Can anyone give a reasonable estimate for living expenses for a student in London, for 1 year? Like, accomodation, food, everything?

TO sebsebsebas:

Usually, A levels (or GCE O levels/GCSE/IGCSE English Grade C) is enough, and IELTS will not be necessary for entry to/eligibility for British undergraduate degrees. In fact, one of the SPM English subjects will suffice. There are exceptions of course.

Well at RM550 it is quite expensive for a small test. But the IELTS administrators are companies after all.

Most schools in the UK, Ireland, Australia, or New Zealand will not require you to take IELTS as long as you have GCE O level/GCSE/IGCSE English C or better, or have done A levels (in English), this is explicitly stated.

If you "didn't do well" in A levels, then you wouldn't get into a competitive school anyway. But as long as you pass A levels, you no longer need an additional test (IELTS/TOEFL).

The reason why IELTS is common and also asked for by schools is because not everybody takes A levels or GCE/GCSE/IGCSE English - these people need it.

I'm not sure whether IELTS gives an advantage or not (took it just in case, because a lot of schools are really picky, though I didn't really need it/have not yet needed it), I'm hoping it does.

limeuu is correct, someone with rubbish English could still get great A levels results. This happens very frequently. Mine will still be within the 2 year period for visa

But, they (UK/Ireland schools) simply do not require additional tests. They do not make it a requirement across the board because many do not need to take it - but it seems to let some people through. If their English is bad, who knows how it will affect their degree study (think of teachers with poor English).

This Statement,

"Your International Passport is the property of the Malaysian Government. It REQUIRES YOU to register at the nearest Malaysian Embassy/Mission once you are out of Malaysia, failing which under Clause 25(2) of the Constitution of Malaysia, your citizenship may be withdrawn."

makes no sense at all.

As a tourist, do I register at the nearest MY Embassy? No.
On a business visit, do I register at the nearest MY Embassy? No.
As a student, do I register at the nearest MY Embassy? No. I get a visa.

Entry in 2012 means all normal applications start in mid-September 2011.

The only exceptions are medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine/science and Oxbridge courses, which have a deadline in October, and should be sent in earlier in comparison. But then again you would know this if you are going for any of these.

All undergrad applications are through UCAS, no exceptions, not unless you've contacted the school and have confirmation which would be a special case.

If he gets a job which is right for him and is totally what he wants right after he graduates, then he is lucky.

If you are bonded but have to perform a job which is not what you have in mind, or does not follow your career aspirations, then you were lucky to get the scholarship, but you now have to either work for them for the better part of a decade doing something which does not contribute to your career, and which may not pay very well, or pay them back with interest and go into debt.

If you don't already know, home students pay only ~3000 pounds per year, and those who can't afford this are either given bursaries or zero/low interest loans. International students pay anywhere from 9000 to 15000 pounds (and even more for medicine/dentistry and Oxbridge colleges) each year.

Fees increase every year (for us they can go up 1000 pounds, easily). The "fees increase" you're talking about is the raising of the fees cap for home students, so that they no longer pay from 0 to 4000 pounds. It's hard to say how much this will affect international students' fees.

Admissions could become affected by a number of factors:
- Major increase in home students' fees means more home students are admitted (relatively)
- Tighter immigrations rules and caps means fewer places for international students (coupled with strict quotas)
- Heavy budget cuts means fewer resources available to schools, and hence fewer places and/or pricier tuition fees

What month are you receiving your A levels results?
Are you aware of the intake dates for your school?
Are you aware of the UCAS deadline for international student applications?
What courses are you applying for?
Are you applying to Oxbridge colleges?

Some of these need to be answered first.

Logic would tell you the possibility of that happening is next to impossible. How could 9000-15000 pounds increase to 27000-45000 pounds (we're talking undergrad degrees)?
Like I said, fees go up every year. If it is 14000 pounds for 2010/2011, and it is 15000-16000 pounds for 2011/2012, how far of an increase is this for you?
+5% = 14700 pounds, +10% = 15400 pounds.
On the other hand, though their proposed increase of 0-4000 to ~9000 is quite radical, it is not tens of thousands more.
I'm not sure about the status on its implementation. Some schools will qualify while others may not.

Since you attend Cambridge, don't you pay more (in comparison to other schools) because of the collegiate fees? How much is your annual tuition fee?

Critical courses are subsidised, but to an extent. If they (the tuition fees) are to increase (by as much as threefold), how can you be certain that engineering and medicine courses' tuition fees will face no change?

Also, how is mathematics a critical course? As far as I'm concerned the British government is prioritising funding for science, and though mathematics applies in both the physical sciences and social sciences, mathematics alone is not considered part of the better funded science category.

So no medicine/dentistry/veterinary science/medicine then.

Technically the actual application deadline is not 15 January for international students, but it is usually when we submit the application by.

You seem to know everything already, so you should "start" or have started, as long as you meet the January date.

Didn't anyone at your school tell you? You'd receive results in August, schools will confirm your results (for accepted offers) and hence your place.

I assume you have no results with which to submit for application at the moment. In any case, applications for competitive courses (looking at your speculative choices) don't come back very early.

Then everything is the same apart from the school aspect.
But then you do know everything.

The only thing you need to sort out is the reference and/or predicted grades.

You can apply.

Predicted grades are not the same as trial grades, trial grades are immaterial in this respect. Predicted grades are not a necessity. Also, if you apply now you most probably do not have AS results unless you took them a long time ago. If you were to include predicted grades you would include predicted grades for both AS and A level.

Your reference should be written by someone who knows you well academically. It could be one of your teachers. They may not be able to provide predicted grades, but this is not always important. It would be useful if you knew which courses you wanted to apply for, because some courses are highly competitive while others aren't, and from knowing that the suitability of your application can be gauged.

You should check the UCAS website, it has some information on independent candidates.

As it is, some schools' international students' fees increase by ~1000 pounds per year already, going up 7.2% from this year to 2011/2012. Others do and can increase by more.

The government is referring to sciences, but is less sympathetic towards mathematics in social sciences. Mathematics is kind of a science wherever you put it, but mathematics for/with/in economics, statistics, econometrics, possibly computing, financial engineering etc suffer when it comes to budgets. Of course many schools have the "critical" science, health, engineering, medicine etc so they get funding anyway.

@Corad you're right, because if someone was in London, the catered room rates would be close to 5000-6000 a year before the extra stuff you mentioned. But these are optional, and it's less for non-catered, and even less for outside London.

An increase of 1000 pounds is a 7.2% increase (for me), I can't imagine what a 1000 pound increase meant to you when you were studying!

Imagine UK/EU students pay zero to 4000, increasing 1000 is 25% to infinity! Tripling is madness for some of them who really can't afford it.

Meanwhile we pay upwards of 10,000 pounds! Even the 13,000 pounds per annum course gives a huge total after 3/4 years!

While the entire matter is terribly gloom, I doubt the English language competency requirement will be the main issue here.

Where courses include a work placement the minimum ratio of study to work placement would be raised from 50:50 to 66:33 so courses would become "less attractive to people using them as a way to gain access to the UK employment market". Most courses only have a year or less, if any, work placement. This makes study at least 2x more than the work placement period, but at least it only affects courses.

The "Tier 1 Post Study Work Route" will be closed. This has enabled international students to stay in the UK for up to two years after being awarded their degree, working in unskilled jobs, in order to look for skilled work. Instead they will be restricted to applying for skilled jobs.
Any idea what "skilled work" encompasses?

The government is considering whether to require students who want to stay in the UK after their initial course to extend their studies to leave the UK and re-apply from overseas. Whoa, so future grad, doctoral and postdoc students have to leave first, wth?!

Except these actions would further reduce their budgets as they'd get less revenue...

This is really unwelcoming for new students lol - although the situation is already quite dire and the main points mentioned in the article aren't very damaging, I haven't yet read the PDF.

6.2 Since the introduction of Tier 4, there
has been a requirement that prevents students
on courses below degree level from being able to
stay in the UK for longer than three years. There
is presently nothing to prevent those studying at
or above degree level from extending their stay
indefinitely. We need to ensure that all students
understand that Tier 4 is a temporary route, with
the expectation that students should return home on
completion of their course.

We have considered whether, as an
alternative, we should extend to degree level
courses the rule which prevents sub-degree level
students from staying for more than three years.

If I were registered, I certainly would have voted Labour or Lib Dem. Why did a Malaysian politician urge Malaysians to vote for the Conservatives?

Yes, it might seem so. But the brain drain, while intrinsically against the imperatives and objectives of the country, are in some cases wholly good for those individuals or persons who have chosen to relocate.

Yeah, Lib Dems have let people down. But are people going to ever be satisfied with their governments? When Labour was in force, they were disliked. Obama was touted, and now the Americans have forgotten how enthralled they were by him initially? Do policies mean anything?

I cannot recall who, but a blogger noted his name. It is very recent (I believe Dec 2010), and can be found via Google.

The section goes on further, they are planning to scrap the post study work route after Jan 2011. I'm not even sure whether people will be allowed to stay 3/4 months or 2 years afterwards to look for work. The most deserving would have probably found employment prior to completing their education, I suppose.

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Added on December 24, 2010, 1:45 amhttp://www.loyarburok.com/the-system/bolehland/malaysians-who-voted-in-uk-beware/

Correction, this was written in May this year, and said politician was not necessarily a politician (excuse my extremely poor internet connection).

"Tunku Abidin’s article is interesting in that he urged Malaysians to vote, pointing out with prescience that every vote would count, and urged a vote for the Conservative Party partly based on historic events in Britain’s history which impacted on Malaysian politics. Key events were identified where Malaysians interests seemed to suffer when it was Labour government policies that were sought to be implemented on us."

Please ignore (in my opinion) the writer's poorly made interpretations/conclusions regarding further topics discussed in that article, such as the law.

This post has been edited by LightningFist: Dec 24 2010, 01:45 AM

Yes they have, but I mean people are in general not very satisfied of their governments - governments they voted for and put together. To be fair, there wasn't a clear winner this time round.

That consultation we're talking about has some very interesting messages.

The guy says something like "we are concerned that it is not only the brightest and the best who are attracted to Britain and are granted stay".