The American university application process is weird

Anyone agrees? I just read it in comparison to the UK and there's emphasis on personality, family background, likes and dislikes...the admissions people aren't even experts in the field? Yet somehow America produces a lot of success in terms of students and university standards like the Ivy League. The UK process makes a lot more sense to me (bias but it focuses on academic interests in the personal statements rather than stories about what you did in music and sports, which is a lot easier to identify whether you're capable of higher education)

Reply 1

turn-to-page394

Don't know a huge deal about the american college system but pretty sure you can't apply for specific subjects and it's not a requirement to know what you're going to major in. You're applying to go to college, not do a certain subject I think? So they want people who fit their "college brand" (whatever that means) and you don't need academic experts to carry out that role of choosing people.

Also, aren't "stories about musics/sports" an extension of the extracurricular portion of our PS? "Showing your academic interests" doesn't necessarily indicate that a student is capable of time management/being well-rounded/coping well under stress etc whereas extracurriculars are a better indicator. And applicants have to sit college app exams too so they're not ignoring academic ability (if that's what the exams test) as such.

But yeah, having to write a personal story of sorts would make me cringe so hard. The PS was horrible enough :biggrin:

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 2

Sataris

I think it's quite odd how you don't go to university there to do a specific subject... You just get in on other merits and then figure out what you want to do. But I guess it would be cool not be be on rails like you are here

Reply 3

Doones

Moved to Education Debate...

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Reply 4

Doones

Yep those days have gone
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/banker-is-told-he-cannot-buy-son-a-place-at-oxford-9268940.html

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Reply 5

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Bear in mind, in the US you (normally) just apply to a university "at large". You don't apply to a specific subject/degree programme (with a few exceptions, increasingly engineering departments have you pre-apply to the major), as you choose your major sometime before then end of your sophmore year typically. This means the university admitting you needs to be reasonably confident you can do pretty well in any major, hence the well-roundedness "requirement".

Related to this typically US colleges (with one or two exceptions, like Brown) have a structured "core" of general education requirements, where all students are expected to take one or two classes (i.e. modules) in different areas (e.g. maths/quantitative skills, sciences, humanities, social sciences, arts, writing, foreign languages) - this supports students in finding which major to go into, and necessarily requires at least some "well roundedness" for any student, even the ones who already know (or think they know) what they want to study. You can't just apply to university in the US to study e.g. physics - you inevitably also need to take a bunch of other classes. This has it's upsides and downsides but that's another debate entirely...

The UK system somewhat engenders a more meritocratic format because you're applying to an individual subject area, so they can just focus on those relevant aspects, and the narrower focus allows admissions tutors in the UK to use more common criteria to compare candidates (e.g. A-level UMS). This is also supported by the centralised application format through UCAS, so everyone has their information submitted to all universities in more or less the same format. In the US, you normally apply to the individual universities, unless they're part of the CommonApp (which is kind of like UCAS, but even then the essays i.e. personal statements are still sometimes unique to different colleges) or a state school system like the UCs.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 6

vicvic38

In my opinion, the entire american system is warped.

It takes them 4 years to get a bachelors. I can have a masters in my field in that time. They do this by having students have a stupid surplus of general education credits they have to have. I believe this all started in a good place, they wanted to create students who are well rounded citizens.

However, I now believe they do it to milk the student loans business for every last penny they can.