s perceptions. And by those measures, saying that UCL is comparable to UMich is actually being generous to UCL, as in absolute numbers, UMich actually generates more science PhD’s than any of HYPSM, more elite professional school matriculants than MIT, and more entries in Who’s Who than all of HYPSM besides Yale.

Meanwhile, in the UK, the number of UCL alumni in Who’s Who is a small fraction of either Oxford’s or Cambridge’s numbers.

BTW, I looked through your links, and nothing refutes my comp of UCL with UMich. In fact, they support them. Just look at this one: http://www.nairaland.com/141689/rough-guide-best-most-reputable/11#35131816.
UCL has a tiny fraction of alums in Wikipedia compared to Oxbridge. If you adjust for school size, it trails LSE considerably as well, even though LSE is younger.
Or this one:
http://www.nairaland.com/141689/rough-guide-best-most-reputable/9#19407351
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation
UCL has a tiny fraction of the Nobel grads that each of Oxbridge do (7 for UCL vs. 66 for Cambridge and 27 for Oxford).
Compare with the US where Harvard leads with 73 grads but Columbia has 39 grads and Chicago has 31 grads, Caltech has 21, Cornell and JHU have 15 each (compare to 33 for MIT, 20 for Yale, 15 for Princeton, and 11 for Stanford).

UMich has 8 and UCL is roughly in the same league (UCL also has only a slightly smaller class than UMich each year).

I tiered American colleges & unis here (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1889910-ivy-equivalents-ranking-based-on-alumni-outcomes-take-2.html) using alumni success factors and HYPSM at 10. The rest of the Ivies/equivalents range from 7-9.
With Oxbridge = HYPSM(WAS) = 10,
LSE would be around 8.
UCL would be 5 (where UMich is).
Imperial would also be 5 (where Caltech is; they’re really hurt by being really good in only a small subset of fields).
Edinburgh, I’ll put at 4 (where Wisconsin-Madison is).
St. Andrews is a lot like William&Mary at 3.
Warwick = NYU also at 3.
There are actually a bunch of other UK unis at 3 or 2.

As for your favorite uni, KCL, I see them as being a lot like Rochester. Once upon a time, Rochester had a top 10 endowment in the US and attracted top students who became successful alums, which is why they are at 4 thanks to doing well in “American Leaders” and “Who’s Who”. These days, however, almost no one sees them as being a near-Ivy even though their alumni achievements place them there.

16

Once more for the sake of clarity… This is for US high schoolers who are thinking of UK schools and how Brits view British universities in terms of rank and prestige. Brits rank their schools on academic rigour and in terms of admissions a short personal statement that is it, ability to pay tuition is taken as given. That list is up thread. My intent was never to compare US/UK schools as the criteria for admissions is very different. The only comparison I made was by total number of students both in raw numbers and by percentage of cohort compared to US elite schools as provided by CC.

There are posters here who look to compare UK/US schools, not me, that is not the intent of this post. I am fully aware the US takes a more holistic approach, a university’s ability in fulfilling self actualization or its status as a professional sports feeder school might be important in the US, it counts not a jot in the UK, it is all about academics nothing more nothing less. US and UK schools are free to admit anyone they choose, in the UK they rank students by previous academic success and future potential, that is it. I am presenting the facts as far as the Brits see them, Brits do equate academic rigour with prestige. The entry tariff league table will tell you that.

Any ranking of UK vs US schools provided by posters is completely down to their own opinion and bias.

There are two specifics I would like to address. At Penn 95, you say the drop off from Oxbridge Imperial and LSE and other UK schools is quite large, actually nothing is further from the truth. It might be in your mind but as Brits would see it there is little difference. British kids apply by their academic record, Cambridge cant take every qualified applicant the same as a US school, so a UK kid reading English might apply to Cambridge, UCL, Bristol, Manchester and Cardiff. They apply in what is a well established rank by academic prestige. Cambridge cant take every qualified applicant so there is a waterfall effect. As a result if you plot the academics of students reading English between say Cambridge, UCL and Bristol sight unseen, you would probably be hard pressed to tell whom from whom, after all you are only talking 500 applications to one of the most popular undergraduate degrees there is in the UK. Moreover, UK kids are self selecting, they apply to those schools they know they have a chance of being admitted rather than waste one of their five choices where they know they have no chance. So far from being a ‘big divide’ academically it is a actually a pretty smooth curve.

Where I did express an opinion was in the ‘elite’ reputation of US schools. As stated previously Brits see universities as institutions for higher education and rank on academic reputation alone. From a Brits point of view the gold standard of high school academic achievement in the US would probably be something akin to an AP National Merit scholar, yes I know not all schools provide AP classes etc but it is what a British university would know and recognize, excellence in a standardized national test. Lets take Stanford for example, their freshman undergraduate class is 1700 more or less. Every year there are around 24,500 AP national merit scholars, 8 AP’s with 4 or higher. 24,500 scholars could fill Stanford’s class 14 times over. By UK standards one would expect an elite university like Stanford would have at least 95% of their cohort made up of those students, I suspect it is nowhere near the case due to holistic admissions,…furthermore a quick calculation of Stanfords D1 athletic rosters yields over 10% of the student body is rostered for sport, I would guess but have no proof the percentage of national merit scholars among athletes is even less than the overall student body so their admittance is other than academic excellence. The majority of the student athletes are extremely good scholars maybe excellent scholars but from a UK perspective not elite scholars. Reverse to the UK, the gold standard of a UK school leaver would be 3 A*'s at A level…due to the self selecting nature and entry requirements by the universities themselves I would wager almost 100% of students achieving that standard would likely be in the top 6 or 7 certainly top 13. If there is any doubt other factors influence admissions at elite US universities, google UNC athletic academic scandal, Sony executive Brown admissions payment, Yale alumni outrage over legacy admissions.

So kids if you want to come to a UK school, prestige from a Brits point of view on UK universities are in the list provided, and remember that list will combine enough variation urban/rural, large research, small undergrad focussed etc to suit everyones taste, and rest assured I can also state no one picks a university in the UK based on the numbers of entries in Who’s Who.

17

@elguapo1, I understand that your view (and the view of most Brits) is that there isn’t a big drop-off between Oxbridge & LSE and everyone else, but if you look at alumni accomplishments (at least of the very best), there is a big gap. Likewise with American perceptions of UK unis.

As I said before, for someone who plans to and is able to stay in the UK, they are better off going by your rankings, but if they plan to come back to the States, they are better off following my tiers. I’m not sure how British perceptions are of much use for someone who plans to come back to the US.

BTW, in the US, as well, there are a ton of bright talented kids who can not get in to or afford the Ivies and attend UW-Madison/UT-Austin/UIUC/etc. instead. As you can see from some of the numbers I posted, plenty of them go on to be very successful as well (UW-Madison has more alumni in Who’s Who than every Ivy beside UPenn & UT-Austin, UIUC, and UMich all have more in Who’s Who than Harvard while in the UK, every school outside Oxbridge has only a small fraction of the alums in Who’s Who that Oxford or Cambridge have, for instance).

@LutherVan, yes, UCL may well be in the top 10 of everything in the UK, but here’s the thing:
If the only unis in a country are Harvard, Stanford, UPenn, UMich, NYU, UW-Madison, W&M, and a bunch of others ranging from just slightly below the last 3 to well below, UMich would always be in the top 10 of everything in that country as well. And the gap between Oxbridge and UCL would still be as large as the gap between HYPSM and UMich.

18

Another way to look at it:

The US has 5 times the population of the UK, so the top 10 in the UK is equivalent to the top 50 in the US while the top 10 in the US is equivalent to the top 2 in the UK.
And as is the case, Oxbridge is top 2 in the UK (just like any 2 of HYPSM would be top 2 in the UK).

Likewise, just as Caltech, UMich, NYU, UW-Madison, W&M, and Rochester (obviously Wharton if it was a separate school and UPenn in total) are top 50 in the US and would be top 10 in the UK, Imperial, UCL, Warwick, Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and KCL (and obviously LSE) would be top 50 in the US.

19

Purple, there is no dispute Oxbridge and the LSE are at the very top in the UK, thats what the list says. I would argue the reality in Britain is that the perceived gap is not as wide as Americans seem to think it is. I can quite see a school leaver deciding to do Finance and Accounting at Warwick as opposed to the LSE and have no discernible drop in the quality of education or cohort. He/she wants to have a bit of a life at university as opposed to some thing akin to a 3 year spell rowing in a Roman galley at LSE, such is LSE’s reputation, a bit like UChicago, where fun goes to die. The perception of a gaping quality gap is more a reflection of American ignorance of UK universities rather than any actual quality difference. The rationale for the thread is to give the British perspective on UK universities to the potential US admit.

As for why someone would want to come to the UK, who knows, the weather, because they can? The reason is irrelevant if they are coming then the list reflects the quality of universities in terms of academic rigour and how the Brits themselves perceive them.

As to your last point, however accurate, it is again moot to the topic at hand.

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And again, I’m not sure why I have to keep repeating myself, but what Brits think matters in the UK but not so much in the US. So it still ultimately comes down to which country an American wants to and can stay in after graduation.

To give an example, EE at UIUC is as rigorous and has as good a reputation as EE at any other uni in the in the world. So would you tell a Brit who plans to return to Britain who has offers to study EE at UIUC and also Princeton and Stanford that there is no difference? After all, if Brits do not value a UIUC EE major as highly as they do one from Stanford or Princeton, it is merely ignorance on the part of Brits . . .

BTW, who asked why an American would go study in the UK? I know I didn’t.