Questions about British universities

Do British universities have a general education requirement? Some British universities require students to obtain 10-12 units in order to earn a Bachelor's degree. What is a "unit"? How many credit hours is a unit equivalent to?

 

British bachelor's degrees are usually three years in length and do not place much emphasis on general education. They are very specialised degrees.

 

I think that 5 "credits" or "units" is equal to 1 credit hour in the States.

 

Re: Re: Questions about British universities

To complete the statement a US High School diploma is not sufficient to enter in to University, The 3 year bachelors degree is a 4 year bachelor for others who are not on the level of first year of the university. ( AS levels)

Also there more entry points and exit points after each year.

Usually these are accepted:

AGCEs
AVCEs
VCE Double Awards and AS levels
GNVQ Advanced
Access Certificates
EDEXCEL BTEC/SCOTVEC National Certificates/Diplomas
Scottish Highers
Foundation courses
Irish Leaving Certificates (Higher level)
International Baccalaureate Diploma and a range of equivalent home and overseas qualifications.

 

The Dearing Report places a British bachelor's (honours) degree at the level of an American master's degree. Truly a controversial statement, however, the specialisation obtained with a British honours degree is exceptional.

Most PhD programs in the UK allow entry with a British honours degree.

 

Thank you for answering my questions. I appreciate it.

I have a B.A. in Communication Studies from a university in the United States and I am thinking about earning a second bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of London.

On the application for the University of London, one of the things I have to fill out is a chart that has the following headings:

School leaving qualifications

Month/year Examining body Title of subject Level


Under the "Title of subject" heading, do I write down all the courses I took? What would I put under the "Level" heading?

 

The level would probably be the designated "grades" used in the US. For example, Calculus (Grade 12), American History (Grade 11), Accounting (Grade 10), etc....

 

Since I already have a college degree, should I put "Freshman", "Sophomore", "Junior", or "Senior" for the level? Under the subjects heading, should I write down the subjects I studied in college?

 

Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior and Senior are terms only used in the United States. We do not use those terms in Canada and I'm sure they're not used in the UK. I would just use Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4.

 

Edit: having reread your post I misunderstood what you were asking, and now realize that it's pre university school leaving qualifications, so in that case I'd just fill it in with details of my high school, along the lines of what I outlined below but with high school rather than university qualifications. I don't think I'd list all the subjects I took.

I know that when I applied to University of London I didn't list all my high school qualifications, I just put in that I had a high school leaving certificate and listed level complete as the highest grade etc. Note I'm from Canada.

Original post:

Without seeing the whole application form my guess would be:

Month/Year: Month and year of degree award (The degree you've already earned)

Examining body: Your University

Title of Subject: Your major

Level: Your degree level, the degree you earned (ie Bachelor of Arts.

Unless of course there is a different section for previous education that's how I'd do it.

 

Hi Yak342,

Hopefully, you've got the latest application form. If not it's here on the website.

On this you should list your B.A. degree under question 8, "Degree, diploma or teaching certificates".

Question 7 entitled "School leaving qualifications" is actually about any pre-degree qualifications - most likely this was your high school diploma, but could include things like advanced placement tests.

I think this is an issue of translation between US and UK English. The confusion is caused by the word "school". In the UK a school is a pre-university institution - whilst in American English it's often used to mean a university.

I hope this clears things up for you. If not please email our Information Centre [email protected].

Best wishes,

Brendan
(University of London)


P.S. thanks Scott, I've never understood the terms Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior.

 

When we talk about the British education system, we can’t but mention General Certificate of Secondary Education. Students may choose subjects they need to proceed on their career path or those they like most. Two subjects, Mathematics and English, are considered obligatory. These GCSEs are required by most employers even if a candidate already has a university degree. For those who consider going abroad for better education opportunities, gcse for international students are the first step to foreign university education.