According to the data of people who entered in 2004 and still remained in 2009 (>20% of the 'immigrants' who entered through this route in 2004), Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians, and Malaysians make up the top 5 contributing nationalities.

If I were from any of those 5 countries I could see why one would rather move to Britain and attempt to stay 'indefinitely' than remain in or return to their home nations.

Do you think they are going to change the visa rules for Malaysian visitors?

I do think China is a nice place for vacationing though.

Try the MABECS website.

Actually, the British banks with branches here should ideally be equally strict (HSBC, Standard Chartered etc). If they aren't, it's a real lack of oversight. Their rules are strict but they work, just like Singapore's.

You don't have to be in the UK to know the cost of the tuition for the degree.

The 10-15 thousand pounds is the annual tuition fee. If the degree spans 3 years, then tuition is 30-45 thousand pounds.

Yeah, depending on your target. Anything under the top 10 is pretty darn easy, and it isn't that hard to get one from within the top 10 either. If everything is in place it isn't too difficult, especially for overseas students.

LOL I applied to Cass. They are known for certain courses and departments, especially for graduate courses, and claim to have strong links with industry and to have high rankings (in UK business school rankings). People claim they are fairly well known in Europe.

Fees, I have no idea, but they are relatively low, I think.

If you are considering Cass, may I know where else you have applied, and for what course?

Unfortunately I won't be attending Cass.

I can't say if London would have better or worse quality in terms of teaching. After all, if we bring Warwick into the discussion, it is 3rd in the UK in one ranking (in general, not business), and certainly it and those above it aren't in London either.

However, in terms of business, London is the financial capital (and certainly one of the world's largest financial centres, if not the greatest), and with that comes some considerable things, good or bad.

Apart from Cass and WBS, what about London Business School or the London School of Economics?

Cass claims to be in the top 3/5 for business I think, but overall (as in City) it isn't obviously.

This varies according to the individual prestige and reputation of the university how your potential employer perceives this. It varies by industry as well.

Some will care, some won't. Those who will care may not always be prejudiced - it's just how they work. Those from English-speaking countries would care more (as they are likely to have heard of/know of such schools). In general, the better the school, the better your chances, obviously - not least because some are completely unheard of, and the fact that many of the top schools in the UK are not well known outside of it at all.

You've got your Golden Triangle, and your Warwick, St Andrews, SOAS, Durham, Bristol, and your schools made famous by football (Manchester, Southampton, Liverpool), but that's about it. Your Liverpool, Nottingham, Reading, Leeds, Sheffield etc may be heard of, perhaps even be better known than Warwick outside the UK, but in reality Warwick or St Andrews would be better. Of course everyone would know Oxbridge.

Exactly... but it can vary significantly in some cases, where the lower range charges ~9k pounds while the higher end charges nearly 15k pounds, and this is just the fee for "standard" courses, not lab sciences/engineering/medicine/dentistry... add that up to at least 3 years (MSc would be 4 years, or other degrees could be long), with ~7% inflation, and the ~9 is very far from the ~15.

Fees you can easily look up. Depends on whether it is just the MBBS (5 yrs) or with the (sometimes compulsory) BSc (1 additional yr).

Living cost depends on location - you'll find estimates from websites (but these are often inaccurate underestimates - actual costs can be much higher, and that's before accounting for the fact their info is from 2009/2010). Though the exchange rate is favourable now. For rent it'll be can from 125-250 pounds a week in larger cities, and depending on your other expenses (travel, food, books, entertainment, clothes, stuff), about 1000 pounds a month (more expensive rent includes food).

You cannot reject your firm choice unless, under exceptional circumstances, the university itself (which is your firm) agrees and contacts UCAS, and the other university (your insurance) also agrees. The normal process that occurs when you reject your firm choice is that you are no longer entitled to any of your remaining 4 (or lone insurance) choices.

When your A Level results are released, you can get unconditional offers (either automatically or by request) for any or all of your choices, even if decisions have already been made. However this would have to be done before you selected your firm and/or insurance because obviously there cannot be an insurance choice when your firm is unconditional, and when you make your decision, only 1 or 2 options remain live.

In your situation you can get an unconditional from Imperial, but it would probably not help you attain a scholarship. In fact, were the scholarship administrators to see this, you would likely be denied it. The scholarship administration hardly cares if you "got into Imperial" if your intention is to go somewhere else, but they just might be shallow or naive enough to assume you may not get your first choice, and/or that Imperial is the better choice.

If you rented a shared room that is catered, you'll only need upwards of 150 pounds a week. For 9 months that's just 5400 pounds (including rent and meals). Anything left can be spent on virtually anything (extra food, entertainment, books, supplies etc).

I agree that you should only buy such clothes when you get there...

1. Most are cheaper (for the same things) even after the exchange rate

2. Products at least equal to or superior to those you could get in Malaysia

3. Reduces the amount of stuff you need to bring along when you travel

4. You'll only buy it if you need it (as of now you probably don't know what you may or may not need, and stocking thick clothing when you might actually be able to handle a wee bit of cold is quite a waste)

Probably not.

In the UK the top ones are (this is debatable) Oxbridge, UCL, LSE, Warwick, Imperial (not necessarily in that order).

Then comes schools like King's, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Bristol, Exeter, SOAS, York, Southampton etc (and most of these aren't even really big schools).

Of course you have some which are really well known for certain things in the UK... Oxbridge is just Oxbridge (subjects don't always matter for these two, but they don't have everything, e.g. you can't study straight Economics at Oxford, or Actuarial Science at either)... LSE for Economics, Politics, Government, International Relations, and Law... Imperial for Science and Engineering... Warwick for Mathematics or Economics... UCL for Law...

What surprises me is how often students don't even include a single one of the top few amongst their maximum of 5 choices.

Ignorance... for one thing, people pay the same amount for 2-5 choices, and although the UK has a lot of good universities, the really reputable ones are few (relative to America for example), and so they should be quite obvious. Even then, you don't really need A*A*A or better unless you're thinking of something like Maths at Cambridge. Simply A*AA was enough for many courses at Oxbridge and UCL and Imperial, and unless it's Maths/Econ/Law at Warwick/LSE, then AAA-AAB will do (applies to Imperial and UCL for less popular courses as well). These are already some of the best the UK has to offer.

To summarise... ignorance is the root cause.

Even if you're not the kind of student capable of multiple As and A*s, there's always Warwick (for many of the non-Maths/Econ/Stat subjects the requirements were low, and I mean low), LSE (some only need AAB/ABB, possible lower, very high requirements only apply to Maths/Econ/Law), Imperial and UCL and King's (yes, you don't need straight As for these), Edinburgh, Bristol, Southampton, SOAS, St Andrews etc which aren't nearly as bad (as in not reputable and not ranked highly worldwide) as the plethora of examples given above.

There are people who have gotten poor grades like those and who have attended unknown/really small universities that have gone on to do great things and achieve high levels of success... but these people are the exception. They are rare individuals who were born brilliant, able to overcome those failures at such a late age.

The average individual does not possess such brilliance. The average person must work just as hard to prove himself/herself to others, but may not get the chance to do so without a good educational background. Many of the schools we discuss aren't even the best, just slightly above average or good enough. Going to a mediocre school for academic study is quite a waste.

Yes, ultimately what you achieve is what matters - if you graduate from UCL but cannot find a job/something to do/make a living, and someone from City can, then you've really blown it. So what you gain from (and are able to demonstrate) societies/sports/academics matters (not simply joining them and excelling in them).

But the point is, university prestige matters enough for it to not be discounted that quickly. With the current economic climate and job markets, everything is very competitive. A great university still draws attention, and offers more opporunity. People should aim higher, with the knowledge that at the better firms, Oxbridge, UCL, LSE, Imperial, Warwick (and in America the likes of UPenn, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Cornell, Chicago, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, NYU, University of California; in Australia ANU, Melbourne, UNSW, Sydney, Queensland, Monash; in Canada McGill) etc go into one pile, while those from Oxford Brookes, Nottingham Trent, East Anglia, Aberyswyth, Leicester etc get sorted into another. At the very least, holding all other factors constant, those candidates from better (more well known) schools have the advantage.

Like limeuu said an internship is not actual work, even if it is at a large firm. The responsibilities and expectations are different.

Tough... Economics has/had around 200 spots at LSE... what were these hard subjects (most A Level subjects are hard)?

LSE does prefer A Level Further Mathematics for its BSc Economics but admits a considerable number of students without Further Mathematics (which is significantly more important for Maths and/with Econ and Actuarial Science), and plenty without A Level Economics... 200 spots is a lot, but it's like the top undergrad subject over there... in general LSE is very competitive for Economics, Mathematics and/with Economics (more competitive than straight Economics, but same requirements as Econ and Law), Law (popular subject, decent requirements), Actuarial Science (moderate amount of spots despite low requirements, so highly selective), and to an extent Accounting and Finance (because it has many applicants). With the exception of Law and Accounting and Finance, these subjects only require A* in Mathematics.

What all this implies is straight A* grades (even in strong subjects) don't really impress them... a good subject combination and a strong profile does... LSE rarely gives out offers higher than the standard minimum requirement, and also does not "over-offer" like Warwick... so it is extra selective when giving out offers (one of the slowest to make decisions on applications).

Economics is also rather competitive at Warwick (and perhaps UCL). It is odd that Oxford has PPE and EM but no straight Econ - although candidates can only choose one of the two top schools anyway.

UCAS. GOOGLE IT.

Rankings have been debated a lot. Some schools are 50 and higher in one ranking but out of the top 200 in another, others are consistent in both... and they fluctuate a lot, and they are based on biased indicators (some favour English-language publications, sample sizes are small, some factors are based on opinion etc). I find it weird that in some subject-specific rankings, the second best on that list doesn't even have a strong focus in that subject (e.g. QS puts Oxford at #2 for Accounting and Finance, but Said Business School isn't even one of the top Business Schools worldwide - again this is based on various Business School rankings of course).

However prestige holds... rankings are only a small part of this... there are many in the top 50 that are only regionally prestigious (and of course several outside of the top 50 which are highly sought after), and mean little to employers outside of their geographic circles... whereas some, such as the top Ivies, MIT, and Oxbridge (to name a few) are generally very well known worldwide.

A class of 200 each year in a particular field is very big... even LSE only had 177 students for its 2010 BSc Economics intake (a reduction from around 200 the year before), and that is its biggest class.

Wharton has an average of 2400 undergraduate students, and of these 530 are entering freshman. However there are 20 different concentrations in business (from Actuarial Science to Marketing to Health Care Management and Policy) and and over 60 minors from UPenn, so they hardly represent any particular field.

Your numbers aren't all unreasonable, but the top 50 universities is too many, and there's more of that dream job even if the supply of labour is in excess.

*Something interesting to note from Cambridge: "Many Economics graduates go into areas such as Finance and Management Consultancy, where the skills they have learned during their degree course are extremely useful (and the salaries high)."