St Andrews - honest opinions please?

[enquirewithin]

Hi, DD was rejected from Oxford. She's genuinely not that bothered as her elder brothers went there so she knows it's not the end all and be all (another sibling did not go there but got better results). Anyway, she has offers from St Andrews, Edinburgh, Durham and Bristol. On reputation for her course, she is thinking St As because:

• CUG ranks it as No.1 for this subject
• there is an option of a Year abroad in Year 3 (UCLA, Berkeley, Toronto among others).

However, we are in London and worried that St As just that bit too remote and isolated? Not too mention a faff to get to by train. Without wanting to sound ridiculous - is it absolutely freezing up there? This is a concern.

I think spending 4 years up there would be too much - however, if the 3rd year could be in California, that puts a different slant on things! But would this option actually materialise? How many students actually do the overseas programmes?

Also, it seems like there is no Easter break because of the two semesters? Have I got this right?

Any info would be very appreciated? Thank you!

I suppose it depends on the academic adviser. Our students would go abroad for Y3, so my main criterion was that they choose modules to prepare for Y4 here. But that still leaves a lot of freedom. Half the point of going abroad is to use it.

Usually eg in North America students, even having accelerated, are not ready for graduate (UK postgraduate) modules in my subject until Y4, so that doesn’t tend to come up. I can imagine that in the Arts or Humanities it might.

Also our students often take six modules per term whereas in eg many North American universities a full course load is four modules per term. I have heard of students being required to take six modules/term in the US, which is beyond absurd and completely unfair.

Students in North America, Australia and NZ do many more assessments than British and European students (we don’t send many students to Asia). I think it helps their learning, and those who get into it often return and have stellar Y4s here.

I went to St.A's 30 years ago. It had just gone over to semesterisation. You do get a 3 week Easter break. It's just that the teaching is divided into 2 blocks.

It is a really nice place to study. I had a really good social life. It is very Southern English too.

St Andrews isn't freezing - it's in central Scotland, Fife. I suppose that the transport links could be better, but there is a bus station with connections to other parts of Fife, Edinburgh, Dundee...

The accommodation can be quite expensive I believe.

I have working class friends who attended uni there and were dismayed at some of the prejudice shown towards them and the townspeople by certain of the students.

St Andrews and Edinburgh do offer 3 year degrees for students with strong A level results.

DS1 looked at this approach for Edinburgh, but he would have missed out on being in a class full of freshers so decided against a Scottish application

Yes, but that's direct entry to second year, and you miss friendship groups and a lot of the year group social scene. I knew a few that did it and it was OK for them, but if you want a three year course I'd personally recommend one of the plenty of places where this is standard.

That's interesting, from looking at the degree program tables, the courses I looked at had at least some accelerated classes for 2nd year entry students where 2nd year entry students could meet each other.

DDs had 2 freshers flatmates who were 2nd year entry. I think not so common for Scottish (or UK students) but there was a group of them on each course so they weren’t left out (had less choice in modules though). They could do the usual freshers events. Both doing subjects with higher contact hours and labs so found it easy to get to know others on course. Couldn’t really coast work wise (but not sure they would have anyway). DD was envious that they had Masters at the time it took her to get an undergraduate degree.

You can get an Easyjet from London to St A's for about 30 quid. The flight is about an hour and 20 mins.

It's not a throbbing metropolis and Edinburgh is about 50 mins away.

20% of St A's undergraduates are from the USA. The total undergrad population is still fewer than 10,000 so that 20% is going to be noticeable.

I am just stating facts here, not voicing opinions.

What is the subject she'd be studying? (one opinion I do have is that preamble about Oxford is surplus to requirements)

Dd2 is currently in 3rd year at SA. She struggled a lot at first (apparently she is a "povvo" (poor person) because we dont summer in the Maldives...) There is a lot of snobbery (we are west coast Scottish, apparently that means we are on benefits...I am a vet)
But dd is made is strong stuff, ploughed on, found her people and is now enjoying it. She does find it a little claustrophobic at times, but we are local enough that she gets home every 2nd weekend or so.
It wasn't her first choice (she wanted Edinburgh but didnt get in), but i think she is happy by the way things worked out.
PS yes, it is cold, but very pretty!

We were fellow students then!
I still have hankerings for birdies and coffee towers!

St. Andrews is beyond beautiful. On the beach, with sky and sea and air. Loads of tradition, loads of fun. Parties in sea caves, Balls and sport. Fires on the beach, access to the rolling Fife hills, rowing, ski ing, biking. Many many wealthy Americans and English and of course some Scots.

It's definitely worth visiting before deciding. This is years ago but I had my heart set on St Andrews. When I visited , it felt too small and I went to Durham instead which has a lot of similar vibes but bigger and less of a trek.

I've not read all the replies, but I don't think anyone has answered on the holidays question yet? St Andrews has two shortish semesters. My friend's daughter is there and spends a lot of time back home. Her exams had finished and she was home by mid-December this year and she didn't go back until the end of January. And the summer break runs from between mid-late May (depending on when exams finish) and early September. So overall she is home for 4-5 months of the year. They also get one or two weeks off at Easter for revision (but lots of kids come home then too) and a week off in October, also for revision.

St Andrews is colder than the South East of England but it's also very beautiful with long beaches and old buildings and the student community tends to be quite tight knit. It's roughly 1/3 foreign students, 1/3 from England and 1/3 from Scotland so quite diverse too (and also in a better place financially than most Scottish universities because of the low number of home students who don't pay fees). As others have said it's a reasonably small town and students make up about a third of the population. It's very much a town dominated by a university whereas Edinburgh is a (smallish) city with a university.

Two points of clarification, St Andrews is one of the driest places in Scotland, similar to eastern England and three year degrees with second year entry are not available for humanities, generally for stem subjects.

I'm sorry but you can't get a commercial flight to St Andrews. The nearest airport served by easyjet is Edinburgh which is an hour by car or two hours by the quickest form of public transport (by bus with one change). There is a private airfield nearby at Leuchars if you have a private plane, but I am guessing OP does not.

Durham is lovely. I did my PhD there.

If your daughter is quite cosmopolitan and your family is well-off, she’ll probably fit in ok but it is incredibly snobbish. Anyone saying it isn’t is probably part of the problem.

Would you and she really be keen for her to go to the US for year abroad?!

Erasmus will be operating again by the time she’s in 3rd year, options all over Europe.

DD (also an Oxford reject) applied to Durham, Edinburgh and St Andrews - we looked around all of them and she opted for Durham in the end. We are from just outside London and she did find St Andrews too remote - nearly 9 hour car journey as opposed to Durham being 4.5. It is in the middle of not much (those saying it’s not remote clearly don’t live in the highly populated south east! It feels very out on a limb compared to down here - not in a bad way, but something to be aware of) She also felt it wasn’t very ‘cool’ and decided she wanted to be nearer bigger shops and nightlife, hence opting for Durham with its proximity to Newcastle and we can just about get there and back in a day which is handy for drop offs (otherwise gets very expensive if you have to stay overnight each time)
She loves Durham so glad she chose it in the end.

Thanks everyone. We're going to go up and look at all 3. She's quite set against Durham, but I think they get all kinds of ideas online which aren't particularly helpful. I (personally) think 4 years in St Andrews could be too long (even with a 3rd year abroad) so the fact there is no direct second year entry is relevant. I'm hearing about the language students at DS' old uni who have come back now for the 4th year and they're all bored and ready to move on, especially as their friends from the first two years have mainly graduated. I guess at St A's, everyone would still be there though as it's 4 years as standard. May make a difference?

I did my PhD and taught there for a while. I loved it but sadly had to leave after I got severely mentally unwell.

As a place, St Andrews is small but very picturesque. I have friends with kids there and they love it. We also live in Edinburgh and although I didn’t go to uni here, I think it would be a brilliant place to be a student.

i do know student accommodation is like hens teeth in St Andrews with many students reportedly having to commute from Dundee. Edinburgh is reportedly also not easy, but at the rate they are building student accommodation, it may be easier than St Andrews.

Good idea to visit all three and get an idea of what the places feel like.

I don't think a four year degree will feel too long socially, because it's the norm in Scotland and all of her friends from the first and second year will still be there in fourth year and they should have that last year and graduate together which I think is an important part of most people's university experience. It suppose it might feel discouraging if all her friends from school graduate in England and she still has a year to go, but so many people do gap years or a further years study anyway that I don't think that matters too much. It might also feel too long financially because it's an extra year of tuition and living costs (although some Scottish universities offer English students one year free tuition so it's worth checking if that's the case at St Andrews or Edinburgh), and I think for me as a parent that would be a far more pressing concern than the social side.

I would really discourage her from going for second year entry though. I did that and really struggled to make connections on my course because most people had done a first year together and formed their friendship groups then. I also couldn't get into halls of residence because at my university they were reserved for first years, but even if I had my friendship group from there would have been a year behind which would have been tricky when I got to the stage when you really need to get your head down and apply yourself before them! I think one of the advantages of a four year degree generally is that it gives people more time to settle in, learn to live independently and make social connections.

Glad to hear you are visiting. I graduated St Andrews 30 years ago, having done second year entry for a STEM subject, and also did an ERASMUS year. Am a current donor to their Scholarship funds. I went from East Anglia up to St Andrews, having just failed to get my grades for Cambridge. Back then it was 9 hours from home to St Andrews by public transport (before the electrification of the East coast mainline).

St Andrews is a special place - its small size makes multidisciplinary work among the academics easier to facilitate. It has been led by some really good principals over the last couple of decades who have really made the most of the advantages that St Andrews has.

Picking up the fact that it doesn’t do as well in the international QS world rankings - that, in part, is because it doesn’t have a full range of departments (e.g. no law, dentistry, engineering, etc.), as when Queen’s College Dundee (now Dundee University) split from St Andrews in the 1960’s they took those departments. For what it has, St Andrews is rated very well.

The four year course makes it easy for students to try some different options in first year from outside their initial specialism - sometimes leading to joint honours courses or even a change of degree subject.

Accommodation can be a challenge - St Andrews is a small town (and the university is 3x larger now than it was 30 years ago) - and there’s competition for housing from tourists and golfers. Provision for first years is good, though.

Student-led entertainment is a real strength at St Andrews - there’s not that much competition, so the onus is on students to make it for themselves - which works well.

The golf is a fantastic deal as a student - from £169 for all of your year’s golf (no green fees to pay on top) if you don’t have a handicap certificate and therefore don’t need access to the Old Course: https://assets-eu-01.kc-usercontent.com/faf6531c-2af4-0128-bed9-496b32f5822b/4d644aae-6c4f-4cdf-9527-25d6cc5779da/Student%20Ticket%20Terms.pdf I had never hit a club before I went there, but it was a great place to learn (supported by lessons at the Athletic Union).

I would definitely go back given my time again - the university is much better now than it was 30 years ago, and the St Andrews traditions, pier walk, raisin weekend, academic families, the balls, etc. all still exist to make it a special place.

It is notable that St Andrews is in touch with a much higher proportion of its alumni base than most UK universities - which points to the majority of students there having a really good experience of the university.

i could write more, but that’s probably enough for one comment!

Thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to post. Much appreciated!!