Educated Abroad — The New Social Currency Reshaping New York’s Most Connected Families
How the decision to study abroad has become the defining marker of a certain kind of ambition — and why Europe’s finest universities are at the centre of it
A smooth yet significant change is observed in the discussions taking place over dinner at Park Avenue tables, during meetings of exclusive clubs, and in the short conversations of people able to read between the lines. The issue is not merely one of where to send your kid to school anymore, but of whether he went at all.
A new kind of credential
The Ivy League has been the educational goal of New York’s most powerful families for years. Harvard. Yale. Princeton. Columbia — The Ivy League schools are great, and nothing stated here can belittle their greatness. Nevertheless, a trend is stirring; namely, a growing conviction mostly among people who have lived abroad or have built firms in several countries that the most amazing education is no longer linked only to the states of the northeast of the United States.
Studying abroad, particularly in prestigious European universities, now carries meaning. This does not mean refusal of the American educational tradition; rather, it means a broader understanding of how one has to raise a world-class mind. Cultured people who spent time at the Oxford common rooms, along the banks of the Cam in Cambridge, and in the intellectually demanding atmosphere of Sciences Po, can feel the difference.
“My daughter spent three years at LSE. She came back fluent in a way no American university would have given her — not just in economics, but in the world.”
This trend is not new. For more than 100 years, wealthy families in America have been sending their children to Europe to attend finishing schools and summer programs. What is new and different in today’s world is the level of ambition. Unlike before, wealthy families are sending their children not just for tourism purposes to experience European culture but because they think, based on data available, that European institutions provide things that are not available domestically.
What Europe does differently
There are certain features of academic life in the finest European universities that are hard to transpose into American context, no matter how accomplished it is. First of all, one can point out a high degree of intellectual specialization. For instance, students enrolled in universities in Britain, France, and Switzerland start studying only one specific subject from the very moment of their admission. As a result, students become graduates with respective degrees: graduates who have spent three-four years dealing exclusively with one particular study.
The second one is the European tutorial and seminar tradition. In particular, institutions of higher learning such as Oxford and Cambridge use a tutorial system that is characterized as weekly meetings of students (individual or in pairs) with a prominent academic to defend a written essay. The system instills a unique blend of intellectual confidence and argumentative precision. A student who has gone through a tutorial with a senior Oxford professor acquires knowledge and skills that cannot be matched with any lecture-based education.
The third one is proximity. Studying Europe means geographical closeness to cultural, political, and financial centers, which is not possible in the case of the United States. A student studying at University College London has the City of London as his or her natural laboratory. A student studying at Sciences Po in Paris enjoys firsthand experience in European politics. A student of ETH Zürich develops an understanding of engineering and economic processes that take place in one of the most developed economies worldwide.
The institutions that matter
In families who have conducted their research thoroughly, the debate regarding the best universities in Europe has a tendency to revolve around the same institutions that share their own personalities and each has its own specific type of graduating student.
University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom
The world’s highest-ranked university. The tutorial system produces graduates of unusual intellectual depth. Exceptional in law, PPE, medicine, and the humanities.
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Nine centuries of academic tradition. Unrivalled in mathematics, sciences, and engineering. The supervision system rivals Oxford’s tutorial culture in rigour.
London School of Economics
London, United Kingdom
The global launchpad for careers in finance, politics, and international affairs. Incomparable network in economics, law, and government.
Sciences Po
Paris, France
France’s most prestigious social science institution. Exceptional for international relations, public policy, and European affairs. Highly international student body.
ETH Zürich
Zürich, Switzerland
Europe’s MIT. Consistently ranked in the world’s top five for engineering, technology, and natural sciences. Combines academic excellence with Swiss precision.
IE University
Madrid, Spain
Europe’s most internationally minded business and law school. Exceptional for entrepreneurship, international business, and students who want Europe without leaving the English language.
In addition to these, the map includes Bocconi in Milan known for its finance and management studies, University of Amsterdam which is renowned for offering quality English-medium programmes and its location in central Europe, St Andrews — where British royalty and American elite families have long met, and Imperial College London for science and technology aspirants.
The social dimension no one discusses openly
This issue also has a social aspect that the families of participants discuss privately, however, they hardly mention it in writing. The move into one of the leading countries for education causes American youngsters to become part of a socially varied environment which includes classmates from various European Union countries, as well as from the Middle East, Asia and South America. However, the network that is created during three years of education at LSE or Oxford differs from that of any American university, even the most prestigious and successful ones.
This point is more significant than it seems. Families that pay particular attention to education do not plan for the next four years. They think about the next forty.
Worth noting
The tuition fees at many European universities are considerably lower than those of similar institutions in the United States for American students. The fees charged by Oxford and Cambridge for international students programmes are equal to those charged by British universities. Besides, studying at British universities takes only three years, which contributes to reducing expenses. Thus, financial aspects become an important reason for some families to consider European universities.
Making it happen
In order to apply to the leading colleges in Europe from an American high school, it is important to understand the nuances of this process, which is different from applying to colleges in the US. The British universities utilize the UCAS system, which requires applicants to submit an application that is not only due earlier than the Common App but is also designed to emphasize academic merits rather than extracurricular abilities. Admission to Oxford and Cambridge involves taking tests and participating in interviews that are conducted while the applicant is in the UK. As for the French grandes écoles, they follow their own preparatory classes system that is very complicated to go through from the US without some assistance.
Those that feel that studying abroad is worth it usually start doing comprehensive background checks on universities two to three years before they are scheduled to apply — sooner than most American families will consider making applications to colleges. The family that achieves the greatest success is always the one that starts ahead of everyone else, uses the best expert advice on specific institutional requirements, as well as prepares their children academically and linguistically for the characteristic peculiarities of the European academic environment.
The students who can make good use of their education are, first of all, those students that can demonstrate interest in science, independence, and the ability to be far away from home for some time. These traits cannot be developed in a year right before graduation, as they must be cultivated over time in families that understand their children will be raised in a global context.
