University of St Andrews

This particular campus building was beautiful, very traditional, and true to the University's original character. In those respects, it met all my interests as a year-abroad student. I thoroughly enjoyed living around so many international students, but somewhat regret opting to have my own room; could be quite isolating.

Overall the housing was adequate, I got a single room, which was very helpful since the classes I was taking were difficult for me. The food was good and available in the same building as the rooms, so you didn't have to trek in the pouring rain. Even if you're not overly excited about the accomodations themselves, the people are lovely.

St Andrews is an expensive city. I lived on campus (Albany Park) in a University-owned house with other 5 girls. Not lots of space, many problems with the fridge (!), not extremely beautiful, but it was on the sea, the cheapest thing you could find in town, 15 minutes walk from the centre, and much better than Fife Park, a similar group of University-owned houses, placed at 40 minutes walk from the centre.

Overall Rating You will read everywhere that this school is the best for IR and the third best in the UK after Oxbridge. The Prince and Middleton met here and a handful of other personalities have passed through this school. You are thinking how can I refuse St Andrews? Be careful this school is not the image it sells. The facilities are quite terrible and in most cases are below what one see in an American local university ( after visiting friends that chose to study in the US I came to the sad conclusion that my school may be prestigious but it lacks restaurants, gyms, swimming pools and libraries). The library here is ridiculous there are about 3000 students studying IR and some books have only a single copy which is probably in the hands of some graduate student that will and can keep it for the duration of his program. The gym only works odd hours and my high school's gym was better equipped and bigger ( and here you pay 100 pounds per year). There are quite a number of lunatics also walking around. A boy I know was blinded as another put antifreezer in his drink http://news.stv.tv/scotland/tayside/244168-st-andrews-student-blinded-after-drink-spiked-with-anti-freeze/. My friend's best friend was also sexually assaulted check the link to the story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12603609. Another boy was kicked out of the dorms because he was threating to kill fellow students and knives were found in his room. Besides of course the high number of people that end up going to rehab or came straight from rehab to St Andrews. In all honestly this have been an amazing and ecstatic year ( not) and I cant wait to go home and never return to this University. Dorms are awful as well. Anyone can enter the building as there is ZERO security. The water in the showers don?t ever get warm in the freezing winter which means you shower with cold water. The internet connection in the dorms is also very bad as it only works when it wants. Yes,read other comments the city life is absolutely terrible. There is a single supermarket to supply food for the entire town ( which btw consists of 3 streets). When the snow was heavy in November, the supermarket and most of the other establishments were closed so you must had to stock up on food. Even halls/ dorms didnt have food to serve the students. EVERYTHING CLOSES AT 5 O'CLOCK!!! The supermarket at 12 and one coffee place at 10 ( when it opens or is not an exclusive to certain society night). There is no city life, the closest thing is Dundee ( which is not that great but at least they have a Primark, Urban Outfitters) and are open till 6. Edinburgh is the best city nearby and its only 1 hour away by train. Students are very cliquy as most of them came from private single-sexed boarding schools. Anything related to village life is also present here, you see...

Rented accomodation is plentiful and, if you are quick, can be both cheap and beatifully located. In my fourth year, I had a huge room in a house near the harbour, looking out onto a garden with apond which attracted a great many wild birds including herons.

The residence where I was living was a bit far from the centre (2,5 km) and it was the poorest accommodation in St. Andrews. It was a residence formed by houses of six people, with a bathroom, a toilet, the kitchen, and the rooms.