<p>A friend of my D's is over from Germany and I'd like to point her to someone she could call or e-mail about how a German university degree (three years, no general ed) would transfer to American graduate school.</p>
<p>The young lady is an American citizen, went to American high school, but was caught up in a family move to Germany while still in high school. There are round pegs, square pegs, and Other and she seems to be one of the latter.</p>
<p>Any suggestions? She's visiting the US for about three weeks and it would be good if she could get some general counseling while she was here.</p>
<p>I think she should contact the schools she is interested in directly. They might ask her to take some specific required classes (which can usually be done at community college), but I believe that it will vary from school to school.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Classification and Admittance of German Students into the US System
US institutions of higher education decide for themselves whom to admit and how to classify them. The following suggestions for the classification of German applicants can be thought of as a rule of thumb, although there are institutions of higher learning which may employ different criteria. It is generally accepted that German applicants must have earned their "Fachhochschulreife/Fachabitur" or "Abitur" in order to be admitted to a US college. In addition, many US institutions give admitted German students credit for a full year of studies due to the fact that it takes 13 years (instead of 12, as is the standard in the US) to earn the Abitur. This is called "advanced standing." In order to apply for a graduate degree, German students should have either a Fachhochschuldiplom, a Bachelor’s Degree, a degree from a German university, or should have completed six semesters of university studies with either a Zwischenprüfung or Vordiplom. Some US universities prefer in this case either the Magister, Staatsexamen, or Diplom. Prospective students apply for admission over a year before they wish to begin their studies and as a result, are allowed to submit their examination results (Vordiplom, Zwischenprüfung, etc.) after the admissions deadline.</p>
<p>• National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (Association of private foreign educational credential evaluation services, serving persons who have completed part or all of their education outside of the United States. They provide evaluation reports on applicant's educational qualifications.)
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</p>
<p>Here's a link to NACES and to its list of members</p>
<p>Checking the websites of the members should give you an idea. It may be worthwhile to let one of those companies prepare a report of equivalency, especially for grades.</p>
<p>For my husband's university it will vary by department. In his department - part of getting a Phd. is taking the qualifying exam. Passing the exam is what matters, not taking the courses. If you think you can pass you could theoretically take the exam right away and start right in on your dissertation, but it really will vary from university to university and from department to department. My understanding is that a Germany university degree is usually the equivalent knowledge (minus the general education requires of from undergrad education) of a typical US masters, but that doesn't mean you'll get credit for a masters.</p>
<p>^It really depends. While passing the Qualifying exams is crucial, there are often some prerequisites. S has found that some math Ph.D. programs require passing TWO foreign language exams prior to taking the qualifyings (either French, German or Russian). I'm told, however, that the level of fluency required for math is not the same as for history. The most important French word to know is "donc." :) Whew! I hope that the level of German or Russian required is similarly basic or else S will be sunk.</p>
<p>Some programs also require producing two seminar papers before the qualifying exams, and the qualifying exams cover a variety of fields. If a German student has focused fairly narrowly on one field, s/he will need to bone up on other required fields to pass the Generals. I know a number of German students who've come to the US for graduate studies because of the broader scope of the programs and also because they are less their advisors' apprentices.</p>
<p>TheDad,
Most graduate schools require something like "bachelor's degree or equivalent" (probably, depends on the major, too). Some of the universities will make the decision about the degree equivalency themselves (they will want to see the German transcript and the translation). Some universities require the prospective student to evaluate his credentials with an outside agency, for example WES <a href="http://www.wes.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.wes.org/</a> or something similar (xiggi posted the link to the list of some of the agencies). The universities usually have their preferred evaluation agencies (and will not consider the evaluation from others), so it's better to get familiar with the requirements of particular programs the young lady is interested in.</p>
<p>AFAIK, usually an European 3-year degree is evaluated as an equivalent to BS or BA with no problems, and the degree holder can be accepted to graduate school with no additional requirements.</p>
<p>As others have said, it depends on the specific department at a specific Uni.</p>
<p>She should note that most departments do not have formal prerequisites. Hence many grad students are not studying in their undergrad majors. </p>
<p>Finally for a case like this, I suspect GRE scores will be all important.</p>
<p>TheDad, Marite: Greetings from Bolivia where I and Newmassmom are visiting Newmassdaughter, who is finishing up a Bolivian winter (southern hemisphere, remember). Very interesting even after just 2 days.</p>
<p>The single most common reason that Americans leave Ph.D. programs without the degree is failure to pass the language exams. (Some of the programs my d. is applying to require THREE, and significantly more than passing knowledge. Luckily, and with good planning, she's already set, though I can already see from some of her projected research, it is going to require a fourth of which she only has a passing acquaintance.)</p>
<p>How I envy you. S at dinner was wondering about the accent of some people he overheard on the T. They spoke French but with an accent which he thought sounded like a cross between German and Portuguese and wondered where in France they could have come from. Me, too!</p>
<p>Mini: Your D's 3 languages are essential to her program. I have to wonder why, in these days and age, a knowledge of French and/or Russian and/or German is necessary in math.</p>
<p>I don't rightly now. I do know that the ONLY book ever written on the subject of her fellowship is in German. She took German over the summer, but it still isn't enough, so there will be more German in her schedule this year. </p>
<p>I don't know the world of math. Are there major original papers in German and Russian? Then there was the time that H. (and Williams) required both Latin and Greek for entrance. H. and my alma mater quite liked it that way - it kept out riff-raff, but then they had a raft (sorry for the mini-pun) of Jewish New Yorkers who learned both Latin and Greek, and it was "a problem".</p>
<p>
[quote]
I have to wonder why, in these days and age, a knowledge of French and/or Russian and/or German is necessary in math.
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<p>The typical PhD program in math just requires a reading knowledge of those languages. Generally the exams require the candidate to translate a mathematical article written in the target language into English, with the use of a dictionary.</p>
<p>Since many technical terms are cognates and there is extensive use of symbolic language in math papers, which helps with context, this translation is not terribly difficult to do in French or German with a minimal amount of practice. The vocabulary of papers in math is really quite limited, aside from the aforementioned cognate technical terms. Russian present more challenges, just because of the unfamiliar Cyrillic alphabet.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The single most common reason that Americans leave Ph.D. programs without the degree is failure to pass the language exams.<<</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>When I was in grad school (early 80s) the big reasons students left the Ph.D. program was either because they flunked their oral exams or their research was going nowhere and they could see that getting a Ph.D. was going to take a looong time. I don't remember anyone quitting or failing over language requirements.</p>
<p>A reading knowledge of a language that most students will not have acquired is still a lot. And why should this be? Most anything important is instantly translated into English anyway. S studied Spanish and Latin. I can help him with French, but German? </p>
<p>If as a wag told me, all the French you need to pass your language exam is to know the meaning of "donc," why bother?</p>
<p>I actually have a funny anecdote about language exams. A first year Physics Ph.D. student from German at Tufts decided to take the language exam and get it out of the way. He flunked. His problem? His English was not good enough. I recall my own problem with the French exam. I'd decided not to bring a dictionary along. After all, French was my native language, right? And there I was stuck for the appropriate English words.... At least, by then, I'd been in the US long enough and did not flunk.</p>
<p>Since I know absolutely nothing about these language tests for obtaining the Ph D, may I ask about their relative difficulty?</p>
<p>For instance, I am amazed that a student taking one semester or one quarter of German would gain more than a minimal competency in Goethe's tongue. The same applies to students spending one semester abroad. I base my position on witnessing the advances made by people who live years in a bilingual environment and never make meaningful progress. I have family in Belgium where they take between two and four years of German in school and admit not retaining very much from the instruction --please note that in many cases, German is the fourth language taught in high school, after French, Dutch, and English. </p>
<p>If one can indeed pass the language test after one semester of classes in the language, the scope probably does not amount to much more than was is contained in one of those Berlitz pocket books. How does that amount to any "scholarly knowledge" and contribute to the value of of a Ph D? </p>
<p>I understand that this may rooted in the availability of books (for instance the scientific books that remained only available in Russian and German for political reasons) but, with the advances in technology and the acceptance of English as the Ligua Franca, that does not seem to make much sense at all. </p>
<p>PS I asked my father about this, and his reply was that Americans are always easily pleased when it comes to foreign language competency and that's why so many French teachers speak the language like a "vache espagnole." While I did not quite understand the last comment, I don't think it was meant as a compliment. :)</p>
<p>This is really getting rather far afield of the OP's question. (We don't know the field in question and many fields do not require language exams; in any case, a student who has successfully studied in both the US and Germany should have little difficulty in acquiring a reading language of any additional language needed for his/her field.)</p>
<p>
Since I know absolutely nothing about these language tests for obtaining the Ph D, may I ask about their relative difficulty?
</p>
<p>Generally, the "Berlitz booklets" xiggi mentioned have little to do with what is needed to pass a PhD language exam.</p>
<p>PhD language exams are not about conversation skills, oral skills, listening skills, writing or composition skills in the foreign language. You don't need to memorize how to conjugate verbs and where to place accent marks; you just need to learn receptive recognition that will allow you to recognize tense, voice, etc. Receptive reading language skills (at least for languages that share our alphabet) are generally much easier than expressive skills. Similarly, reading is much easier than listening, because you control the pace at which you listen, can stop and look things up, etc. Cognate words are easy to recognize when you see them in print, but may be pronounced very differently--which is again, why a reading knowledge takes much less time to acquire than a listening and speaking knowledge. </p>
<p>PhD language exams just require that you demonstrate that you can make sense of articles and/or primary sources in your field, with the aid of a dictionary. If you know the field well, you will have many contextual clues that will help you make sense of the assigned reading passage(s) in the exam. Some students easily pick up languages; for others, a semester with a course of dedicated guided practice in reading technical articles in the target language should be plenty to pass the exam in a language like French or German.</p>
<p>A student who passed such a course should be well equipped to read and understand technical articles in his field, albeit slowly and with a dictionary, sufficient to pass PhD language exams.</p>
<p>The problem is that there is no Ph.D. program that makes time for students to learn a language, let alone two, unless the language is intrinsic to the program itself. For example, in East Asian studies, time is made for the study of two East Asian languages. In the sciences, however, it is expected that students will pick up the languages catch as catch can, over the summer. And yet, at the same time, there is the presumption that students will spend the same summers doing research.<br>
I know many Asian students who had to delay taking their Generals because they could not pass their French or German or Russian exams.</p>
<p>S is not gifted in languages. I gave up trying to teach him French because I could not stand him murdering his mother's language with his American accent. I can only hope that the German exam will cover as little of the language as the French exam is reputed to cover, in other words, the German equivalent of "donc."</p>