Is Westminster School the best school on Earth? STATESMOM returns

[statesmom]

I have a lot to say, don't know if anyone remembers the thread. Let me know if you want to hear from me.

All of the top kids are going to university in the US. Who would take Oxford over Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Penn, Chicago? Only a moron.

A little harsh 😀

Friend of DS's was at Yale and out of choice came to do a second degree at Cambridge. He is an intelligent young man and made his own choice.

But I expect this may fall on deaf ears.

All best to your DC

I'm not claiming to be intellectually superior OP. I went to an ex-poly. Yet you’re seriously saying that Imperial College is inferior?!

i have no idea what planet the OP is on....

my brother recently finished at Westminster and is now in oxbridge, doing law. he had a solid experience. we were happy with the support he received. he was happy with his experience. he had a choice to go to the US, but this was not something he or the family wanted. (only a few of his peers wanted to go to the US. those that wanted to, did so succesfully.) we are not from the UK anyway, so it didnt make a decision based on that. and he will settle in whatever country he likes, his uni has nothing to do with that.

plenty of people go to UK unis and not even oxbridge and do very well.

people that are very materially successful usually are through business enterprises and may not even have gone to uni. material success is not the sole parameter that determines a life well lived anyway.

DS is planning to take his Oxbridge first ( total cost £28k) in STEM and earn an American salary at 21. Very cost efficient if you ask me.

Haha, great reply and nothing more to say other than this.

I am a private school mum but my god I didn’t know people like you existed - you are a caricature

Me too. Mine go to a selective London school not dissimilar to Westminster but that's where the similarity ends. I hate boasting but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.

My older son has all 9s at GCSE and four A stars at A level. He's at one of the more prestigious English universities (which is also where I went). I considered US universities for him for about five minutes then decided I was mad to go through all that when international students fall over themselves to study at U.K. universities thanks to their reputation.

I like the US (I lived there for my gap year) and I have a few friends that live there. But honestly most Brits don't see Americans in the workplace as aspirational in the way you do. I work in investment banking and we roll their eyes at some of the word salad twaddle and mini Oscar speeches that seem to be required at the start of meetings by our US peers and wish they'd get to the point.

It's not a financial sacrifice to plough your career furrow outside Silicon Valley either. When I worked in M&A, my poor colleague from his poor British university trousered a £25 million bonus one year and that wasn't atypical. I'm pleased for your son but there's really no need to be so rude and dismissive.

Do USA citizens look at Trump and want to be like him?

@Neurodiversitydoctor So no maintenance loan? Who paid maintenance then? You? That’s a cost isn’t it? However I agree. Better to go to USA if they will give you a visa.

Except for the politics of course. USA is a true laughing stock in that department! How come this nation we should all look up to has two awful candidates for President? Something woefully lacking there I think!

These people are unreal.

Am very glad my academic DT’s accepted graduate jobs in Brussels and Amsterdam rather than the US.

TBF he would have had to eat and stay somewhere nomatter what he did. Because he has consistently done well, his hall fees ( they call them something else, I can't remember) are reduced by 25%, he has also had some payments because we come from a low participation post code. They are only there 24 weeks a year, so he cpuld work the summers, there is also employment opportunities on site.

Oh the VISA thing, luckily he is a Canadian citizen.

Some lack of critical thinking here, not to mention being tone deaf. Wonder what uni the OP went to? Assuming it’s not just a Russian bot.

Presumably OP's son is a US citizen so no problems there either.

The only reason why many wealthy people pay for help to get into American universities is that they won't get into oxbridge or other top 10 universities because in the U.K. the system is more egalitarian and you can't buy your way in. Even top a levels doesn't guarantee a place at Cambridge for instance because they have lots said excellent applicants. My my friends kids who didn't get top grades got into ivy league

Is Westminster School the best school on Earth? STATESMOM returns

Most people don’t remember you, and literally no-one cares!

Number one university in the world is .... Oxford!

Nah my DC won’t go to the US unless it’s free. You have to be a natural born US citizen to become US president, I have big ambitions for my DC! Right to the top, hehe, nothing else will do.

Number 1 is MIT.

because in the U.K. the system is more egalitarian and you can't buy your way in. Even top a levels doesn't guarantee a place at Cambridge for instance because they have lots said excellent applicants.

Everyone got top A levels, so what criteria to set it apart? Doesn't seem egalitarian to me.

OP, are you English?

@madroid The question I was responding to was : "who would take oxford over an Ivy league?" For many, cost is a significant factor in that decision. Without a scholarship / financial support, a place for 4 years at an Ivy is prohibitively expensive. The fees of £9.25k per year for home students in the UK is comparatively cheap. World class unis in the UK run their STEM degrees at a loss relative to home frees, and rely on foreign students paying £35k per annum to balance the books. I was commenting on the relative affordability of two degrees, not the absolute value of either.

As for "money, power and fame do not make people happy.": while it's mostly true that beyond a certain point, more money doesn't make you happier, lack of money does make people sad. People who say "money doesn't make you happy" are generally those who have had no real experience of grinding poverty.

How much do you think you've spent overall on his education?
How old are you? What is your occupation? What does your husband do?
Sorry, missed your first thread if all info is in there!
Love this. This thread is made for all those popcorn eating memes...

As the title of the thread grandly announced 'STATESMOM returns', I just checked out the OP's earlier thread on Westminster. It's from 2014.

On that thread, the OP commented:

My son will be legacies at three Ivy League schools through me and my husband.

My husband is on the international board of one and my son and he have had dinner at the president's house!

So we've got college in the US covered.

I might point out that this is one difference between Ivy League universities and Oxbridge: in Ivy League universities, the admissions criteria are lowered for 'legacy' applicants like Statesmom's DS, and for children of wealthy donors. That's how people like George Bush Junior got into Yale.

Oxbridge, in contrast, carries out admissions on an equal footing. No preference is given to children of alumni.

I'm just saying.

I agree with a lot of what you say except you are a bit inconsistent. More people go to top US universities out of Westminster than almost any school in the United States. Probably 10-15% go to top US colleges and that is after 40-50% going to Oxbridge or Imperial. So, it seems Westminster IS the best school in the world and, on reflection, you we right to send your son there. You are probably right that US universities are better in many ways better than UK options but then, many English people don't want to move to the US. They like the UK and prefer to stay here. Their chances of success in their chosen field of study and work are likely to be higher here. They might prefer to continue their family history here. It might be true that some US salaries are higher but cost of living is also much higher and, in many professions, London is still a much better hub than most of the US. It could be that they would be better off but then their children would be chucked into the melting pot and fade to grey in the US. Nothing special any more. There are a million reasons why people don't leave. Those people sending their kids to Westminster are successful people - almost by definition. That success happened in the UK. So why wouldn't their kids see themselves doing the same? All we know is that Westminster is, objectively, a phenomenal educational institution. After all the frills, Havard and Oxford and on a par. Westminster will give you are roughly equal chance of getting into both.

Prior to Brexit - and perhaps even now if one is lucky enough to have EU or Swiss citizenship - one could study for free at many (most? All?) continental European universities. ETH Zurich, Tubingen, Humboldt, Utrecht, Sorbonne,...... I'd pick any of these - and the top UK! - over Ivy league.

And, given the choice, I'd rather live in Verona than the cess pit that is silicone valley.