Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
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Ok, I am interested in the comparison between UK and US qualifications. I have been searching the Net for sites that talk about this and I have found out a couple of things. But I want opinions from here because what I found kinda freaked me out to the point that I can't believe all of its right (particularly in Higher Education. Also, in terms of Higher Education, there is a 'general' belief in the UK that a UK degree is very highly valued in the US in general comparison to US degrees. But looking at it, we have very different systems for Higher Education and our degrees, particularly the Bachelor system for undergraduates. This is what I found at an ex-Pat site Limeys in the US.

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Secondary School

GCE/GCSE - are considered comparable to an American High School Graduation Diploma.

A'Level - There is no direct equivalent to A'Levels in the US. The nearest equivalents are Advanced Placement (AP) tests, which are gaining increased recognition by British universities. The AP Programme is an advanced-level curriculum in a range of subjects, prepared by The College Board and adopted by a high school in addition to its state-mandated curriculum. Students who elect to enrol in the AP course in a given subject - biology, for example - complete one academic year of coursework that is designed to parallel an introductory college-level course in that subject. Upon completion of the course, students may sit the AP exam in their chosen subject, for which there is a fee. A successful mark on the exam generally ensures that the student will not have to repeat the same coursework when s/he gets to college - that is, the college will waive certain 'general education' requirements in the subjects for which the student has passed the AP. As the AP programme is costly for a given school to adopt, parents and students should not assume that it will be an automatic option, but should enquire with the prospective high school in advance.

Higher Education

BTEC National Diploma - The N/SVQ level three/Advanced GNVQ/GSVQ standard is roughly the equivalent of an American Associate degree. This is particularly true when comparing to American courses of a more vocational nature such as the 'Associate of Applied Arts or Science'.

Bachelor degree - diversity is the key to American higher education with more than 3,000 institutions offering post-secondary education. This means a uniform standard of Bachelor degree is impossible. A bachelor degree obtained from an accredited university in the UK will be recognised by any US university.

Bachelor (Honours) degree - in terms of specialisation, the UK Honours degree is considered comparable to the American Master's degree from prestigious colleges and universities.

britishexpats.com

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If these are true, I have a High School Diploma, an Assoiate Degree, and an American Masters Degree. That last bit is the one that freaks me out btw.

What I am now wondering is what the Masters Degree that I am currently taking is equivalent to?

Generally speaking, over here, most undergraduates will be taking an a Bachelor (Honours) degree. Be it a BA (Hons) or a BSc (Hons). To get the Honours it usually means you have written athesis of between 10,000 and 20,000 words (dependent on the institution).

Also, as I mentioned in the other thread, the Americans I have studied with and lived with over here have alwasy commented on how what gets you an A in the US gets you a C in the UK (generally).

Why do we have these disparities I wonder? Smug? Any comments as the only PGCE limey?

(PGCE - Post Graduate Certificate in Education)

edit: the purpose of this post is not to play up or play down either side btw. I am genuinely interested in what these different equivalents are. At the end of the day its only a name the degree has.

Can anyone find any other sites that show equivalences?

Last edited by philjit on 05-23-2002 at 09:20 AM

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quote:

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Originally posted by Phil
Also, in terms of Higher Education, there is a 'general' belief in the UK that a UK degree is very highly valued in the US in general comparison to US degrees.

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quote:

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Originally posted by skalie
Is not the status of the institute a factor here?

Havard vs Open University?

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Last edited by philjit on 05-23-2002 at 09:46 AM

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as I say Skalie, what I am intesrted in is the equivalence between the actual qualifications. ie if I hand over my CV to an american company what will they make of it? What will they consider my qualifications comparable too? That kind of thing. Vice versa also. There's no point in getting into a 'MIT is better than Kings College London' type argument because that is gonna be dependent on the subject that is being looked at. You know like MIT is probably not gonna be better than Kings at medicine, mainly because I don't think MIT is a medical institution. I am talking about general equivalence.

Last edited by philjit on 05-23-2002 at 09:32 AM

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From what I have seen of physics, there is a difference in the difficulty of degree, although PhDs from UK and US are certainly equivalent (although a physics PhD in the states may be 5 years, with 2 years of taught courses; I have heard that this is true at Stanford and Berkely, for example).

If you really want to see a system that is of high standard, that would be the german one; in terms of understanding they are at PhD level at the end of their degree (as far as physics is concerned).

There isn't that much standardisation of what degree is worth in the UK; although they are all checked by the CNAA (may have changed name now) that they meet the minimum difficulty, some universities do set harder exams.

As far as the UK school system is concerned, it is now significantly easier to get the grades in physics than it was; the new physics A levels have had some stuff removed but this was because it was percieved to be the hardest A level by some way(maths got harder for example). Most other subjects have comparable standards to what they did when the GCSEs were introduced (I myself was the last year of O Levels) in 1987, I believe.

The biggest problem with degrees is that although they have increased the number of people going to university, it is primarily in the arts rather than the sciences; employment prospects for an english graduate, say, are not so good (let alone sociology graduates, of whom there are many, and even psychology graduates from lesser universities).

I prefer the german system, although I think that there shouldn't be grammar schools ('gymnasium' in Germany) but rather setting within a comprehensive system. Setting is key though, for my money, but as far as university goes, the germans rule.

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I knew I was being blindingly obvious with my remarks, I would have mentioned it in my post, but I hate being apologetic.

Recently I've been looking into entry requirements for foreign students wanting to attend foreign universities, the documentations from the websites of the universities themselves were quite thorough.

Also in regard to the value of the degrees they offerred and their international status.

Interestingly enough the local university here (Holland) is just beginning to offer Bachelor and Master degrees on their curriculum.

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I think what I find intersting in this subject is the language differences. I mean, to me a BTEC National is equivalent to two A-Levels (at least that is how Universities view them), and I would not call my BTEC a degree. But in the US, assuming that the above is correct, it would be called a degree. The language difference there is fascinating, because if say an American came over to the UK and said, in conversation, 'I have an American Associate Degree in Pshychology' the assumption that those listening would make as a result of the word 'degree' are vastly different to those that an American would take on the basis of their understanding of what it actually means.

How long does an American Associate Degree course last?

ahhh discourse theory is wonderful

And yes Smug, in undergraduate terms, sociology is a dropout degree, at least here. Again here's an intersting difference, becasue the US is pretty much the world leader in social scietific research, and sociology is far more valued generally in the America academia. At least that is what the artice in the Guardian and the Social Science Review from the OU said

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The Open University physics course is excellent (as is the maths course I believe).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Smug Git
The Open University physics course is excellent (as is the maths course I believe).

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Edit: edited, was being a trifle pointlessly obnoxious in the interests of encouraging thoughtfull debate.

Last edited by skalie on 05-23-2002 at 10:46 AM

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The key is probably how many people you wish to get into further education. Given that ability is pretty much normally distributed, you have to ensure that entrance criteria and the difficulty of passing are at the right level to achieve that, obviously.

Increasing the amount of coursework that counts toward a final degree can increase the pass rate, arguably without decreasing the mental facility required, although it becomes much easier to cheat in that case (any teacher who knows you can tell you are cheating if you are going from C before to brilliant A, or your style changes, but a more subtle sort of cheating can be achieved more easily); another problem with coursework is that individual teachers can overmark to make themselves look better (at schools and university) wheras exams and markschemes have to approved and exams are at least second marked and more than that if there is a problem.

As a matter of interest, coursework benefits females more than males statistically (according to the endless INSET training that I had to go to when I was teaching full time); recieved wisdom is that males are lazier than females, on average.

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I think that you are on a true fruitless search, Phil. Twenty years ago or more there was a sort of standardization of degree value of degrees inj the US but it has been watered down to where in many fields it is meaningless. It does vary by fields and by institution and there is no getting around it. The cirriculum has been watered down terrificaly in the secondary schools, the Jr. colleges and the Universities in certain fields but not in all fields.

Few facts:

Ninety one percent of the Harvard Bachelor degree class of 2001
I heard on TV yesterday graduated "with honors". Harvard says this will never happen again. Obviously they made the cirriculum so simple that 91% could qualify.

Secondary schools widely use "social promotion" meaning if a child is over a certain age that shild is promoted to the nect grade
to maintain his "cultural integrity". Some community colleges do this. A few universities do this.

An Associate Degree in the US univerally means that it was obtained by two years of study after secondary school and usually in a "Community college" or a Commercial technical school
like DeVry Institute.

A Master's degree used to mean two years of classwork plus a rigorous thesis after a Bachelor's degree in the same subject from a recognized University. About 1970 there begin to be a watering down of Master's requirements because of civil rights
protesting that all education was being slanted toward Anglo Saxon values and ignoring minority cultures. The Education gurus
also began to say that if every one didn't pass it was the fault of the institution not the student. In other words it became unfashionable for an institution to have students fail. So most universities have dropped the thesis requirement and reduced the rigour of the subject matter. My daughter gets her Master's Degree in Social Work (quite different from Sociology over here)
this summer. She will not have to write a thesis, but will have to do a five month internship in lieu thereof. Substituting internships for theses is quite popular in some degrees.

A Ph.D, LL.D., SJD, and MD are generally still pretty rigorous from most institutions and can require anything from two to seven years study after the Master's Degree depending upon the field chosen and the research project supporting the thesis.

I got my Master's Degree late in life. I was 46 in 1973 when I got it. I had rigorous classwork and a thesis required and less than half of the class passed in the minimum time. My degree is an
MBA (Master of Business Administration). My degree was not awarded "with honors"---either my BA or my MBA.

Every field has its hororary society. In Arts and Sciences it is Phi Beta Kappa. Possession of a Phi Beta Kappa key is often a better mark of scholarship than the degree itself.

I am ashamed to say it but the secondary education system and even the colleges have become so infatuated with "multicultualism" and its value that they don't tech the subject neasr as much as they used to do.

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oxsan, I should have emntioned that an Honours Degree is not something that is deifned as in 'passing with honours' in the UK. Its the name of the degree and defined by the style of course, ie a tehsis at the end. Someone can get 40% across the board and still pass an Honours Degree course. Does that make sense? Again this is a language difference I think. As I understand it, a degree with Honours in the US means you have been awarded Honours. An Honours Degree in the UK is something which you take and get so long as you pass. The grading comes in after that. e.g I have an Upper Second Class Honours degree, a friend simply has a Pass Honours Degree, another friend has a Third Class Honours Degree etc etc.

edit: excuse typos

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When I was hiring a lot of people in the seventies and eighties we used to routinely examine the college transcript to see how many basket weaving 101, Flower Arrangement 101, and
Civil Disobedience 101 type courses they had in their Electrical Engineering cirriculum to bring their overall grade average up to a degree level.

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quote:

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Originally posted by oxsan
When I was hiring a lot of people in the seventies and eighties we used to routinely examine the college transcript to see how many basket weaving 101, Flower Arrangement 101, and
Civil Disobedience 101 type courses they had in their Electrical Engineering cirriculum to bring their overall grade average up to a degree level.

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Yes, I understand about "Honours programs" I understand that it is seperate from graduating with honours. My ex-wife did both. She got her BA in an Honours Program with a very restrictive cirriculum. She also graduated Magna Cum Laude and was a
Phi Beta Kappa . That program still exists at The University of Texas. My ex-wife exceeds me in scholarship and intelligence. She also is a member of MENSA.

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excuse my ignorance but what is are all these strange greek phrases? IS this the fraternity/soriety system?

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Colleges and Universities in the US get reputations for excellence in certain fields. In Electrical Engineering and Physics when I was active in hiring we loved to get applicants from Massachussetts
Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Rice Institute, California Tech. Harvard, Yale, Princeton are famous for Law, Politics, Literatue and Art Criticism and Writing. Johns Hopkins is probably the premier Medical school in the US although that changes pretty regularly. Both the University of Chicago and Northwestern University are famous in the History and Sociology studies I hear.

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Each field has a "scholastic honorary society". For the field of "arts and sciences" this organization is Phi Beta Kappa. In order to be elected to Phi Beta Kappa you must have na grade average of 4.0 (at least it used to be) and end up in the top six percent of the graduating class plus your university file must show no untoward conduct marks. For engineers the society is I think is Theta Kappa Psi (but I'm not sure any more). It is quite an honor to be elected to any one of them. They may well be watered down a bit since I deidnj't get one. I can't see Phi Beta Kappa electing some football jock because he made straight As in Sport Psychology (a repeatable course designed to keep footbal;l players elgible)

I realize that I have noit given yuou the comparison that you asked for but I can't because I don';e know that much about the English system nor did I in 47 years of highly technical work ever hire any scientists or engineers with degrees from UK schools.
Cable and Wireless was a principle customer of ours (as well as a competitor) and we did some business for other UK agencies and I always found their engineers competent.

I think you are right about an "Honous BA". Even though my ex-wife was in an Honors Program her degree reads Bachelor of Arts
PlanII Magna Cum Laude. You would have to know that PlanII was an honours program and US Universities don't have an equivalent to an "Honours BA". I know of one University that requires a five year program and thesis project for a bachelors Degree in Physics Or Electrical Engineering (Rice University). But they don't call it an Honours BA. I have heard people say that a BA from Rice is equivalent To an MA or MS from any where else.

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I hear a Masters from Oxford is worth about twenty quid.

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50% of my grades were really, really good, 40% of my grades were average, and the remaining 30% of my grades were so-so.

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I did IB

Nobody knows what that is.

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