<p>I am applyinig to LACs and found there are some colleges only provide Bachelor of Art not Science. Is there any difference in B.A and B.S to further education or career?</p>
<p>What possible majors are you looking at? In something like Chemistry, there can be a big difference when applying to grad schools if you have a BA vs. a BS. The best degree in Chemistry is an ACS-accredited BS. A accredited BS in Chemistry is going to require more courses at a higher level than a BA, and the BS includes a research requirement.</p>
<p>Some places only award a B.A. - even in math or science.</p>
<p>Some places only award a B.S. - even for the majors that are artsy (Happykid will graduate with a B.S. in Theatre, go figure).</p>
<p>Some places differentiate between the sciences (B.S.) and the liberal arts (B.A.) and maybe even fine arts (B.F.A.) or business (B.B.A.) or engineering (B.Eng.) and only award a B.S. in science or math and only award a B.A. in English or history, etc.</p>
<p>Some places allow you to choose between a B.A. and a B.S. in whatever it is that you are studying and award one or the other based on the presence or absence of specific courses: for example, Happykid’s B.S. in Theatre could become a B.A. if she would somehow squeeze in a year of foreign language study around all of her theatre tech/design coursework.</p>
<p>What matters to you as a student is whether or not the B.A. or B.S. your college/university will end up awarding you will qualify you for the job or post-grad admission that is your goal. That is the question that you need to have answered. There are many B.A. programs that are course for course the same as the B.S. program at a different institution. In fact, a number of the ACS-accredited programs that InigoMontoya mentioned above do indeed award a B.A. because that is the only degree name that the college/university uses.</p>
<p>The key is to look where the graduates go - what grad schools, what businesses. Those places aren’t taking graduates in the blind, they know what they’re getting based on years of experience. Expect you’ll have pretty much the same opportunities. And once you have your first post-grad situation, it’s what you do in that situation that counts, not whether you have a BS or BA.</p>
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<p>If the same school offers BA and BS degree programs in the same major, you should check the courses and curricula (and external accreditation, if applicable to the major) for each to see what the difference is.</p>
<p>Across different schools, the title of the degree being BA or BS cannot be used as a way to compare degrees. For example, math and physics majors at Berkeley graduate with BA degrees, while history and literature majors at MIT graduate with SB (Scienti</p>
<p>Thanks you all very much. I am interested in both biology and computer science. I want to get a master degree in bioinformatics after graduation.</p>
<p>The BS usually has more requirements. </p>
<p>Or put another way, the BS has less BS than the BA.</p>
<p>It just really varies from school to school. There’s nothing standard about this. Some schools offer only the BA, even in sciences. Some schools offer only the BS, even in humanities and social sciences. Some schools award both, dividing it out by major–BS for sciences, BA for humanities and social sciences. Some schools allow students to elect a BA track or a BS track in some majors, with somewhat different requirements for each degree (the BS usually the more natural science/quantitative track).</p>
<p>You really can’t make sense of it except in the context of the particular school. Graduate school admissions committees understand this and are not going to get hung up on the degree per se; they will want to understand what the degree means in the context of undergraduate institution’s system.</p>
<p>^^^Unless there is an outside body accrediting the degree, in which case graduate schools know exactly what courses were taken to earn the degree.</p>
<p>At some schools (not all!) the joke is the difference is a calculus req’t.</p>