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:
“Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the United States—first, murder stories; secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly overcome by the hero; thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism and other such claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)
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—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
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—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)