United Kingdom vs United States

Congratulations to Kylie Anne Francis who received her offers of acceptance from both Harvard and Cambridge University. She has opted to accept the offer from Harvard University, a decision I would hazard a guess, was helped by financial aid from the university of up to US$44,000 a year, inclusive of housing and tuition fees.

Twins, Arun and Ashok Thillaisundaram, however, have no qualms selecting Cambridge as their university of choice to pursue their degrees in Physics and Mathematics, with the latter having already secured a scholarship from Jardine Foundation.

Putting the availability of financial aid or scholarship aside, how would you choose between Harvard (US) or Cambridge (UK) University?

This thought about comparing a degree from United Kingdom (UK) and that from the United States (US) has been playing in my head for a fairly long time. I'm certain that everyone will have their prejudices :) as well. After all, Kian Ming has insinuated once that I should get acquainted to an American education, instead of being too "outdated" and UK-centric. :)

So here you go. Here are some of my thoughts on the comparisons which are likely to be accrued generalisations over the years. They are by no means facts which are cast in stone. The reason why I'm putting them down is so that this "impression" may get corrected, qualified or even possibly justified by you guys out there, for the benefit of the young readers here who might be interested, but are uncertain as to where they should pursue their education overseas.

There's an additional assumption I'd like to state - that is in all likelihood, I'm comparing only the top universities of both countries and not all universities as a whole. This is because when attempting to generalise too wide a pool of schools, the generalisation will no longer have any practical or meaningful value.

Regular readers will know that I'm a product of a British-centric education having undergone the 'O', 'A' Levels as well as a degree from the UK. I've barely stepped foot in the US (for a 3-week training stint at St Charles, Chicago) and have no experience whatsoever with schools in that country. During my 'A' Levels, I was faced with an choice of taking the SAT examination in order to apply for the universities in the United States. I never took SAT because I thought I'd prefer a UK-based education, after receiving some word-of-mouth information and advice from friends and seniors.

The information I had, and the impression that I still have today, is that a UK-based degree will be more disciplined and specialised, while a US-based one will be more generalised and be of less depth. I have also understood from the various posts I've read online that, very often, one doesn't have to even decide which specialisation (e.g., economics or political science or history etc.) until the 2nd or 3rd year of studies.

Hence in terms of subject-matter knowledge, one will actually get more out of the UK degree rather than the US degree. This is not to say that the US degree is worth less, because it'll be equally good in terms of cultivating critical thinking. And therefore, as I was pretty certain of what I wanted to read for my degree as well as the "slight" hassle and cost of having to sit for the SAT (not a very good excuse, this one), I opted for a degree in the UK.

However, for postgraduate studies, I understand that the US-based qualifications will have the slight edge over the UK ones. This is probably due to the fact that US based universities have much larger research funding as well as ability to attract the best academics in the world to provide a more rewarding postgraduate and research experience.

For MBAs in particularly, none of the UK or European schools appear to be able to compare themselves against the top schools in the US like Harvard, Wharton, Chicago or Kellogs. This is probably due to the fact that the world's largest and most profitable corporations are US-based companies and the experience one will be able to gather from these schools as a result of the network (as well as the top notch lecturers) will be tremendous.

So, the way I look at it, Kian Ming has done it "right". He pursued his first degree in London School of Economics, did a Masters in Cambridge and is now pursuing his Doctorate at Duke University, United States. The only thing is maybe he needn't have done is Masters for he had "complained" on the time needed to complete his PhD in the US. But having a "Cambridge" in the resume never hurts. :)

Now, would I have approached my applications differently today? Yes, only on the basis that many of the top universities in the US such as Harvard, Yale, MIT and possibly Princeton offers full financial aid to students from families with income of less than US$60,000 per annum, as long as they are accepted by the admissions office. That will really save one the hassle of hunting high and low for scholarships or financial assistance - which I did.

Note also that while the topic makes for a interesting discussion, I believe the actual decision of whether one should opt for a UK or US-based top university is moot, and is really dependent on individual preference. Whether Kylie graduates from Harvard or Cambridge will make absolutely no difference to her future employment prospects, and she will receive quality education both ways.

So, for you guys out there pursuing your degree (or have recently completed them) in the UK and the US - what do you think? :)