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Higher Education in America
"Higher Education" is the term that is used in the United States of
America to describe any schooling after secondary or high school education.
Higher education can take the form of a university, college, technical school,
vocational school, or professional school. There are over 3100 accredited
colleges and universities in America. Getting admission in the right school is
the major hurdle that most students must face in pursuing a degree program in
America. It takes careful planning, research and counseling. First a word about
language, Americans generally use the words "college",
"university" and "school" interchangeably, particularly in
speech.
US institutions offer a wide variety of subjects (or majors, as they are called)
to study, everything from the fine and liberal arts to practical,
career-oriented fields such as engineering and marketing. The USA also presents
a wide variety of types of institutions to choose from: large, comprehensive
land-grant institutions of 40,000 students to small traditional liberal arts
colleges of less than a 1000 students. Distinctions among these academic
institutions are in size, level and competitiveness of education offered,
social/residential atmosphere and the time required to complete a degree.
Because the United States is a large country with a variety of climatic and
living conditions, schools vary greatly due to their location. Since academic
levels and quality of instruction are comparable at most accredited institutions
at the undergraduate (bachelor's degree) level, students' personal preferences
as to size, climate and location, play a key role in what school they choose.
Students often begin study at one institution, then transfer after two years to
complete their degree at another institution. One needs good GPA (Grade Point
Average) to transfer. At the graduate (master's, doctoral degree) level, more
importance must be paid to the reputations of the faculty and department.
Admission requirements differ greatly from one institution to another. All
schools, however, require students to submit official transcripts of courses and
grades taken in high school and other post-secondary institutions and a formal
application. Smaller schools require letters of recommendation. Most schools
will require submission of standardized tests such as the TOEFL, and SAT
(Scholastic Aptitude Test), GRE (Graduate Record Exam), GMAT (Graduate
Management Admission Test), etc. Most of these tests are presented by the
Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, New Jersey. It is very important
to begin the admission process early because in many cases application deadlines
are far in advance of the start of the semester (sometimes as many as twelve
months). Students also need to
allow time for scheduling any standardized tests needed for admission and then
having the results of these tests sent to schools. Each college or university
establishes its own unique policies regarding admissions.
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