I remember someone referring to GAAP degrees as 'pseudo degrees' or something like that. Does this mean they are inferior? I am considering several such programs and am now frankly worried. As a fail-safe, I have found three programs in the US, however they are much more expensive. The positive aspect of a US program is mainly name-recoginition as one of the more interesting choices is at George Washington. Anyway, what are your thoughts on the acceptability of a GAAP degree? BTW, I may be interested in teaching at the college level someday, so would this impact this decision?
I think that you need to think for a moment about what "GAAP" is. What it refers to is a rule of thumb often (not always) used by American university admissions officers to decide if non-US credits or degrees are RA-equivalent. This boils down to consulting several standard reference works. You are talking about educational institutions from all around the world, from some 200 different countries. Whether these schools are all academically equivalent depends on the reliability of the references, which is not always 100%. So, I'd say that some "GAAP" schools are excellent, better than the vast majority of US schools. Oxford and Cambridge are "GAAP". But you will probably also find some "GAAP" degree-mills as well. They will have addresses in nations where university standards are either non-existent or easily subverted with a bribe or a loophole. Are "GAAP" degrees "pseudo-degrees"? I'd say that a few are, and the great majority aren't. You will probably find that higher education reliability is far better in the UK, Australia and Canada than on tiny Caribbean islands. Nevertheless, degrees from one of the less reliable places might find some acceptance if they are listed in a reference book. They might actually be pretty good, academically. But if a nation's educational standards aren't reliable you really don't know unless you are personally acquainted with the particular school. That's a situation similar to California approval in my opinion.
There is no such animal as a "GAAP degree." "GAAP" is used to describe the practices of admissions officials when it comes to determining acceptable degree-granting schools. They are the reference materials commonly used to determine whether or not degrees from a particular school (foreign, typically) should be accepted as comparable to those issued by accredited U.S. schools. There are some questionable schools listed in reference materials that would fall under GAAP (especially in the IHU), but they're much the exception rather than the rule.
"Pseudodegree" is my term, and admittedly not a very good one. What I mean is a graduate degree for which half (or in some cases more than half) of the requirements are explicitly at the undergraduate level. An example is the M.Prof.Comp program in which I am enrolled at the University of Southern Queensland. Peter French has commented on the too-common existence of such programs in Australia (about whose educational system he is much more knowledgeable than I am). Such pseudograduate degrees are, however, by no means restricted to Australia. I have also said that I think a foreign undergraduate degree is a poor choice for someone in U.S. The structure of a U.S. Bachelor's degree (especially the breadth component) is very different from that of undergraduate degrees in most other countries. In my view, a foreign bachelor's degree (even if legitimate per "GAAP") is not equivalent to a U.S. undergraduate degree and will (rightly) lead to questions about acceptability. (I speak as someone who has such an undergraduate degree, and one deemed top tier in its originating country.) I think a foreign university may be acceptable for a graduate degree under certain circumstances -- one needs to assess one's educational and career objectives (and the match between them) carefully on a case-by-case basis.
I think that Gert takes a dimmer view of this than I do. It's standard practice at the California State University to allow masters students to use upper division courses to satisfy up to half their unit requirements. The University of California does the same thing. http://www.berkeley.edu/catalog/grad/requirements.html The UC Riverside course catalog has this philosophy course, which serves to bump 100-level undergraduate courses up to 200-level graduate credit: http://www.students.ucr.edu/catalog/current/phil.html
Gert: How does the breadth component differ between a US bachelor's and elsewhere? All my investigation of non-US unis has been on grad level & I know nothing about this.
I believe that the only requirements for my Canadian 3 year BA were English, junior lab science and senior science plus a 6 to 10 course major. Permission was needed to take non arts or science courses and I don't know how many were allowed. None of the endless math, humanities, etc.
Hello Uncle - I don't mean to answer for Gert but my impression, based on surfing through lots and lots of university web sites, is that undergraduate degrees in many non-US countries (I've looked at UK degrees the most) tend to be more focused in the area of specialization. What I mean is, if you're a history major in the UK you'll take more history courses and fewer general education courses (literature, science, math, etc.) than your US counterpart. As a result, at the end of the degree process, the non-US student has more credits in their area of concentration, but less "breadth" in the scope of their overall studies.. This has led to the interesting discussion in a past thread of the equivalency (or lack thereof) of US and UK bachelors degrees. I'm not certain of the universality of this observation but that's my general impression. Jack
Yes. Jack answered for me correctly. In my 4-year undergraduate degree, I took no courses outside science and engineering, other than a mandatory 2-semester sequence in "Professional Communication," which included writing reports and manuscripts (for journal articles), prepared talks, extemporaneous talks, etc. all focused on technical topics.
I took 18 courses for my U.S. Master's degree, and of these at least two were upper division undergraduate courses. But these were advanced courses -- i.e. courses that were intended both for advanced undergraduates or for graduate students. I am not uncomfortable with these. Though 50% of the total seems too much. The "pseudograduate" programs that I am referring to are generally (perhaps always) "bridge" programs taken by people whose background is in a substantially different field. These programs involve not only advanced courses, but also quite a few of the basic foundational courses in the relevant field. These programs are educationally valuable but the credential is inappropriate -- there should perhaps be a distinct designation for the credential arising from such a program: e.g. "Bridging Diploma in X", so perhaps a computer science bridge program should earn a BDCS credential.
Two clarifications to previous posts: 1. When I suggest that a foreign Bachelor's degree is not equivalent to a U.S. Bachelor's degree, I don't mean to imply that it's inferior (or superior). Just not the same. Apple and orange. 2. The 18 courses in my MS program were quarter-courses. So it was equivalent to a typical 12 semester-course program.
