UKH

My step-daughter is just completing her BSc in Micro & Molecular Biology. On track for very good results and applying for Masters courses in microbiology specialisms.

She has an offer from the University of Manchester and is waiting on offers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and UCL. UCL is probably her preferred choice. 

UCL are charging £90 to apply on the basis that they only want “serious candidates”. It’s not a problem for us, but it does feel like they are filtering out poor people.

In reply to The New NickB:

could they want "oversearious" candidates?

In reply to wercat:

I don’t know if the course fees are higher for overseas students, £16k for domestic students. Do any other Universities do this?

In reply to The New NickB:

Yup. It's an American import and become more and more common. It's partly to discourage speculative applications (it does take a bit of time to process them all), but it's also thought to discourage withdrawals once places have been accepted - which can be very frustrating especially if a course has already turned down other applicants.

Edited to add: a lot of universities have Masters scholarships / excellence bursaries which would cover more than the application fee, so it's worth asking about these.

In reply to The New NickB:

Can't help re whether other Unis charge you to apply but with regards to the fees, overseas students pay a lot more.  E.g. a Biomedical Sciences MSc for 2022 / 23 at UCL has fees of £16,500 for UK students and £32,100 for overseas.  

In reply to The New NickB:

It doesn't seem a great solution but having a large  but uncertain number of students pull out a few days before teaching starts (which happens) is a real problem for planning courses and it might help reduce this.

In reply to MG:

A few days? I assume places are taken up within a few weeks of undersgraduate results. Which is a few months before courses start. Given the financial commitment involved, I can't see £90 changing last minute doubts about a course. However, I can see it deterring students / families of limited means from applying in the first place.

In reply to The New NickB:

Actually yes, I started my LLM (Master of Laws) at first I applied to University of Law, Manchester. They wanted a deposit of £250.00 upfront, non-refundable after a time period. It's normal for universities do this. However, UCL is not a private sector education establishment. 

In reply to The New NickB:

You might find this useful, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/scholarships/scholarships-finder

In reply to The New NickB:

I can see some good in this if people are putting in many applications speculatively and making the selection process huge. At the point at which you have say 30+ applications for each place it will be a very broad cut to get the numbers to something more manageable for a more personal assessment. Having said this the fee of £50 was recently dropped for MSc applications  locally.

In reply to The New NickB:

Yes. Often without saying anything  - just not appearing. One year 25%, next year almo none, which is tricky

Very course dependent.  With overseas students (often a majority on MScs) it doesn't work that way.

In reply to The New NickB:

It’s very much status and supply and demand. You are unlikely to see this lower down the league tables where institutions basically just want to fill places. However, UCL is right up the tables at global level, and having that on your CV would definitely be worth £90.

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

All three institutions are basically offering the top rated masters in the subject she wants to specialise in alongside KCL, Imperial and Edinburgh. Her choices are based on course specifics rather than prestige of the institution, with the assumption that her results will get her in to a highly rated university regardless. It's £90 to have them consider an application, not £90 to have them on a CV, that requires acceptance and a whole other order of financial commitment. Payment has been made, it's not an issue for our household, but it does not seem very equitable.

In reply to The New NickB:

Seems a cheek to me. I can understand if you are accepting a place that they would want a non refundable deposit.

Will we have to pay a fee to apply for jobs next?

It reminds me of a 'scam' the ski fields in New Zealand run where you pay a fee for a days coaching with the incentive the best candidates would be taken on as instructors.

In reply to The New NickB:

If she is from a tough background then there should be lots of money thrown at her. This is based on friends experience for her daughter who did Masters in Computer Science at Warwick.She even did not have to pay any fees for the Masters year.

So for STEM subjects there is usually a huge pot of money available for support.

More importantly she has sailed into high paying job offer in September.Bright person and deserves it.Firsts one of her family to get there.

In reply to neilh:

She isn’t from a tough background, as I have explained.

However, I have just checked the UCL websites, you have to pay the fee, even if you are applying for a scholarship and the only exception is financial hardship relating living in a conflict zone or resultant displacement.

In reply to Welsh Kate:

That is the motivation for requiring a deposit here. We don't currently apply it to all MSc programmes, but we do apply it to a subset of programmes where the number of students we can take in an academic session is limited. On those courses in particular, it's very frustrating for us when students pull out at the last minute, and the number of students who do this is surprisingly high, even with the deposit. 

I agree with others that I don't think this is a particularly fair solution, but I don't really have any alternatives.

Yes definitely worth asking about this.

In reply to The New NickB:

I agree its a bit of a con, on the other hand we do not know the nos who apply to popular top rated Masters courses and the costs of processing those applications etc etc.£90 is not really going to reduce those applications.Universities these days are ruthless money machines.

Best value on student fees for Masters is to roll over your Ist year into  a Masters if  you get the right grades. Usually the most cost effective way of doing it.

In reply to neilh:

For the MSc course that I am programme coordinator for, we were getting around 900 applicants each year before we started asking for a deposit. We can take a maximum of 40 students. 

Since implementing a deposit, we've reduced the applications to around 200, so it is helpful. These all pay the deposit. We generally end up with around 60 who go through the full process (we make them an offer and they accept it). The most we've ever had actually turn up is 31.

In reply to neilh:

Those are (confusingly) different qualifications - one is undergraduate, the other post-graduate.  Doing what you say may not be a bad idea for many, but they aren't the same thing, and doing both sequentially is common.

To add, an MSc is 180 credits typically and an extra UG year 120, so on a "per-credit" basis, the costs are comparable.

In reply to MG:

I am only guessing here, but outside a career in academia is that really off benefit?  I doubt employers are really concerned.

You do not see jobs where the spec is 180 credits for MSc.

In reply to neilh:

It depends.  Employers probably don't care much about credits.  However, generally MScs are more specific than M.Engs (or similar).  So in my field for example, you might have a Civil  Engineering M.Eng, which is quite general, and/or an MSc in Earthquake Engineering, which would be useful or required for specialised roles.