What kinds of universities are there in the US?
There is a broad range of types of higher education institutions in the US, with something to suit every student’s interests. Before you begin, one thing to note about the US: the words “college” and “university” tend to be used interchangeably.
The most prestigious collective of colleges, the Ivy League, includes Harvard University, Brown University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Columbia University, Yale University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. Together, these eight schools received more than 300,000 applicants for the Class of 2021, and the average acceptance rate was 6.1 per cent. US colleges can be either privately or publicly funded. Most of the well-known institutions in the US, such as Harvard University, Stanford University and Yale University, are private non-profit institutions that will have higher tuition fees, but usually more financial aid opportunities to go along with the added costs.
Another type of institution is the liberal arts college. Examples include Pomona College in California and Amherst College in Massachusetts. These schools offer a broad education in arts and sciences subjects that are designed to give undergraduates academic range as well as depth. Then there are the historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, such as Howard University and Spelman College, which have majority black and ethnic minority student populations. These institutions were originally established to provide higher education to the African American community where it was previously denied.
In every state, there is at least one government-funded public college, which tends to have lower tuition fees for students who reside in that state. Community colleges, also known as junior colleges, technical colleges or city colleges, are similar to state colleges but primarily offer shorter courses leading to qualifications such as diplomas and associate degrees. Community colleges often have very strong links to four-year institutions and can be a good entry into prestigious four-year degree programmes. Additionally, each US state has one or two systems of public universities that are governed by a system-wide governing body but have multiple affiliated campuses. Each of these different locations is considered an individual university in its own right. One such example is the University of California system, which includes the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Highest-Ranked:
Beyond the highest-ranked and well-known schools, there is a huge array of quality colleges in the US with different values, goals, teaching styles and costs. You can use the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings 2022 to compare colleges on everything from engagement, interaction with teachers and overall student satisfaction. Most undergraduate programmes in the US are four years long and often include studying multiple subjects before specialising in the second half of your degree. Subjects you study alongside your specialisation are known as minors, and your specialisation is your major, or special concentration.
Extracurricular activities – including social societies such as sororities and fraternities, clubs and some of the world’s best university-level sports teams – are a central part of university social life on US campuses. They’re a good way for students to make friends with common interests. The US is perhaps the most rigorous country in the world when it comes to college application criteria. American universities will consider your academic record over the last four years of your schooling, as well as your involvement in extracurricular activities and leadership positions and your personal characteristics when you apply. There are three kinds of applications you can make to a US university: early decision, common application and the regular application. Some early decision applications can also go through the common application.
Early decision application deadlines are usually about 10 months before your course starts. Applying via the early decision route can increase the likelihood winning acceptance for some universities. However, it’s important to be aware that some colleges have agreements that state that if you win a place via an early decision application, you must attend that college and you must withdraw or halt all your other college applications. In some cases, US colleges will want you to also withdraw any applications to universities outside the US if they accept you on early decision, so be sure to check in with your college of choice on the details before applying through this route.
The Common Application (Common App), meanwhile, is a centralised process for more than 900 US universities, which means you can apply to multiple colleges through one online account. Common applications open on 1 August. For all other universities, you can apply to them directly. The application deadline is often in January – seven months before you intend to start university – although the latest deadlines are in March. Many US universities will expect you to sit a standardised test like the SAT or the ACT for undergraduates, or the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) for postgraduates. You should aim to complete these exams a year before you want to start university, usually in the month of August.
Admission requirements:
Admission requirements vary depending on the university. However, your submission will almost always require an application fee ($43 on average), a completed application form, a personal essay, references, a transcript of grades and academic achievements, standardised test results and financial statements.
Depending on which kind of university and course you are looking at, you may need to declare your major when applying, which means that you need to have an idea of the subject you wish to concentrate on in the final two years of your course. In most cases, you can switch majors if you discover a new passion for a subject once at university, but it’s useful to have in mind at the application stage some idea of the route you are most likely to follow.
If you are put on the wait list of a college, this means the university liked your application but has chosen to make offers to other candidates first. The likelihood of moving from the wait list to a definite offer from your chosen college depends on several factors. These include how many students with offers choose to confirm their place, how the school wishes to balance the different chosen majors in its freshmen class, and how strong your application is compared with those of other applicants. In some cases, you are more likely to get off the wait list of a college if you have listed it as your first choice.