What about sending junior to Uni in America and sitting US SAT Tests

Last month, Lord Brown (ex BP) announced a fundamental review of university fees. The upshot is if the proposals are accepted by Parliament, the cost of going to university is going to roughly double to around £7,000 in terms of fees and it could be up to £12,000 for selected universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. There may, however, be an overall cap for UK students but that will just encourage universities to take more overseas students willing to pay £20,000 a year. There will be bursaries for the poor but I doubt if many people reading this blog will qualify.

The Browne report is hardly encouraging to parents who had scrimped and saved to put their children through primary and secondary education. So is there a way to counter much higher UK tuition charges (possibly the highest in the world) and the dreaded graduate tax?

I think there is and that is to consider sending junior to a university in the US. Last month I and my family went to a gathering of over 100 US universities at Kensington Town Hall in central London to. It was a revelation. Not surprisingly perhaps the longest lines for interviews were with the Ivy League led by Harvard, Yale and Princeton on the east coast of America. But there were a lot of other interesting universities there and the two much discussed topics were:

1. Taking the US SATS Exams (Not To Be Confused With British SATS)
   Most students need to take a reasoning exam and three multi-choice exams in their subjects with negative markings if you choose the wrong answers. I don't think you need worry about the SAT subject exams as I found ones in world and US history quite easy! and I haven’t studied history for decades.
   So I suggest that the SAT exams are certainly not much harder than GCSEs.

 

2. What Do You Have To Do To Take A SATS Test?
   The main SATS test is a three and half hour reasoning exam. It includes 25 minutes for an essay on two sides of paper only – without any extra paper allowed so write small and clearly. You write small and clearly because a machine will be marking most answers.
   There are quite a lot of mathematic questions both in terms of multiple choice (0.5% or 0.25% mark off for wrong answer) but there will also be grid questions where you have to complete a grid between decimal points. For example:
   “What is X + 1 if 3X = 9?”
   There will also be some form of reasoning question both in terms of understanding and answering multiple choice questions on a passage of literature as well as spelling and punctuation.

 

3. What Are US Universities Looking For?
   So if junior is not going to be too academically challenged by SATs, what is the big barrier to obtaining entrance to a US university? In a nutshell, US universities are much more interested in motivation and leadership qualities than exam results. US universities are much more of a business than UK universities so they want their students to succeed and possibly pay back with university facilities. It was immediately clear to me at the Kensington jamboree that most UK students are much too diffident; what the US universities were wanting were students that would look them in the eye and explain exactly why they want to take a certain course. UK students are probably academically overworked but to get into a US university, UK students must join lots of clubs and do lots of activities and, hopefully, become a head of one or more of those activities. Extra-curricular activities are most important to US universities.

So What Is The Financial Situation Regarding US Universities?

The Ivy League colleges are likely to be charging around $60,000 a year and any scholarships available will almost certainly be means tested. But if you consider a second league university, the costs could be much less. For example, Stoney Brook University in upstate New York sets out the following costs in its brochure:

And this for a so-called second tier faculty which includes on its staff three Nobel prize winners, two Pulitzer prize winners and one winner of the Fields medal in mathematics.

Another example could be Vassar also north of New York. Here the quoted charges are for 2010:

In most cases university accommodation is, so I understand normally provided for the whole time of the degree course.

My son rows for his school on the River Cam. Rowing is particularly popular with US universities as it is thought to increase intelligence! And indeed at the Kensington meeting, some universities were much more interested in my son’s rowing ability than his academic success. Not only that, but it may be easier to obtain scholarships in sports activities than for academic potential. The Meet The US day in Kensington Town Hall was organised by the Fulbright Commission (www.fulbright.co.uk) and if you have children in the lower or upper sixth then I would strongly advise you to book early for the next event in September 2011. Please remember that your son or daughter must take some business cards to give to university representatives. The Fulbright Commission specifically asked interested candidates to do this but very few did on the day.

Conclusions

American universities are businesses and they want their students to succeed. The level of SAT entrance exam won't be difficult for most UK applicants. Much harder will be getting rid of the rather diffident attitude of UK students and making them as bold as brass in front of Americans backed up by reasons why they want to come to a particular university and "major" in a particular subject coupled with lots of extra-curricular activities. Even after one visit to the Kensington event, I can understand why there are plenty of attractions in having junior going to an American university and why so few actually go there compared to those who apply.

Remember that an American university accepts you as a person with talent not what subjects and exams you have or want to study and take. If you take a "major" subject, this will be roughly equivalent to first or second year UK university level. But if you take a major in, for example, science, you also have to take core-curricular subjects in humanities and vice versa. One of the best reports on contrasting UK and US higher education was produced by Sir Ron Dearing in July 1997. Look for Section 7 on www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/docsinde.htm

Finally, remember you do not go to a US university to study a particular subject. You will have a "major" subject to study coupled with a general liberal arts education – rather like my first year at Uni a long time ago.

If you would like any further information on the American "uni" experience, please let me know. My wife is American and a former lecturer in Computer Science at Cambridge University. She is already advising two schools (one the private and one in the state sector) about sending UK students to US uni and to my surprise it is the state school which is much more eager to know more.

Good luck.