Attending College in The Netherlands

[Louis]

Hello All!
I am a 17 year old American and I have been looking into colleges in the Netherlands. I will tell you a little about myself, my reasons for wanting to go to the Netherlands, and my actions I have already taken to complete this task. First of all, I am involved in many school activities, have a 3.0 gpa, an 1190 on my SAT (reading and math) and I am taking college classes this year in an effort to gain an edge when going to college. I have taken 2 years of Spanish, one year of French and 4 years of German. I picked the Netherlands as my country of choice because it is known world wide as a very nice country, takes 5 years to become a citizen (shorter than most) and the colleges are reasonably priced. My problem that I am now having however, is I don't know which colleges to apply to. I would rather not apply somewhere I have no chance of getting into, and because I'm here in America, and I have no dutch friends, it is very hard for me to know what colleges to look into. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know!
Thanks a ton in advance

[mikehayes]

Definitely get out of the US, for a change. Where you go doesn't matter so much, but good choices for you would be netherlands, belgium, canada, spain, and new zealand. Choose your career, then pick a university in one of those countries that suits your industry. Antwerp, Belgium would be a good choice because it only takes 3 years to get Belgian citizenship (which is compatible with US citizenship), and you're just ~30-60 min train trip from NL.

Avoid Australia - it's as conservative as the US. Avoid South Africa - they're not over the racial issues there, and the separation between the lower and upper classes is huge (exacerbating the racial tensions).

[Louis]

Well you see, I already know my career choice. I want to be an international business major, so I was just looking into the netherlands because it is easy to pay for. I checked out belgium too, the only problem is they don't speak english in their universities, and I don't know dutch/french. So basically, I'm thinking the netherlands is probably the best place to go, my only problem is I'm not sure which universities to apply to (aka which ones would take me). So if you can help me out on which ones have the highest acceptance rates, that would be pretty sweet.

[Louis]

and if you knew of any cheaper schools in Belgium, that would be nice knowledge to come by as well.

[mikehayes]

Business is a specialty of some schools in Brussels, IIRC. For intl business, brussels is the first place I would check.

As far as language goes, apart from UK cities, you will not find an easier city to speak English in than Brussels. I'm not sure about the classes though. I have heard that all graduate courses in Europe are generally in English, but entry level classes are in national languages.
You can probably find some exceptions though.

[Louis]

Ok, so Belgium is the best choice. That's definitely a good thing to know. I looked into a few schools in Antwerp, but not really sure which ones would accept an average student... anyone know?

[katiewebber]

There are good colleges in the Netherlands, but I would prefer to study in England.

[justincoates]

Well you see, I already know my career choice. I want to be an international business major, so I was just looking into the netherlands because it is easy to pay for. I checked out belgium too, the only problem is they don't speak english in their universities, and I don't know dutch/french. So basically, I'm thinking the netherlands is probably the best place to go, my only problem is I'm not sure which universities to apply to (aka which ones would take me). So if you can help me out on which ones have the highest acceptance rates, that would be pretty sweet.

If you decide to study in the Netherlands, you should know that there are many programs in English and they are cheaper than in the US or UK.


But living in the Netherlands is expensive. Before studying, I planned every weekend to get out to some European city, go to museums and spend the night in a hotel on the banks of the Seine. The plan did not work: there is only enough money for rare trips around the country. In the Netherlands, students are poor and save on everything - housing, food, entertainment.