Advice Needed please ! DD1 obsessed with studying in the USA

[lloydjam]

I'd be very grateful for any advice please - my DD1 is taking GCSEs this year and is predicted to do well. She has chosen her A levels but after that she is obsessed with the idea of studying in a USA university - ideally california to do an Economics/business degree. Do any mums netters have any advice on this whether this is a good/bad idea, realistic or should I really be trying to steer her back to UK Uni.

Any advice gratefully received. thank you !

I have no idea personally, but I would get your DD to find out exactly how she would go about it, and how much it would cost. I have heard that it's many times more expensive than here.

There is a website, www.Fulbright.org.UK that has loads of info on studying in US as a UK student.

For some courses / colleges it is cheaper than UK study as scholarships can be very generous (although we are talking Ivy league mostly I think).

But no reason it shouldn't be a great idea. She just needs to research where and what course and how she'll fund it - don't think you can get a UK loan for overseas study, but I may be wrong.

My personal opinion is that in general the us california has excellent schools. But it is going to cost. A lot.

If you cannot aford it then that is the end of the discussion. If you can afford it then discuss it and let her show you her reasons.

Don't think you can get student loans for usa study so you would need to be able to pay all fees plus everything else. Unless she is amazing and could get a scholarship.

In order to get the student visa the sponsor must be able to prove that they already have the funds for the whole program. Do the math.

Ds has just applied to do one year of his UK degree in the US. Re: tuition fees, it's a straight swap. The rest tots up to be a bit more expensive, yes, but it's do-able. The worst thing is the cost of flights!

Thanks everyone - yes i know its going to be expensive but i know that its not so cheap in the UK now , compared to when I went. Bringmejoy - thanks for the recommendation - I think it has to be the US (for her at the moment). I've started to look into it but was interested to know if anyone has had to go through this with their children. tbh Im really hoping she changes her mind but thought I should do a bit of research so we can sit down together and talk it through.

It's not that the costs are higher re tuition fees op, it's that in the UK the student normally gets a loan for the fees and then pays it back in future. That isn't an option for the U.S. unless you can fund everything yourself upfront easily, it's a big financial commitment

I'd go for a UK uni and choose one that offers a year abroad in the USA - that way as clam says - tuition fees are covered by the standard UK student loan.

On the other hand she may be super brainy and get a scholarship or you may be super rich and be able to fund it in which case it would be the chance of a lifetime she should definitely look in to.

DS(12) is obsessed with going to an Ivy so I feel for you! If he manages to get into one I will support him but I'm trying to persuade him to do undergraduate in the UK and postgrad in the US. A lot depends on where they want to end up. DS has dual US/UK citizenship and wants to move to America. My personal view is that US grad school is a better approach- from personal experience, it can be very difficult to get that initial graduate job in the UK in the back of a US undergraduate degree. I ended up doing postgrad here and for DS I think undergrad here and postgrad in the US keeps his options open a lot more than undergrad in the US.

There is a bit of a myth going around that US scholarships are sooooooo generous. Maybe. They are very difficult to get. Student loans in the US are complicated. It costs more to go to school so far away from home as well. US schools are 4 years rather than 3, and your parents are very, very far away. I am not saying don't do it. But some of the stuff I read in the papers is just ridiculous.

I think there was a sweet window in time about 10 years ago when kids trying to get into Oxbridge who didn't make it were easily waltzing into Ivy League schools, and their parents were delighted to find that there was some financial aid on top of it all. I think those days are gone. I think the schools didn't have many British applicants and were delighted to have a few token Brits for "diversity." The schools don't need to try so hard to attract Brits anymore. Also, these were generally well-healed families who were still shouldering high costs even after partial financial awards.

I have a friend in the know at Berkley in California. He tells me that tuition is now well over usd 20K per year for in state students. And that the cost for foreign student is even higher. Foreign students are a delight because they are cash cows and there is ever greater pressure to award them places over California residents because they are so lucrative (sound familiar anyone?). There is much sole searching about the mission of public universities in the USA. Is it to educate the citizens of the states they are in, this being their original mission? Or to simply pursue academic and intellectual excellence without regard to the society outside their campus? The tenured profs with a professional stake are plumping for the latter, and there is a full tilt towards going for the money.

Also, there are genuine social issues with gender politics on undergraduate campuses in the US. I would definitely keep my daughter away from large universities with Greek systems. (I expect a flaming for this, but mum to mum, I really, really, really would.)

I would be much more comfortable sending her to a small liberal arts college, but that doesn't sound like it fits in with her aspirations.

So, all that said, earlier posters who suggested waiting for graduate school, going over as part of an exchange from a UK university, and looking at Fulbright Scholarships are spot on in my opinion.

Small liberal arts colleges can be dominated by the Greek system. My college certainly was. It's a good point, though and worth researching at any college your DD may end up applying to. It's a, errrmmmm, "robust" world and whilst I loved it, my DD is more a sensitive type and would not enjoy somewhere that the Greek system was popular. DS, on the other hand, would probably leap right in...

Thanks everyone some great advice and food for thought....

When I was thinking small Taz I think I meant teeny-tiny. Someplace like www.reed.edu (1400 students), www.ncf.edu (800 students), www.wellesley.edu (2,500 students) or www.davidson.edu (1,800 students).

These are highly academic places, respected within academia. But, no one will be impressed at dinner parties unless they have a very sophisticated knowledge of tertiary education in the US. Worse still UK employers are also unlikely to recognise these names either. So only useful for a UK student who wants to use them as a springboard into US graduate programs.

On the other hand, I would be a lot less concerned about my child being alienated, lonely or abused in such a small tight knit community.

Yikes bringmejoy just clicked your link. Gulp! Nearly $50K tuition.

Makes me feel ashamed to quibble over £9K.

Vassar is really nice, though. I remember visiting friends going there one Spring Break.

I went to Bowdoin, Toomany - 1800 students.

Ah you got me Taz! I think of the Greek system being in the big public universities across the south and midwest.

I should have listed Bowdoin...I was trying to think of it in my earlier list too, but I have been away from the US for over 20 years and frankly my memory is getting hazy.

really I would encourage her to think about a year abroad, DD1 did that and enjoyed it - there were some issues but nothing too major
what is meant by the greek system? DD1 joined a fraternity, it seemed very positive?

TBF, there's no Greek system at Bowdoin now. I didn't actually drop- I was an Independent, but I did live in a frat house my Sophomore year. Great fun, but not an experience I'd wish on DD!

Northridge out of state supplemental fees are only $372/semester (twice a year). That's not bad really. I wonder if OP's kid could get a permit to work on campus, too.

ps: I meant only $372 compared to the $22,878/yr supplemental fee that UCLA charges. On top of their regular admission fees & living costs, etc.