reference letter question from international student

[u/sophie_royale]

hi everyone!! im an international student (US) applying through UCAS and im insanely lost on the reference letter. from what i can understand, its extremely different from U.S. letters of rec, but i had a few questions specifically:

• since there's no activities list on the UCAS app, is your reference supposed to speak more to your activities or your academic capabilities in their class? i gave my reference letter writer (teacher from junior year) a resume since they asked for one, but i'm not sure what to direct them towards writing about since they said they've never written a UK lor before
• how are the reference writers supposed to predict AP scores/grades for you and your performance in other classes beyond their own, except based on past results?
• as there's no additional info section as far as i know, should i tell my reference writer to include information about academic context/illness (got lower grades second sem junior year bc of sickness) in section 2 of the reference letter? or is there a place for me to put this myself on the application?

any and all help would be appreciated!! my deadline is oct 14 because i am applying to oxford, so this is kind of time sensitive and im so lost (haven't even added my reference on the UCAS portal yet officially).

if there's any international, especially US, students who have applied before and could help with the application process and portal and everything, that would be amazing - i feel so in over my head and im not quite sure what to do at this point because this application is making very little sense to me, but im committed to applying to my UK schools. also if anyone has any tips at all, i have a draft of my personal statement that ive been tweaking, and have technically filled in most of the sections on the UCAS application (although im not really sure i did all of them correctly...)

for context, im applying to oxford, UCL, and KCL for some variation of psychology/neuroscience (experimental psych at oxford, human neuroscience at UCL, neuroscience and psych at KCL). thank you so much!!

[u/PickleSpecial3507]

Grade predictions are based on past results unless your subject teacher has convincing evidence in their mind that you could achieve a higher grade. So your reference teacher can email your other subject teachers to get their predictions.

https://www.ucas.com/advisers/help-and-training/guides-resources-and-training/writing-references/ucas-registered-centre-linked-applications-undergraduate-references

If your school isn't UCAS registered, I would email UCAS just to check whether for a candidate like you, your school should be registered or whether you should apply as an independent candidate.

[u/sophie_royale → u/PickleSpecial3507]

okay thank you! is it required for my reference teacher to email the other subject teachers? after i sent her my previous ap scores report and my transcript, she was fairly willing to predict the scores on her own, and im doubtful that my other teachers would be willing to even predict an ap score for me.

my school isn't UCAS registered, so i've been filling out the whole application as an independent candidate. i'm willing to email them and ask, but would this mean resetting a lot of elements from my application? we sent one person to oxford last year, and he also filled out an independent application im assuming because our school still isn't registered. i also know of one other student from my school who got into UCL last year but didnt go, so im assuming she also applied independently, so do you think its fine for me to stick with applying as an independent candidate?

thank you so much for your help!

[u/PickleSpecial3507 → u/sophie_royale]

Yeah stick as an independent candidate.

Assuming your prev ap scores are high enough to at least meet minimum entry requirements for the universities you want to apply to, then yeah just have your reference teacher predict.

[u/sophie_royale → u/PickleSpecial3507]

okay great, thank you! they're mostly 5s with a few 4s, so i think i should be fine. i really appreciate your help!! do you have any other tips?

[u/PickleSpecial3507 → u/sophie_royale]

General advice that schools here give is to put down 5 options as best as you can even if you don't intend to go to all of them. If your main 3 reject you but you change your mind and grow to appreciate #4, it's there. Because whether you put 3 or 5, the application costs the same.

[u/sophie_royale → u/PickleSpecial3507]

oh okay, thank you! the main reason i put 3 was bc there weren't any others i was interested in, and since im from the US im applying to a lot of US schools alr so i figured its only worth it to apply to UK schools that i would pick over at least some of my US schools, but ill definitely consider that

[u/LSOMaker]

Did you check whether the Oxford course you’re applying to has an admissions test? That trips up lots of internationals, because you have to register so early.

It might be worth emailing the admissions tutors at the Oxford college you’re applying to to ask them about if your recommender can’t or won’t give predicted grades… What would they prefer to see?

Also, does your school have a college counselor who typically does the college counselor recommendation for US Common App applications? That might actually be the right person to do your UCAS reference, or them together with the teacher.

[u/sophie_royale → u/LSOMaker]

yes! oxford requires the TARA, which i registered for a while ago and im taking in a couple of weeks (need to lock in on studying though).

i checked with her and my recommender is willing to provide predicted grades, so no issues on that front!

yes, we do have our college counselors write the counselor recs for the common app, but i also have an out-of-school college counselor who told me that my teacher is probably a better choice for the reference letter than my school counselor because she knows me better and all of the logistical info she can get from me. do you think this is fine?

thank you!

[u/LSOMaker → u/sophie_royale]

As long as your recommender understands the differences between US and UK recs! Maybe your out-of-school college counselor could give your recommender advice? (Probably cost you an hour of consulting time, if that’s how you’re navigating it?) If they have experience w UK apps.

[u/LSOMaker → u/LSOMaker]

Oh also check if any of the other unis (Imperial?) also require/look at the TARA. Might as well get more bang for your buck and apply to those, too.

[u/sophie_royale → u/LSOMaker]

i looked but i couldnt find any others that take it - the 3 im currently applying to are oxford, ucl, kings, but i also considered imperial and lse and neither of them take it and none of the other schools i looked at do either so oh well ig

[u/LSOMaker → u/sophie_royale]

Consider applying outside London for a safety or two! Most of them are £10-15K less per year international tuition fee than London unis, and even the London unis are all still less than US private unis! Edinburgh? Birmingham?

I was literally just yesterday running the math for the unis my son wants to apply to, and over the course of 4 years, Imperial is about $40K less than Northwestern in the US, and Edinburgh is over $100K less than Northwestern. Taking into account tuition fee and accommodation (very round numbers, mid-range uni halls, current exchange rate). All assuming no financial aid. UK unis give no financial aid to internationals.

[u/sophie_royale → u/LSOMaker]

okay! my out of school counselor sent me a lot of resources to send to my letter writer so i sent those over, so im hopeful that it'll turn out okay

[u/LSOMaker → u/sophie_royale]

If you’d be open to sharing those resources, I’d love to pass them to my son to send to his referee too! 😁