Is anyone familiar with US universities?

[BegoniasAndPetunias25]

Dd is 16 and currently in Year 11

She’s planning on going to university in the US - dh is American and his parents have offered to pay all the fees if she goes to university over there. She’s their only grandchild and they are very keen to have her nearer to them for a few years.

We’re starting to plan a trip this summer to look round a few universities she might be interested in, but it’s proving quite difficult to decide which as there are just so many! There also seems to be far more variation between universities than in the UK - state, private, liberal arts, Christian etc.

How does one start to narrow it down? Dh is no help as he went to university here (how we met).

If it’s relevant, dd is reasonably intelligent, and if she was applying in the UK I expect she’d be aiming for universities of the Exeter/Bristol/Warwick calibre (she definitely wouldn’t be Oxbridge material though).

What subject does she want to study? And when her grandparents say they want to see more of her, does that mean they want her in the same state or at least near enough for regular visits? Two of my cousins children went to University of Chicago which is not as elite as Harvard or Yale but has a very good reputation

Contact the Fulbright (commission) they support UK students going to the US. They also have a University fair in the autumn.

Are the Grandparents seriously rich? Or is your DD gifted in some way? Otherwise cost could rule out some places.
Don't get swayed by features such as "water parks" but do look at a variety of places. The tours are fun, even if they can show surprising differences between US and UK Universities (clubs being faculty led on the whole?)

Private liberal arts colleges will be around $60k per year. State universities range wildly from around what we pay here upwards to around $30k I think. Look online at 'best colleges' and you will find rankings. That will give you a starting point for the level of institute you might think to apply to. Be aware that LACs and universities will have separate ranking lists. They are not ranked against each other. They are kind of kept separate when ranking them.

In the US they don't select as black and white as here. It's not an exact thing where they ask for certain grades. They look at the candidates grades, the type of school they went to the extra curricular they have done, the SAT/ACT scores and make their selection on the basis of all this info. It's confusing as no one will categorically say 'if you get AAB, we are likely to take you' or 'you need minimum AAA to be considered'. Each college/uni will have some sort of stats published which show you last years cohort -what their SAT/ACT scores were, where they fell %wise in their class at school, what their high school GPA was etc.

In terms of narrowing things down, there are logistical considerations. Where are the GPs, east coast will make things much easier for you to visit. Can DD handle extreme weather -I mean EXTREME weather!

If you decide DD should be within commutable distance from GPs then that will narrow things down for you. If you want to visit every few months, then you will want to check how direct flights are. You won't want her or you needing to fly to two cities and take a bus to get to the campus for example.

Does your DD have US nationality?

We went to a talk about US uni’s given in UK. They have to do the tests mentioned above and that score will determine where is likely accept her. Also extra curricular more important eg volunteering, hobbies etc Plus have to submit written work. They said anyone doing A levels should manage any subject tests easily because as US students don’t specialise at 16/18 the way we do then an A level would be equivalent to a third year uni student in US. To be honest that put me off as why do A levels and then in effect go back to doing say 5 subjects in less detail and not getting back to the same level of work or harder until year 3? I think US is better for postgrad if you have come through the UK system. She can get a work visa through Work America and spend 4 months out there each summer working. Also she’s be away from her friends and would she want to come back to UK at end if all her friends are US? And if she did come back she wouldn’t have uni friends in UK (which was the best thing about uni for me making friends for life). Does she want to go? My son refuses to apply to the uni in the town his grandparents live as he fears it would cramp his style. There are some companies that (at great cost) provide support with applications in UK and do the testing so try and get along to a talk in UK and find out more. I’d gone thinking as DS would have good chance of academic bursary it could work out cheaper than UK but came out thinking the first two years of study would be like doing GCSE again and feel like going backwards and a bit pointless.

Dropthedeaddonkey they aren't quite as behind as you suggest. It depends on which university/college as they are not all the same level. Also, it is not the first 2 years in which you may repeat work done in the UK, it's more like the first and that first year will be full of other subjects as the US system promotes a broad curriculum so you would be doing languages, creative writing, some sport etc. By year two you are doing all your prerequisites for your major so you are generally doing most of your courses in your chosen field along with more of the unlrelated subjects.. I know boys who went to St Pauls, Winchester and Charterhouse who all got top grades in their A-Levels/Pre Us and went to top uni/colleges in the US and whilst the first year was less challenging in their specialist subject, picking up a new language and doing courses in subjects they had never studied kept the pressure on, they were definitely challenged by year two. Also, if you get high enough grades in A-Levels, you can skip a whole bunch of first year courses unless you are attending a top Ivy or similar school.

DD1 was going to apply for a US university so we went to the University Fair which is held every year in London (Google it). The universities were all so different but she was put off because all of them follow a liberal arts course for the first two years (think of it as re-doing GCSEs).

A US Bachelors degree is imo pretty low grade. After the 4 years (minimum) it takes to get it, you then need to do a 3 years Masters course to be anywhere near Bachelors level from a good UK university.

All in all, the campus based system she really like the idea of but taking at least 7 years to do what she can do in 4 years was a no-brainer.

We were discussing it the other night and she said that if she were going through the process again, she'd do her MChem in the UK and apply for a post-grad course in the US - if her grandparents can pay for it then that's great.

You need to take the SAT test don't you? A friend of mine (American) had her children take it in London and they both went to American Unis. On the plus side, once you/they had the SAT score they were offered places and it wasn't a case of waiting for the A level results (a system which the Americans found very different!)

The first year of their degrees covered quite a few subjects and they only specialised later on. It did sound quite different to a degree here. One couldn't study the subject they wanted here (a very competitive subject) so went to the States to do it, the other child always wanted to go to Uni in the USA.