United States
In the United States of America, high school students apply to four-year liberal arts colleges and universities, which include both undergraduate or graduate students. Others attend community colleges, who almost always admit all students with high school diplomas, in preparation for transfer to a four year university. Non-traditional students are usually students over the age of 22 who pursue studies in higher education. Students may apply to many institutions using the Common Application. There is no limit to the number of colleges or universities to which a student may apply, though an application must be submitted for each. Fees are generally charged for each admissions application, but can be waived based on financial need.
Students apply to one or more colleges or universities by submitting an application which each college evaluates using its own criteria. The college then decides whether or not to extend an offer of admission (and possibly financial aid) to the student. The majority of colleges admit students to the college as a whole, and not to a particular academic major, although this may not be the case in some specialized programs such as engineering and architecture. The system is decentralized: each college has its own criteria for admission, even when using a common application form (the most widely used is The Common Application).
Common criteria includes ACT or SAT scores, extracurricular activities, Grade Point Average, demonstrated integrity, and a general college admissions essay. Further criteria, used to varying degrees, include athletic ability, legacy preferences (family members having attended the school), race, ability to pay full tuition, potential to donate money to the school (development case), desired class composition (especially diversity, which includes racial diversity, geographical and national diversity, and diversity of interests in the class), perceived fit, subjective evaluation of student character (based on essays or interviews), and general discretion by the admissions office. The importance of the various factors varies between universities, and selectiveness varies significantly, as measured by admissions rate (which depends both on selectiveness and number and type of applicants). The admissions rate can range from 100% (schools that accept everyone with a high school diploma) to below 10%.
- Further information: Transfer admissions in the United States
Read more about this topic: University And College Admissions
Famous quotes related to united states:
“What chiefly distinguishes the daily press of the United States from the press of all other countries is not its lack of truthfulness or even its lack of dignity and honor, for these deficiencies are common to the newspapers everywhere, but its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion. It is, in the true sense, never well-informed.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“We can beat all Europe with United States soldiers. Give me a thousand Tennesseans, and I’ll whip any other thousand men on the globe!”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“Today’s difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“When, in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special town meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing to the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the United States there’s a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)