Very basic question about understanding the US system. (Graduates and further education.

College Search & Selection
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<p>Hi, I'm from Australia, looking to study in the US, and just trying to get a grasp on just how the American system works.This will probably seem like a very silly question, and I couldn't find the right section to post it in. </p>

<p>Here in Australia, you go to Uni, and the Uni's here have begun to adopt some parts of the American system, most notably Melbourne Uni, Australia's No. 1. </p>

<p>The norm is to go to Uni, complete an undergrad bachelor for a generic area (such as: Bachelor of the Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Commerce, etc.), which takes 4 years and is considered the stepping stone towards a proper education, and then from there, someone like me would take the Masters in Psychology, stemming from either B of Arts or B of Science, which takes usually around another 2-3 years. Getting a Masters here is pretty much the norm, and in a competitive workplace you're fairly disadvantaged without one. Doctorate is usually overkill, or for something like Vet Science. In fact I don't think I've ever heard of anyone leaving after just getting an undergrad degree. </p>

<p>It seems like, in the US, you go to your 4 year College/University, you graduate after 4 years and then you leave. Why? Logic would tell me that since the US is more competitive than Aus (due to population), why does no one seem to stay on for at least a Masters? Are jobs in the US usually granted with just an undergrad? It seems very counterintuitive, that in a vastly more competitive society, no one strives to stand above the pack and shoot for a Masters. I know this is a huge generalisation but it seems the norm is just to spend 4 years at Uni and then you're out in the workforce. </p>

<p>My only guess to this would be financial reasons... in Australia Uni's cost something like $20,000 a year and it's all paid for by the government, for every student, until you are working a steady wage (above $40,000 a year I believe, then you start having to slowly repay it, interest free, at a rate determined by income).</p>

<p>Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to help you understand my confusion. Would anyone care to shed some light onto why US students usually don't go for postgraduate studies? Thanks!</p>

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<p>Hey @davden90925‌ ! So, in the U.S., after high school, if you are planning to get a Bachelor’s degree, you apply to a college or university as your undergraduate school, and normally attend for four years. I’m a little unclear about the Australian system - are you saying you would say at the same school to get your Master’s?</p>

<p>In the U.S., if you are planning to get a Master’s degree, you would have to apply to a graduate school. Also, to be a psychologist here, you would need a Doctorate, and would have to apply to a medical school that you would attend after completing your undergraduate studies.</p>

<p>Some careers don’t require degrees above Bachelor’s degrees, in which case students might not want to apply to graduate school and pay for more schooling. However, I wouldn’t say that U.S. students usually don’t go - it depends on what career you’re interested in. If you wanted to be a lawyer, or have a medical profession, you would have to go to graduate school.</p>

<p>Here’s a wikipedia article about U.S. education that might be helpful: <a href=“Education in the United States - Wikipedia”>Education in the United States - Wikipedia;

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<p>For some fields you do. However, Americans tend to be very pragmatic. In many fields, if you learn the skills needed in undergrad, companies will take you, and maybe train you on the job for skills you don’t have. A masters doesn’t necessarily give you much more skills. The extra time and money invested (and yes, higher education in the US can be very expensive) often isn’t worth the small bump that you receive (if you aren’t switching fields).
Also, bachelors in the US almost never are generic, as nearly everyone focuses on a major.</p>

<p>Give an example of an industry or job, for instance.</p>

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<p>Hi, thanks for the replies.
Yes, in Australia you stay on at the same university for both undergrad and postgrad.
When you say to be a psychologist in the US you need a doctorate from a medical school, would that still be the case if you were looking to take psychology, majoring in Marketing, then take your psychology degree/masters to a Marketing company?
Also, in my case, the only way I could financially study in the US would be in a need-blind college, so I’m looking right now at somewhere like Dartmouth. I read that Dartmouth offers Masters and PhD in Psychology as well as the bachelor, so if I’m reading it correctly that means I could stay there postgrad and do my further education. Would the need-blind financial assistance carry over?</p>

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<p>No, the financial aid would not carry over. Admission to master’s/PhD programs and undergrad programs are separate. Some would consider it unusual to stay in the same school for your BA/BS as well as MA/MS/PhD. There is very little funding available for master’s programs. Unlike in Australia, however, PhD programs in the US are usually fully funded.</p>

<p>You’re looking at the process in a ‘wrong’ way. As an international, you don’t just apply to need-blind colleges; you also apply to FULL NEED colleges. There are many schools in the US that meet full need for all students, including international students. Full need schools include Brown, Swarthmore, Vassar, Whitman, Reed, Macalester, Lafayette etc etc etc. While applying for financial aid will hurt your chances at these schools, your chances are still much better than at say, Harvard or Yale.</p>

<p>Melbourne should make a great safety school for you. My safety was Sydney. Unfortunately, safety schools for internationals who want need-based financial assistance do no exist in the US. I struggled to get into the handful of American colleges that I did get into and with the aid I wanted, and these did not include any need-blind colleges apart from Amherst.</p>

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<p>Let me see if I can clarify this a bit. In the US, the first four years of college (or university) is for a bachelor’s degree–and for many students, this is the final degree, and they will go into the workforce after receiving it. Most of them will have majored in specific job-related fields (such as business or finance or nursing, for example). There are also many students who pursue liberal arts majors (like English or history, for example), but who still don’t go to graduate school, but end up in business or other jobs that don’t necessarily relate to their majors. Some college graduates go on to professional school (medicine, law, and business, for example)–and they don’t necessarily have to have majored in any particular subject to do this (although there are pre-med requirements). (Just a note: at least in the US, you don’t go to medical school to study psychology, although psychiatry is a medical specialty). For regular graduate school, usually the graduate degree will be in the same subject that the student majored in in college (i.e., English, history, psychology, physics). How many degrees you get depends on just what your career aspirations may be. If, for example, you want to be a college professor, you’ll probably need a Ph.D. If you want to go to work for a consulting firm, a bachelor’s degree may be sufficient.</p>

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<p>Hi @International95, thanks for the reply. I’ve read about some schools being need aware, such as UPenn (for outside US, Canada and Mexico), where you apply and they take your financial need into account during admission, however do offer 100% financial aid to internationals. Is that what you’re talking about? I was a little bit put off by the website explaining this - which said that they only let 5 - 6 international student in this way, but I was still planning to apply. </p>

<p>I’m taking the approach of - apply to every single need-blind college (since it can’t hurt) and apply to the ones I like from the need-aware category. I started off my interest for studying in the US by desperately wanting to go to NYU or, as my second choice, Boston Uni, but I soon realized that financially these were unattainable. </p>

<p>It sounds like you are/were an international student in the US from Australia. If that’s true, I’d be really interested in hearing your story - how you got in, where you applied, how you coped financially, how you did your SAT’s in Aus (I’m planning to take my first SAT Reasoning and SAT Subject tests at the end of this year, with some tutoring, then try and re take them whenever possible), etc.</p>

<p>Also, on a completely different note, how come Dartmouth in particular places near or in the top 10 US colleges, yet when it comes to the international leaderboards, it places around 180th in the world, not even close to its other Ivy companions. Why is it placed so low? I only ever read good things about it.</p>

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<p>Dartmouth isn’t big in (graduate-level) research, which the international rankings weigh heavily and which USNews doesn’t in their undergraduate ranking. USNews has a separate undergraduate ranking (as well as sundry rankings in various graduate fields).</p>

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<p>UPenn only admits 5-6 international TRANSFER students with aid. Penn admits a LOT more freshmen internationals with aid. In the year 2013-14, 314 internationals on aid were enrolled at Penn, and the average aid package was $42.4k.</p>

<p>That approach isn’t necessarily a good one. The need-blind schools are ridiculously selective, and although your financial status wouldn’t hurt you, the competition certainly would. Do you have any stand-out qualifications? By stand out I mean, perhaps, top awards at the World Schools Debating Championships or the International Physics Olympiad. If you don’t, that approach won’t help you and you should only apply to 1 or 2 of those need-blind schools and the rest should be schools that are very generous to international students. Middlebury, for instance, is need-aware for internationals, but it has a huge international aid budget and is very much worth applying to over Princeton.</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong, though. It’s certainly very selective at Midd, too, and in fact, odds of admission for internationals seeking aid are below 10% at every school that has a full-need policy for internationals. But, simply because the application pools at need-blind, hotshot schools are much more international and much stronger, it would be silly to apply to all of them unless you are a distinguished applicant. In terms of raw numbers, consider this: the acceptance rate for internationals seeking aid at Wesleyan is 5%, while at MIT, the acceptance rate for intls is 3%. There is really no statistical advantage in applying to a need-blind school.</p>

<p>I am an Australian citizen but I live and was educated in eastern Europe, so I really can’t talk specifically from the perspective of an Australian.</p>

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<p>Why would a person with a masters degree be more qualified for a job than a person with a bachelors degree? Does either degree prepare them with the necessarily work skills / experience for that specific job?.. Nope*. Honestly even a college degree doesn’t prepare a person for a job with the except of certain programs like engineering or accounting. Americans usually don’t get masters degrees because A) they are expensive and B) they don’t provide a competitive advantage. As for why Americans goto college, well it’s not to be more prep’ed for the workplace, it’s because university is basically a modern rite of passage. </p>

<p>BTW if your govt is subsidizing your degrees then it’d make sense that in your society people get them more often because the entry barrier is much lower. </p>

<p>*the exception to this the rare case where a person wants to do research.</p>

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<p>Again, thanks for all your help guys.
Just wondering, since there’s an overwhelming amount of colleges in the US, would someone care to point out a few of the good need-aware colleges for international students? </p>

<p>I know there’s lists and stuff but it’s hard to realistically know how good they are. </p>

<p>Basically I’m looking for a college that has a decent reputation, good education, and might be a good choice for an international student. Geographically I was thinking mainly north eastern or around California. </p>

<p>I get remarkably good grades, A+'s, A’s, B+'s, etc. but I’m not some kind of prodigy who’s president of every club and takes the hardest classes while getting consistent A+'s. The two I found that seemed appropriate/more realistic were Middlebury and Wellesley College. Are there any others similar to these that you would recommend? Remember they need to be financially appropriate for an international. Thanks!</p>

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<p>@bomerr:</p>

<p>Actually, I find a masters to be good for career-switchers, and for them, they do provide useful skills/networks that they didn’t get in undergrad. So someone who studied math undergrad but wants to be a programmer may pursue a CS masters (and yes, some folks can make the switch without the masters, but the masters facilitates the switch) or an engineer who wants to become a consultant may get an MBA.</p>

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<p>@bomerr‌ In some careers (i.e. Medicine or Law), it’s necessary to pursue a degree past the bachelor’s.</p>

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<p>I disagree. People know it’s hard to get a decent job with only a high school education.</p>

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<p>@PurpleTitan
Like I said, certain exceptions, computer science would fall under that category, MBA falls under the a similar branch to accounting. Regular masters degrees such as philosophy or ethnic studies don’t even help career switchers.</p>

<p>@simba9
Like I said, modern rite of passage, it’s hard to get a decent job with only a HS degree because our society no longer values HS degrees. Similarly to how OPs society no longer values bachelors degrees. In terms of being workforce ready, college doesn’t help most people. </p>

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<p>@bomerr,
So what kinds of excellent jobs are you qualified to do with only a high school degree?</p>

<p>Nobody’s going to spend 4 or more years and $50K-$250K simply as a rite of passage. They do it because they feel they need to do it to get a decent job. Even people who get philosophy degrees probably expect it will help them get a job, although they may be mistaken.</p>

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<p>@simba9
I think we are talking about two different things. </p>

<p>Yes college makes you “qualified” for better jobs in the sense that you can put a check mark in the box that says college graduate on your application. But it doesn’t make you “qualified” in the sense that it prepares you any better for the specific tasks of that job compared to a HS graduate,</p>

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<p>@simba9:</p>

<p>Actually, philosophy majors do about as well as engineering majors 20 or so years out. You shouldn’t be surprised by that, as any good philosophy major who studies analytic philosophy (which is pretty much the only branch taught in American universities these days) will be good with logic as well as capable of deciphering dense texts and being able to write. Worse comes to worst, a philosophy major should be able to easily pick up database certifications and become a DBA.</p>

<p>For some reason, people make fun of the philosophy, English, and poli sci majors, but it’s actually the psychology and architecture majors who worse in the long-term.</p>

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<p>@bomerr‌
I don’t think we are talking about two different things. There’s no way a high school graduate could get something like an engineering job, or many analytical and administration jobs. There’s a reason college graduates earn, on average, 85% more than high school graduates.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/on-numbers/scott-thomas/2012/12/grads-earn-85-more-than-those-without.html?page=all”>http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/on-numbers/scott-thomas/2012/12/grads-earn-85-more-than-those-without.html?page=all&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>@PurpleTitan,
I’ve worked in software for over 30 years, and can only remember one person with a humanities degree (history) who worked as a programmer. I’ve never knowingly worked with a DBA who had a humanities degree. I actually love philosophy and think in many ways it can help one understand what motivates people and how to treat them. But that’s a soft skill that’s hard to demonstrate on a resume.</p>

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<p>@simba9:</p>

<p>Well, there actually aren’t that many philosophy majors around, and not all of them are aware enough to go in to IT, but I would not consider logical thinking a soft skill.</p>