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Anybody want to discuss going to these universities from the States? All are famous, especially the first three, but how do they differ from each other and from US universities?

By Gangeska (Gangeska) on Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 06:04 pm: Edit

Unless you are doing International Baccalaureate exams (not APs) you can pretty much forget about getting into Cambridge or Oxford. this year cambridge accepted 3 students based on AP results. All into humanities subjects.

LSE is much more open to international applicants, and its teaching is much more focused on the international aspects of subjects, whereas cambridge and oxford take a more traditional and english aproach. Their economics courses are mainly centered around english economic history and politics.

I get the impression that Imperial is as LSE a bit more international than Oxford and Cambridge, but honestly don't know that much about it.

By Yahni (Yahni) on Sunday, November 30, 2003 - 08:54 am: Edit

What I think is Oxbridge and Imperial are certainly comparable to the top 10-20 (Ivy + Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, MIT) universities in the states, however I am not sure about LSE if it is up there with them.

By 22157 (22157) on Sunday, November 30, 2003 - 12:20 pm: Edit

LSE is certainly up there with the colleges mentioned. In 100 years and on the basis of a small number of students it has produced 30 prime ministers and presidents, many of them recently, including Jack Kennedy and Pierre Trudeau. A quarter of all the Nobels in economics have gone to LSE people, again many of them recently. it has made pioneering contributions to social anthropology, international relations, sociology, social policy and philosophy-not to mention economics!

In the most reliable tables LSE is the only non-US college to figure in the world top 20 of economics research universities. If there were reliable tables in the other subjects it teaches (eg law, international relations, sociology, philosophy, social history etc), its positioning would be similar or even better.

Just this week the Hindu Times, a big Indian newspaper, carried a piece about the School's global impact on politics and social policy, on both sides of the political spectrum. America's Chronicle of Higher Education carried a very good piece about LSE a few months ago (check it on their website) and the Economist this week described LSE as the UK's most 'market-led and international' university.

By Xtech (Xtech) on Sunday, November 30, 2003 - 01:27 pm: Edit

I wish I had heard about LSE earlier. I live in the US and have already applied to some schools but LSE seems like the perfect place for what I want to study; economics and political science, both with an international focus. It'd be kind of crazy to apply there without ever having visited to the UK or knowing the first thing about applying internationally but there's still a part of me that wants to go there. What are the application due dates in the UK? Anybody know anything about applying there?

By 22157 (22157) on Sunday, November 30, 2003 - 01:42 pm: Edit

LSE is now accepting applications for 2004/5, although you should hurry as places fill up fast (average 11 apps per place). You can apply online and the School's website is:http://www.lse.ac.uk.

More data: there are about 700 US/Canadian students out of a total of around 7,500. Some 60% of students are non-British and more than 50% are post-grad.

Currently prominent alumni include the serving prime ministers of Japan,Greece, Jamaica, the president of Kenya and the head of the European Commission (leader of the European Community). Mr. Justice Kennedy of the US supreme court is a former student, as is Robert Rubin (recently Clinton's Trade Secretary) and Mick Jagger!

Good luck

By Elrohir (Elrohir) on Wednesday, December 03, 2003 - 02:12 am: Edit

Xtech, the last date to apply for Fall 2004 is Jan 15, as it is with all other unis except Oxbridge (it's Oct 15th for them)... You'll have to apply through UCAS (www.ucas.com)... applying to the UK is a lot simpler than the US. You just need one Personal Statement, and one teacher reference, and the same form is sent to up to 6 institutions.