US students think British are 'the pale people in the rain'

The Daily Telegraph ^ | June 19, 2004 | David Rennie

[MadIvan]

Tomorrow's American leaders think Britain is arrogant, cold, rainy, and far from the cutting edge in science, culture or business, a "disturbing" new survey suggests.

The survey, entitled "Pale People in the Rain" and commissioned by the British Council, found that young, high-achieving students placed Britain far down their list of places to study abroad. They called British universities strict, expensive, hard to enter and "mainly for the upper classes".

For most subjects, they thought staying in the US was the best choice. For computing or high technology, almost three quarters said Japan was the cutting edge. Students interviewed in separate focus groups were uniformly unable to name a single recent British scientific or technical achievement.

For art and design, two thirds made France their preferred destination. Only in the humanities, especially history and literature, did Britain come top as a place to study.

London was judged a "fun" place to study by 90 per cent of students and England had a positive rating as a country. Yet - asked to choose one country to visit - only six per cent chose England. The most popular were France and Italy.

More than 60 per cent of the students said Britain was too cold and rainy for them to want to study there. Fewer than half believed Britain was aptly described as "modern and contemporary", while fewer than one third strongly believed Britain was a "technology leader".

Maureen Michaels, whose New York-based firm conducted the poll, said: "If Britain was a business client of mine, I'd tell them, 'You are not a top choice, in any shape or form'."

The survey questioned some 2,000 ethnic minority students with A or B grade averages and extensive extra-curricular achievements. It was designed to focus on the fastest growing segments of the US population - Latino, Asian American and blacks. All live in Texas and California, booming states set to dominate the "new America" of a few years' time.

The British Council expressed concern that only one third of minority students thought Britain could be described as "diverse".

[prion]

The survey questioned some 2,000 ethnic minority students...

Oh, geez! That explains it...

And Britain isn't cold, at least South of Scotland. It's the same temperature all year 'round. The grass is always green. I was so disappointed -- I was looking forward to that snowy Little-Match-Girl, Dickensian sort of thing.

[Straight Vermonter]

One of the problems with the perception of British as not being cutting edge is that British people have familiar sounding names and I know I have found myself assuming they are Americans. When an article mentions Francois LaBeouf you can be reasonably sure the guy isn't from Omaha.

[Straight Vermonter]

Boy does that sound familiar. As Twain said, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education".