In terms of college applications, senior Julia Cole is going the distance. Literally.Cole is considering attending a university in either England or Scotland. She’s applied to five schools abroad and six schools in the US.
“I wanted to be immersed in a foreign culture,” she said. “I was looking for something a little bit different than what schools in America had to offer.”
The number of American students attending school in England has risen 30 percent over the past five years, according to the Washington Post. One of the factors contributing to the increase is the enormous price difference between American and European schools.
A year at St. Andrew’s in Scotland costs $19,000, while tuition for a year at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania is $39,000. Plus, students attending British universities go to school for three years, rather than the four required by American schools.
Career information coordinator Janice Marmor hasn’t observed an increase in the number of Whitman students applying to schools overseas, but said that there have always been students who choose to do so. Often the students who go to school abroad have family there or are well-traveled and want to experience life in a foreign country.
Senior KJ Malachowski is one such student.
“I’m Polish, and I travel to Poland every summer,” he said, but the main reason he’s applying to schools in the UK is simply that he “wanted a change of scene.”
Many students are attracted to the ease of applying to British schools. Students hoping to attend schools in the UK need to fill out only one application, similar to the Common Application, which is sent to five schools of their choice.
“The application process is about a 100 times easier,” Malachowski said.
Students applying to schools abroad do need to be decisive, however. They may apply to no more than five schools in the UK, and must declare their major in the application.
London is 3,675 miles away from Washington, D.C., but Cole says she’s not worried about the distance.
“Going to school abroad is really about the same as going to California,” Cole said. “I think it’s more the mental thing that people have about it being really far away, but it’s just as far as going across the country.”
Irrelevant • Mar 13, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Great article. The U.S. post-secondary education system is superb in many respects, particularly as a pillar of research, but certainly not superb financially.
U.S. private education, and sometimes out-of-state public education, now fails the cost-benefit analysis. It is highly unlikely that a degree costing $200,000-240,000 over four years will be so much better than one from the University of Maryland costing $60,000. Not to mention that Whitman students are far more likely, on average, to be eligible for merit-based scholarships at Maryland than at a private institution.
And Edinburgh, for example, charges $15,000 in tuition for most of its areas of study, similar to what Maryland’s in-state tuition costs are. Very reasonable, and from a world-class institution.
Andrea Zarkauskas • Mar 3, 2011 at 3:48 pm
This is a great article – a lot of folks don’t realize how many opportunities there are abroad, so kudos. If you’re interested in the University of Edinburgh at all, they’re coming to do a free informational event at PrepMatters in April — http://prepmatters.com/events/evening-university-edinburgh
marcy berger • Jan 19, 2011 at 11:02 pm
a wonderful article with some very valid points, sarah
well done !