Hey! So i am a rising high school senior but i am already planning for my MSc in the US.
I wanna get a bachelors in my home country becasue it would be too expensive to get it in USA. My home country is Sweden and a bachelors degree “kandidatexamen” is 3 years here.
I compared the requirements for many grad schools in the US and some of the schools accepted 3 year bachelors while for some a 4 year education was required and some just said " A Bachelors or its foreign equivalency".
Im just wondering why its so different, why do Stanford accept 3 year bachelors and UT Austin does not? Do you know UCLA, UCB and MIT:s requirements? It doesnt say on their website. The big question is how much will a 3 year bachelor limit me in my search for grad schools?
It is all up to the individual universities. I suspect that a 3-year Bachelor’s degree from Sweden will be acceptable to most U.S. graduate schools. It is well known that students have an extra year of secondary school in Europe and that once at university, they do not take the year of general education that is common in U.S. universities. The schools that say they do not accept 3 year degrees are likely referring to degrees from other than Europe.
I agree - it should be no problem at all.
The fact the degree is three years shouldn’t be a problem at all. However for grad school in the US you’re expected to have done some research and this is very rare for European students, so you’ll have to find a way to compensate.
Thanks for the answers everyone!
@MYOS1634
I will look into what university in Sweden that could offer some research experience, i imagine KTH would be the best for computer science. KTH and LTH also offer Exchange programs with some great american research universities (Umich, UW, GT, UIUC, UT Austin, UC campuses.) Do you know if it would be possible to get some research experience at an american university while you attend the university during an Exchange program (1 year)?
If you come to a US university as an exchange student, there is certainly a possibility of getting research experience. you have to be aggressive to seek it out, however. Many European students spend some time doing research in the US when they are doing their Masters but it is a bit harder to do that during the 3-year bachelors degree.
Alright, then i can have that as a backup plan if there is no way to get research experience back in the home university.
I recently contacted Georgia Tech for information about the requirements for the grad school there. I dont know if they have old information but i think so. You can see the conversation at http://www.grad.gatech.edu/helpdesk/ticket.php
Search for the tracking ID 67Y-94V-8ER6
The Teologie kandidat changed back in 2007 to a 3 year degree. The Juris kandidatexamen changed name to Juristexamen back in 2007. I think they have old information. They basically told me that i would need a masters degree from Sweden to be eligible to their grad school.
I am a bit surprised that almost 10 years after the fact, admissions people at Georgia Tech are still ignorant about the changes. On second thought, maybe it is not so surprising since dedicated admissions people are often in a job for a short time and it might be their first job after graduating. In my experience, faculty usually are more in tune but for MS degrees, particularly those which do not involve research, the faculty are not always involved.
In this case, my guess is that Georgia Tech will accept the Juristexamen degree, this person just was working from an old document.
Some grad schools know the three year bachelor’s degree holder won’t have had research, whereas they have been able to as Master’s candidates.
I have now contacted several grad schools about this.
I contacted: UCLA, UCSB, UCB, UCSD, GT, USC, Umich, UMD college park, Stanford, MIT, UIUC, UW, U of A, VT.
All the schools mentioned above but GT and UMD college park accepts 3 year European bachelors as long as you have completed 180 ECTS credits under the Bologna process (60 credits is one year).
When i contacted GT they had very outdated information and when i told them that they said “Ok, thanks”, and didnt ever bother looking up the new info. Im assuming UMD is working with the same outdated information.
It seems that most of the schools do accept 3 year European degree but there are some that have very outdated information and have no idea about the school system in each country.
I’d expect larger, more well known schools that generally have a lot more European applicants to be familiar with the education system there. I’d kind of surprised the GT (I assume you mean Georgia Tech), at least, doesn’t seem to have a current understanding of the degree system.
Some do but consider the three year degree is not equivalent to what their competitive applicants have achieved. Others accept three year degrees but prefer applicants to be in their M1 year. Finally, at many universities, you can’t do research till your Master’s years and since admission to PhD programs, and, to a lesser extent, to some Master’s programs, depend on your having completed research, our degree doesn’t matter as much as your research experience.
(Assuming, in all cases, top grades.)