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Post by whollygoats on Oct 4, 2017 22:44:48 GMT
I think Oxford is fine. Go. Visit the Ashmolean. Wander the book stores. Catch a student play. Punt the Ox. Ascend to view the spires. Then move on to more interesting fare. Go to the Cotswolds, or Avebury.
I remember Oxford as 'grey', 'dreary', and 'blockish'. There were open spaces, mostly quadrangles in various colleges, but nowhere near the kind of airy, open public spaces like around Cambridge. Cambridge has all the crowded 'citiness', but it always seems as though one is just a short stroll from tree-lined avenues, forest canopies opening upon public meadows and convivial public gathering spaces with flowers and greenery. To me, it seemed "easier to breathe" in Cambridge. It is mostly 'impressions' upon my part.
Do Brits distinguish between the Oxbridge pair? Do they have their respective 'spheres of influence' in academic, asthetic, and intellectual circles? Is there a 'second tier' of prestige universities (like, say, Edinburgh? Or, Trinity, in Dublin?), and if so, where does the distinction between them and 'everybody else' arise?
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Post by tangent on Oct 5, 2017 10:04:35 GMT
I rather like Cambridge. Is there a 'second tier' of prestige universities (like, say, Edinburgh? Or, Trinity, in Dublin? Yes, London School of Economics, Imperial College London, University College London, Durham, Edinburgh and possibly St Andrews, Bath, Manchester and Sheffield. See www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/britains-other-top-universities.html
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Post by ceptimus on Oct 5, 2017 11:04:10 GMT
Don't forget Hull.
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Post by Alvamiga on Oct 5, 2017 11:11:58 GMT
I had to spend a fair bit of time in and around Oxford for motorbike training and my tests. Nothing very much exciting or interesting there from my experience.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 5, 2017 15:35:38 GMT
I rather like Cambridge. Is there a 'second tier' of prestige universities (like, say, Edinburgh? Or, Trinity, in Dublin? Yes, London School of Economics, Imperial College London, University College London, Durham, Edinburgh and possibly St Andrews, Bath, Manchester and Sheffield. See www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/britains-other-top-universities.htmlThanks, Tangent. I hadn't thought of LSE, I thought it some avant-garde institution that was outside of the usual prestige circles, like New School of Social Research in NYC. And, I'm an economist by training; for me, having 'of Economics' in the name is a rather distinct declasse slur. Imperial College London rings some bells, but University College London sounds ever so ordinary (like my alma mater, Portland State University *yawn*). Sheffield I know fairly well (IIRC, a fair amount of biblical criticism comes out of Sheffield), but I figured it rated amongst the more notable publicly-supported institution of learning (what we'd call a 'state uni'). It seems to me that in watching one of the histories of Scotland, they bragged about joining the union with twice as many eminent educational institutions as England (4 as versus 2), and I imagine those include Edinburgh, Sterling, Aberdeen, and St. Andrews. Is that anywhere near correct? ETA: It seems to be Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and St. Andrews. Sterling is the new kid on the block. EATA: Is there a distinction between 'private' universities and state-supported universities? In the US, the distinction is private/public, with the public universities being those undergraduate and graduate institutions supported by tax revenues, usually generated on a state-wide basis. Private universities were founded by private organizations (the biggies are former clerical training schools, so religious in foundation) and receive the major portion of their funding from private giving. All institutions now seem to rely upon both public and private grant sources for funding, and the private institutions have separated and drifted far from the former close control of a religious paradigm.
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Post by tangent on Oct 5, 2017 18:25:53 GMT
I haven't heard of private universities. Maybe some Catholic colleges are private. It seems to me that in watching one of the histories of Scotland, they bragged about joining the union with twice as many eminent educational institutions as England (4 as versus 2), and I imagine those include Edinburgh, Sterling, Aberdeen, and St. Andrews. Is that anywhere near correct? ETA: It seems to be Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and St. Andrews. Sterling is the new kid on the block. I'm not well up on universities these days. When I was applying to Cambridge, I remember there were four others outside Oxbridge, one of which was Durham, but I don't remember which they were.
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So, Kelly
Oct 5, 2017 22:25:39 GMT
via mobile
Post by juju on Oct 5, 2017 22:25:39 GMT
I don't think we really have private universities here. Here's the current rankings of UK universities: www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?y=2017Can you believe my middle son turned down both Edinburgh and St Andrews to go to Birmingham? He preferred the look of the course there. :/ My eldest went to Bristol which has been traditionally seen as the uni of choice for Oxford rejects. He certainly encountered a lot of snobbery there, but still enjoyed it.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 6, 2017 0:51:15 GMT
Oxbridge is tax revenue supported? I always considered all the major institutions of higher learning in the UK to be private in nature. I was probably just projecting. All Most of prestigious institutions of higher education in the US are private institutions. The 'Ivy League' is the pinnacle of that ranking and Harvard is usually considered to be the top of the heap. All but one of these (Cornell) were originally sectarian establishments with the primary objective of training up educated Protestant clerics. There is a 'second tier', which in some circles is considered more prestigious than the Ivy crowd, that includes M.I.T., CalTech, Sanford, USC, and University of Chicago, which are all private but established nonsectarian and supported by bequests. Then the third layer is comprised of the better state schools like the California and New York state university systems and the smattering of Land Grant universities nationwide. My university was distinctly fourth tier, or lower; a struggling state-funded urban university attempting to meet the needs of the burgeoning post-war population of a growing city with basic university programming offered in an accessible and comfortable central city campus. The bulk of uni-educated Americans are educated in state-revenue supported universities, like the one I attended. I was accepted at a prestigious undergraduate institution here in town: Reed College. I passed on it because they offered no scholarship, and the tuition was $32,000 per year in 1971. I instead started my college career at another private institution, Lewis & Clark College, where I lasted two years with a declining scholarship before jumping ship to complete at the in-town urban university, which was running at $1,200 per term at the time. In your son's place, I probably would have accepted one of the two just to be in Scotland, rather than Birmingham.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 6, 2017 1:08:52 GMT
Yes...Our very own Ming is attending one of the most prestigious research universities in the United States - Cornell University. It, interestingly enough, is the single non-sectarian establishment of all the Ivy League universities.
ETA: In researching, I found that it, along with MIT, is a Land Grant University. Cool. Education focused upon practical application of learning.
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Post by tangent on Oct 6, 2017 8:08:56 GMT
Oxbridge is tax revenue supported? I always considered all the major institutions of higher learning in the UK to be private in nature. UK universities are all on the same footing. They receive some money from the government (on average 26%), some money from tuition fees (on average 44%) and the remainder from other sources. Tuition fees are set individually by each university but tend to be the maximum allowed by the government (about £9000 per year). The following diagram covers research funding. Total funding amounted to £33.1 billion in 2014/2015.
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Post by ceptimus on Oct 6, 2017 12:49:29 GMT
...and the 11% EU sources really came from British taxpayers too, as we've always paid more into the EU than we've gotten back out. Of course, there's no guarantee that this 11% will be maintained after Brexit... the government and opposition have said that it will, but do we trust their promises?
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 6, 2017 15:19:16 GMT
So...Any Brit can win entrance to any of the British universities, provided they meet the institution qualifications and can afford the tuition? (But I repeat myself.)
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Post by Moose on Oct 6, 2017 17:19:24 GMT
I was gonna say that Bristol is normally considered the third best university in the country, though it's subjective I suppose. My best friend went there after being turned down by Oxford.
Kelly - yeah, you can apply to any University and if you're good enough (and lucky - sometimes even people who are good enough can't find a place) then they will take you
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Post by Moose on Oct 6, 2017 17:20:48 GMT
Re the Scottish universities, a BA there is four years not three and English students studying in Scotland have to pay tuition (Scottish students do not, which I think is incredibly unfair)
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 6, 2017 20:53:39 GMT
I was gonna say that Bristol is normally considered the third best university in the country, though it's subjective I suppose. My best friend went there after being turned down by Oxford. Kelly - yeah, you can apply to any University and if you're good enough (and lucky - sometimes even people who are good enough can't find a place) then they will take you I would believe Bristol in the third spot. But, yeah...subjective to the extreme. I don't trust any ranking of universities in the US, and by extension, anywhere. So, if you make the invite, you can go and money will not be any different? The big thing is 'winning the invite'? Making the grade? Here, you can make the grade and get the invite, but if you can't afford it, you go to a 'fall-back institution', like a state university or, in extreme penury, community college. The usual protocol is two years to an 'associate', and four years to a bachelors, but that can be adjusted to accommodate the load the student can carry at any one time, so that the time is either shortened or lengthened. Graduate programs vary a lot, but two to three years is typical. Seven years pursuing any program, including graduate programs, is usually the outside allowed to finish. Me? I took five years to earn my undergraduate degree in economics, but I augmented it with a certificate in urban studies. When I returned to get my teaching certification, I was working part-time. I took four years to get my certification and five additional years to get my Masters in Teaching (which I never used).
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Post by Moose on Oct 6, 2017 23:16:01 GMT
It's all changed since I went to university so it's hard to answer. Back then, you applied to a few (six? eight? I forget) and your application was submitted to all of them, who could decide whether or not to make you an offer. If they did, you then either accepted or rejected it. You could 'accept' two; one as your first choice and one your second. I had Kent as my first choice and Bangor - where my mum did her MSC - as my second. If you got the grades to match the offer you automatically had the place. If you nearly got the grades you could negotiate with the university to see if they would still take you. If, however, your place was confirmed you legally could not refuse to go and try to go somewhere else ... unless you dropped out for a year and reapplied.
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Post by Moose on Oct 6, 2017 23:16:40 GMT
To be honest had I been offered a place at York I would have snapped it up but they declined me
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Post by Moose on Oct 6, 2017 23:19:54 GMT
Teaching certificate is one year here but you can do an actual teaching degree too ..
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 7, 2017 0:44:52 GMT
Teaching certificate is one year here but you can do an actual teaching degree too .. Here, you must have a bachelor's in some field before you can certify to teach. But once certified, you are expected to complete your Master's within seven years....and continue education with classes throughout your career at the rate of about one full summer every three years thereafter. YMMV, greatly, by state.
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Post by Moose on Oct 7, 2017 19:37:03 GMT
Weird .. once you're qualified here that's that no need for a Master's.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 7, 2017 21:02:36 GMT
Well, I'm talking Oregon and California, where practicing teachers are expected to continue their education throughout their working lives...if for no other reason than to be able to track whatever is the latest trendy rage to wash over educators. There are indeed 'hardship' areas, where it is difficult to find adequate teachers, or particularly adequate teachers in specialty areas, where requirements are waived, generally on a temporary basis...to allow the practicing, difficult-to-find-teacher to obtain the requisite training to qualify for the classes they teach.
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So, Kelly
Oct 8, 2017 10:26:21 GMT
via mobile
Post by juju on Oct 8, 2017 10:26:21 GMT
So...Any Brit can win entrance to any of the British universities, provided they meet the institution qualifications and can afford the tuition? (But I repeat myself.) Yes. Entrance to any UK university is on qualifications/interview alone. The fees are the same wherever you go. Having said that, of course you are far more likely to gain admission to Oxbridge if you have been expensively educated and coached, as you are more likely to gain the necessary qualifications and confidence to pass both. My eldest son didn't pass his interview to Oxford although he got the necessary qualifications. He went to Bristol instead - and yes, it was definitely full of Oxbridge 'rejects'. ETA: all my kids went to an ordinary Welsh comprehensive state (non fee paying) school.
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