<p>I'm finding this kind of confusing. Most UK universities offer a 3-year BA, including Durham, which is what we're looking at. If a student completes this degree, is he/she eligible to pursue graduate work in North America?
Durham offers a 3-year BA, and also 4-year "MA" which I don't think is the equivalent of a North American MA. Or is it?
There's a big financial difference for international students considering a UK education, if they only have to pay for 3, rather than 4 years...
Any opinions?
Thanks...</p>
<p>A three year UK degree will qualify you for postgrad work and study elsewhere. They are full degrees, just like a BA from the US. However, they are specialised from day one and they start at roughly the same standard as the second year of a US degree, because A Levels (qualifications taken between the age of 16 and 18) are of the same standard as the first year of US college, or AP tests. </p>
<p>The four year ‘undergraduate masters’ lie somewhere in a no-mans-land between a BA and an MA. The work covered in the final year will be on a par with that of a taught masters course, but because you do not receive both a BA and an MA, people often do not hold it in such high regard as doing separate BA and MA courses.</p>
<p>If you are worried, however, you should email some universities where you think you might be interested in studying for a postgrad degree, and some employers in your sector.</p>
<p>Thanks, boomting.
The school we’re looking at dies a “combined” BA of Arts and Social Sciences. Seems specialisation is not really locked in in quite the same way as it is in most UK unis, which is one of the reasons it’s desirable.
I’ve emailed the Dean and will see what’s what.</p>
<p>If you want a broader degree, then you might like to look at Scottish degrees. However, they’re four years long and even if they do confer an MA then it is less likely than an English undergrad MA to qualify you for postgrad work. </p>
<p>The English and the Scottish education systems are totally different, as you might be starting to gather! Are you particularly looking north or south of the border, or have you no strong preference? </p>
<p>You may also like to have a look at Durham and Exeter’s Combined Studies degrees. I’m sure there are others out there too.</p>
<p>Durham is exactly what we’re looking at… my son has just got his letter of acceptance. And, yes, we’ve looked at Exeter as well. And he’s applied to Edinburgh and St. Andrew’s, but as cost is one of the issues, a 3-year degree at a great school is a pretty tempting offer.
I wonder whether more and more English schools will start heading in this direction… Oxbridge, etc. was out of the question for our son, since he really didn’t want to commit to one subject at this point… Too many interests.
Seems crazy to have to make that sort of commitment so soon in life, though I know there are lots of you out there that seem to know just EXACTLY what you want to do, from grade school on…</p>
<p>Congrats on the Durham offer - it’s a great uni! </p>
<p>I think the reason for the specialisation is that the A Levels that I mentioned earlier allow people to specialise into a broad science / arts / social sciences / languages / whatever pathway between the ages of 16 and 18, and go into it in some depth. You do 10 (or so) subjects up to 16, then 4 to the age of 17, and then 3 to the age of 18. After that, people usually know what subject(s) they are most interested in and where their talents do (and don’t!) lie, and doing only one or two subjects at uni seems like a natural progression. It’s for this reason that medicine and law (to name but a few) are undergrad degrees here, whereas they are postgrad degrees in the US. </p>
<p>I don’t think there’s any particular will to offer more flexible degrees - many students do know what they want to do, the view is that degrees should have more depth than breadth, and a switch to four year degrees across the board would be unpopular for financial reasons, both on the side of students and the government. </p>
<p>As he’s looking down the social sciences route, he may also like to take a look at Manchester’s BA(Econ) degree. Goodness only knows why I didn’t think to mention it before, as I’m doing that degree! It allows a decent level of flexibility within the social sciences, economics, business and accounting sectors. However, it appears that it has changed substantially since I started my degree, and now offers less flexibility than it originally did, but I would imagine that changing your major is still entirely possible [BA</a> Econ (School of Social Sciences - The University of Manchester)](<a href=“http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/2012/what/baecon/]BA”>http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/2012/what/baecon/)</p>
<p>Thanks so much! Yeah, he’s pretty happy about it, though we’ll still wait on the other UK, US and Canadian schools he’s applying to, before he decides. Durham does look like a really good option though.</p>
<p>I understand what you’re saying about A levels and it makes perfect sense. Here in Ontario, we used to have grade 13, which was only taken by kids that were likely uni-bound. The courses you took that year were pretty well up to you. But you could still graduate and go to ‘community colleges’ after grade 12. (I think this is similar to the English system, right?) Now, though, everyone graduates at grade 12. </p>
<p>Perhaps one of the reasons he was accepted so quickly by Durham is that he’s been in an IB programme here, which he was lucky enough to have provided by our neighbourhood high school. For free!</p>
<p>Thanks, too, for the heads-up about Manchester. Our kid is more of a philosophy/anthropology type than an economics one, but I really appreciate you mentioning it. Manchester’s supposed to be a great school, too… Hope you’re liking it!</p>
<p>I strongly recommend that you (or better yet, your son) contact a few representative graduate programs that your son might be interested in attending in the future and ask them how they view 3 year British bachelor’s degrees. Better to have the information from the “horse’s mouth.”</p>
<p>THis comes up so often it is ridiculous. A Bachelor’s degree from an English college or uni–such as Oxford or Cambridge!–is a REAL degree, and will be accepted as such in the United States. Do you really think that the best US grad programs refuse to admit graduates of Oxford or Cambridge because their programs were only three years long? When Oxford and Cambridge have been awarding degrees longer than any university in the the U.S.!! What happens is that English colleges and unis more-or-less “skip” what U.S. schools do in the first year, because in England they expect students to come to college already knowing all the things that American students learn in their first year of college.</p>
<p>Sorry to offend, but I think it is dangerous to generalize about any type of recognition because graduate programs have free rein to decide what they want in any specific case. However, I see now that I did not make that point. </p>
<p>I should have recommended that the OP’s son ask graduate programs about the bachelors degrees from specific courses, the ones that are being considered. The point of these conversations would be to determine if grad students entering with international qualifications typically have to make up required coursework, and if so, how much time that typically takes, especially if part of the reason for going to the UK is to save money.</p>
<p>People who graduate from UK colleges and unis after three years are not “stupid” people who have missed coursework. In general, they were smarter people when they were admitted, so they skipped all the stuff that Americans spend their first year of college learning.</p>
<p>It’s always possible you may have to “makeup” some required coursework, but this could happen even if you get your undergrad degree in the USA.</p>
<p>Wow, KEVP, I am really confused by your reaction and don’t see how anything I wrote implied that anyone is “stupid”. I work in Europe and have seen that it is always more challenging to change from one country’s educational system to another, whether for a bachelor’s degree or for what is called a graduate degree in the US. Asking some questions ahead of time can certainly prevent unpleasant surprises later. </p>
<p>Why does my advice that the OP or her son ask some questions of US graduate schools insult you so much?</p>
<p>It’s because this same question comes up so much. In the USA (and possibly in the UK as well) there are these “diploma mills”, scams that say they will give you a diploma if you pay them X number of dollars and do Y and Z, the problem is that they are not properly accredited degrees and so cannot be considered “real” degrees. When an American finds out that the college they are looking at in England–possibly Oxford or Cambridge–will give them their degree in only three years, they think it’s some kind of scam like this (or maybe their family thinks it is a scam). It isn’t a scam. You will get a REAL degree from the institutions we discuss here. There may be some adjustment for people who plan to switch between the educational systems of different countries, but the problem isn’t that people are going to say “You got your degree from Oxbridge–that’s not a real degree!” It is a real degree.</p>
<p>KEVP</p>