Post-secondary Education in the USA
November 26th, 2008
Post-secondary education in the USA is known as university or college and it usually comprises of four years of training. Similar to high school, the undergraduate grades are called freshman, soph, junior, and senior years. Traditionally, students apply to get admission into university, with differing difficulties of entrance. All schools vary in their reputation and competitiveness; usually, the most prestige schools are private. Admissions criteria engage the severity and grades got in high school disciplines taken, the class ranking, students’ GPA, and standardized test scores like the ACT or the SAT tests. Many colleges regard as subjective factors, for example, an engagement to extracurricular activities, an interview, and a personal essay.
Once admitted, students take part in undergraduate study that comprises of gratifying university and class demands to gain a bachelor’s degree in an area of focus called a major. The most common system comprises of four years of education leading to B.S. (a Bachelor of Science), B.A. (a Bachelor of Arts), or another bachelor’s degree like B.F.A. (Bachelor of Fine Arts), B.S.W. (Bachelor of Social Work), B.Eng. (Bachelor of Engineering,) and others.
Different from the British form, professional degrees like dentistry, medicine, and law, are not provided at the undergraduate level and they only are fulfilled as graduate study after achieving three years of undergraduate education or after getting a bachelor’s degree counting on the program. These fields do not demand a special undergraduate major, although dentistry and medicine have set prerequisite courses, which are to be completed before enrollment.