Many applicants to the most selective university programs share high grades, high test scores, solid recommendations and generous doses of community service and volunteer activities. Yet, if they want to set themselves apart from the pool of exceptional students, a significant research experience in STEM or the social sciences helps.
About five years ago I was invited to dinner with a family whose daughter went to Wilson high school. The parents wanted to find the best educational value for their daughter and I recommended work study colleges, service academies, and Canadian and UK universities. Many months later I ran into the mother shopping and asked where her daughter ended up going to school: “Germany,” she answered.
The small city state of Singapore, with a population of just over 5 million, is quickly becoming the educational hub of Asia. Prior to the turn of the 21st century, Singapore offered postsecondary degrees almost solely through its two large flagship universities: National University of Singapore (NUS), and Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Then, in January 2000, Singapore Management University opened its doors, followed by Singapore Institute of Management (2005), Singapore Institute of Technology (2009), Singapore University of Technology and Design (2011), and, coming soon, Yale/NUS (2013).
The September 23rd, 2011 Economist contains an ad from the Qatar Foundation citing the efforts of Tammi Moe of Virginia Commonwealth University, who is traveling the globe, assembling an archive history of Qatar’s cultural history. Yes, Qatar is home to Virginia Commonwealth University’s international satellite campus, which specializes in teaching fine arts. You might not even know where Virginia Commonwealth is located in the United States (it’s in Richmond, Virginia) but in Qatar it’s in Education City in Doha, Qatar’s capital. Quaint, isn’t it?
No Qatar, and VCU has plenty of company…
Two years ago a friend’s daughter was accepted into St. Andrews University in Scotland. Her academic credentials, intellectual curiosity, and insatiable work ethic helped her gain admittance; had she stayed in the United States, she probably would have entered a highly selective school. Yet, with such a range of options, she chose St. Andrews, which was founded in 1413, almost 600 years ago, predating Harvard by over 200 years.
Besides St. Andrews, which now uses the Common Application, Cambridge, Oxford, and the London School of Economics beckon international students. Regardless, over a quarter of St. Andrew’s undergraduates are from outside Britain. Its admissions selectivity is comparable to Cornell or Emory. Beyond the outstanding academics, the tuition (even in the face of the recent tuition increases by the British Government) is annually $30,000. This is a fairly good value for the dollar.
A lot of students and their families are justifiably concerned about the cost and quality of education in the United States. A hundred US colleges now have a cost of attendance (COA) exceeding $50,000; 2 years ago, only 5 did. Worse still, the price tag continues to escalate at around 4% per year, with no end in sight. Add to this state of affairs the revelations contained in the book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, which asserts, “36 percent of students ‘did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning’ over four years of college,” and you have every reason in the world to look elsewhere for alternative educational opportunities. The world, however, might very well be on your doorstep in the form of our Canadian neighbors to the north. Canadian universities have a high standard of educational rigor, their COA (depending on province) is lower, and most award degrees in three years, not the six, it seems to be taking at many US schools nowadays.
