UCAS

[mothwing]

Why is the British educational system SO much better than the German one? It is truly embarrassing.

After my application had arrived on probably the 15. of January, the University of Glasgow decided to make me, a German who hadn't taken any kind of language test yet to prove her skills (looking at the clumsy language I keep using they probably shouldn't have) an unconditional offer on the 21. of January. It was on the net the same day, UCAS be blessed, and the info letter arrived only two days later as well.

When I, a student from Hamburg, decided to study - surprise, surprise - in the same city, I had to apply until the 7. of July. Which I did. There was a receipt postcard pinned to the application form they said would send back once they received the application. I didn't even post my application, I put it directly into their letter box.

A week passed. No postcard. Another week passed. I started to wait hopefully for the postman every morning. He started to think I had a crush on him. At the end of the third week, there was still no postcard. At the end of the month, it hadn't arrived either and I was starting to get decidedly worried about the whole affair. My grades hat not been bad, in fact I had been among the best students of my year, so I hadn't really worried about getting a place. I was starting to worry now. The courses were to begin at the beginning of October. In the middle of August, I phoned my Uni and asked what could have happened to my postcard - or even to my application.

The bored voice at the other end told me they had not really had the time to send all postcards back, because they received a total of around 10,000 applications this semester. The UCAS page told me that Glasgow receives 27,144 applications per year. They get all the applications Hamburg receives in one go and are still a lot quicker with the decisions.

In the middle of September, I finally received the desired letter from my Alma Mater.

Today, I received another unconditional offer from the University of Aberdeen. One month after posting the application. Again, it was one the net on monday, and I received the info letter today. Looking at the homepages of German universities, at least I found them rather unstructured and on the whole confusing. Example: http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ - a truly wonderful example. Well, the English version is much better than the German one.

When I asked an English friend of mine which University she would apply to if she was me, she asked me why I didn't talk to my tutor or career adviser. My... what? My friend looked as though she thought Germany was a developing country. "You don't have career advisers at schools?" Er.. no? "But at Universities, right?" Uhm... not that I know of... ? "You know... just come over as soon as you can, Andi."

When I asked one of my professors to write the reference for me, he reacted as follows:

"UCAS? What is UCAS?" He is a professor for English.

Somehow I feel glad knowing I will be in Scotland in '05...