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The Student: Higher Education

(i.e., post-secondary education)

The secondary school student who decides to go on to higher education has to decide first of all between the two basic kinds of colleges: the four-year Liberal Arts College, which delivers the Bachelor of Arts (BA) and the two-year Junior or Community or City College, which does not deliver a degree, but which provides a transition between living at home with one's parents during secondary education, and going away to live on one's own while working toward a BA. Fees at Junior Colleges are also much less expensive than at many four-year colleges, which may also be a significant factor in a student's decision. The choice is still vast: there are some 2,300 four-year colleges in the US, and over 3,000 Community colleges.

There are a few hundred Universities, which deliver post-graduate degrees (i.e., the MA [Master of Arts] and the PhD [doctorate]) through their Graduate Schools, as well as BAs, since, with rare exceptions, Universities include liberal-arts undergraduate colleges, too.

The main concern of many high school seniors, especially those that want to go to a four-year, liberal arts college, is getting into college. Because of the extremely uncentralized nature of secondary education, in which High School diplomas may represent very different levels of achievement, college admission committees usually require students to file fairly elaborate applications for admission. The application typically includes many or all of the following items:

• High School Diploma + Scholastic record
  
  The applicant must demonstrate that s/he has indeed graduated from High School, i.e., been awarded a High School Diploma. S/He also provides a record, i.e., a list of the courses s/he attended, together with grades earned.
• SAT Score ( = Scholastic Assessment Test)
  
  The SAT, a multiple-choice-type test taken by tens of thousands of high school juniors and seniors, is provided by a private organization (ETS, the same organization that provides the TOEFL, the Test of English as a Foreign Language, which most colleges in the US [and in other countries as well] require of applicants from countries where English is not the native language); it yields a numerical score that can readily be compared to the scores of other applicants, and allows admission committees to rank applicants easily.
• Letters of recommendation
  
  Not only teachers, but other adults who know the applicant may write letters: in particular, organizers of extra-curricular activities often provide insights that admission committees find useful.
• Essay
  
  The student almost always has to write an essay to explain why s/he has applied to the college in question: the college has an excellent reputation in the academic discipline the student plans to major in, or an excellent team in the student's preferred sport or cultural activity, or some combination thereof, etc. Similarly, the student should explain why the college should choose him or her, making clear what kind of contribution to the composition of the student body s/he expects to be able to make.
• Extra-curricular activities
  
  Most selective colleges expect applicants to have participated in a variety of extra-curricular activities, such as athletics, theater, charitable organization, etc. Indeed, colleges frequently have among their objectives the education of what has come to be known as the "well-rounded person", i.e., a person interested in a variety of activities, not just his or her academic discipline.
• Interview
  
  Most selective colleges also require that applicants be present for an interview, so that the the admissions committee can evaluate his or her ability to speak in public in an "official" situation.

Another factor that students have to take into account in choosing what college(s) to apply to is that of costs. Most private colleges, and even public ones, are far more expensive to the student than is the case in France.