Let’s face it, higher education is expensive. Even if you live in a state where there are widespread scholarships, like Florida or Georgia, or are lucky enough to get substantial financial aid, there are still a lot of little costs. And if you’re part of the 80% or so of the country that doesn’t, then it’s all the more important to try to save money where you can.
One of the best ways of doing this is, surprisingly enough, to go abroad. Even in an expensive city like London, a bachelor’s degree (or any other degree) can be much more affordable. One of our favorite examples is for living in London for the three years to get an undergraduate degree, as well as two flights back to the US every year and a substantial travel budget, is around $145,000, depending on the exchange rate.
In fact, that includes living in London 51 weeks of the year, leaving plenty of time for internships!
There is no doubt that this is a lot of money, but let’s compare it to a four year degree somewhere else. For in-state students at UCLA or UVA, it is $147,000 or $140,000, respectively. Remember that those degrees take four years, instead of three, so you’re also missing out on a year of making money.
For out-of-state, by the way, it’s even worse. UCLA costs $266,000, UVA costs $274,000, and even a school like UT-Austin, which has great in-state rates, costs $222,000 for all four years.
Like we said, it’s easy to study at a world-famous school like LSE in London for less than it would cost at many programs in the US, but the cost can quickly add up if you look elsewhere. Oxford, Cambridge, and St. Andrews are all more expensive (but still much less than out of state!). Meanwhile, there are global top 100 universities elsewhere in Europe where the cost of attendance for the full undergraduate degree is less than $100,000.
However, making sense of foreign admissions is where we really shine. The average high school guidance counselor gets a few hours with each student, at best, to discuss college. With a typical public high school counselor being assigned ~300 students (in the best of circumstances), there isn’t a lot of time for individual attention, especially the sort of attention that is necessary to navigate a completely different admissions landscape.
But none of that really answers the question of what we do.
First, let’s start with what we don’t do. We make no promises about getting you, your son or daughter, or anyone else into a specific university. We might say they have a great shot, but even that comes as much through knowing the feeling of a university than pure numbers. The University of Edinburgh, for example, loves American students and will occasionally ‘reach’ for a less attractive student, while Imperial College London will very rarely make such a move.
Instead, we help you figure out where would be a good fit. To do this, we balance what your child wants to study along with other factors. It’s not just about their grades and test scores, but about where they would feel comfortable. A lot of students are attracted to St. Andrews, but unless you’re okay living in a very small town, it isn’t as grand as one might think. On the other hand, studying in London will be very different for those used to a lot of open space.
Additionally, we help look beyond the big names. A lot of college counselors can offer some basic advice on Oxford, Cambridge, or St. Andrews, because so many people apply there. A few may also know of the University of Toronto or McGill. But there are incredible universities that are world-leading in specific areas outside of the US. In this country, we think of specialized places as being for the sciences, like MIT or CalTech. And while the rest of the world has those (like Imperial), there are universities that specialize in business (IE University, LSE), the non-Western world (SOAS, INALCO), and everything in between.
It is not just what you can study, but also what you can do afterwards. A degree from Oxford can open a lot of doors, but alumni connections matter. We offer advice on where your child should study based on who has the job they want to get afterwards. If they have a dream job, we figure out who has it so they can reach out to ask how they got there (and copy their path to getting there).
Once a list of programs is determined, we help your child to create the perfect application. International admissions often means less paperwork than US admissions, but that means that everything has to be perfect along the way. We make sure it is. Additionally, we work with tutors and students to be sure that they are ready for the tests that help to determine many admissions decisions. There’s a reason that we have a 100% success rate of students getting into two of their top three choices over the past two years.
One piece of good news is that international admissions fees are much more reasonable – for example, in the UK you can apply to up to five programs for about $30 total. Compare that to Stanford’s $90 application fee.
Through it all, as you go through a completely novel process, we’ve been there before. We have connections throughout the international admissions world to be able to provide feedback, ask questions, and generally make sure that everything is going as smoothly as possible. Outside of a few notable holidays, we answer all correspondence within six hours, meaning that you get a wealth of information on demand.
However, it’s not finished when the applications are done. We also help with interview prep, as necessary, building in the soft skills that are necessary to thrive in formal phone conversations. Additionally, we also help with finding accommodation, securing a student visa, and even places to eat.
In all, we spend about 40 hours in contact with each student across the two years, with another 80-100 spent preparing program lists, editing personal statements, and providing as much information as possible. With plenty of less-than-above-board universities operating outside of the US, we help to eliminate the wheat from the chaff, making sure that your child only goes to a place that will further help them reach their professional and personal goals. We even assist in finding scholarships for our students and help them apply, further lowering the cost to get a degree.
Compare that to a high school guidance counselor, who is already overworked, and is being asked to spend his/her average of three hours per student on researching a system that they know nothing about.
We’re confident you’ll see that can be the best decision.