US Universities that accept 3 year British Bachelor (Hons) degrees

[metalgirl22]

Hello everyone!

 

I am new to the gradcafe and in the process of applying to US graduate schools for PhD/Masters in the field of aerospace engineering. I am a bit suprised that some US universities do not accept the 3 year Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) degree (we do only engineering from day one of university!) and am trying to identify the universities that definitely accept British bachelor degrees so that I do not waste my money when applying. I would really appreciate any wisdom and help from everyone here if you have any information.

 

Universities that have confirmed with me they accept British Bachelors are below:

 

Purdue University

Ohio State

Penn State

Uni of Southern California

University of Illinois UC and Chicago

University of Notre Dame - Indiana

 

Thanks for reading!

 

[GCool]

Hey Georgie,

 

I'm not sure if there's any other way to figure it out than calling schools and explicitly asking. If they don't know on the spot, they're bound to check with people who do--and that doesn't seem like a fact that a lot of American answerers-of-phones-in-admissions-offices would have on hand.

 

I know that isn't helping you necessarily; I'm just offering the response that's better than no response. Heh.

[fuzzylogician]

Lots of countries, including in Asia and the EU, have 3-year BA degrees. I've never heard of anyone having trouble applying to grad school because of that. When schools say they want a "4-year degree" they mean to distinguish it from a 2-year Associate Degree you can get from a community college in the US, but any good school would know that in many other countries a BA is 3 years, not 4. You could email or call admissions at particular schools and ask, but this really shouldn't be a problem at all.

[AuldReekie]

Fuzzy is (always) right . 

 

The UK HE sector is a bit odd at times. ~1/8th of Britain - for as long as Scotland is still there - get 4 years degrees  . It's like we deliberately want to confuse people!

[rawry0]

Hey, I have applied to a few schools with my BSc, granted it was for biology but most of the schools I looked at and spoke to (10 schools) understood the british grading system, you should email them! Alternatively, you can translate to american gpa using WES (world education service). Hope that helps! 

[metalgirl22]

Hey Georgie,

 

I'm not sure if there's any other way to figure it out than calling schools and explicitly asking. If they don't know on the spot, they're bound to check with people who do--and that doesn't seem like a fact that a lot of American answerers-of-phones-in-admissions-offices would have on hand.

 

I know that isn't helping you necessarily; I'm just offering the response that's better than no response. Heh.

Thank you for your reply, i have emailed lots of different universities and some have just said flat out no (NYU and TAMU) and others have said conditional or yes. It is surprising that it seems to range from state to state!

[metalgirl22]

Hey, I have applied to a few schools with my BSc, granted it was for biology but most of the schools I looked at and spoke to (10 schools) understood the british grading system, you should email them! Alternatively, you can translate to american gpa using WES (world education service). Hope that helps! 

A few I contacted have their own 'professional credentials experts' and didn't want to know about WES and others just said B equivalent or above - which according to WES is a lower 2nd lol. Not complaining if that is the case.It seems the bigger universities have more of a grip on international credientials than smaller institutes.

[metalgirl22]

Fuzzy is (always) right . 

 

The UK HE sector is a bit odd at times. ~1/8th of Britain - for as long as Scotland is still there - get 4 years degrees  . It's like we deliberately want to confuse people!

I think its like 8% of the UK population is in scotland - but they still like to make a fuss and stick out Yes it is really confusing, I believe also in scotland 3 years of study will get you an ordinary degree

[AuldReekie]

Thank you for your reply, i have emailed lots of different universities and some have just said flat out no (NYU and TAMU) and others have said conditional or yes. It is surprising that it seems to range from state to state!

 

This confuses me.. I don't think they should be saying no just because you have a BA. Who did you contact at the universities? I spoke to the DGS at TAMU (different field) as well as many other people and they've never had any problem with British degrees.

Edited December 3, 2014 by AuldReekie

[thindust]

Thank you for your reply, i have emailed lots of different universities and some have just said flat out no (NYU and TAMU) and others have said conditional or yes. It is surprising that it seems to range from state to state!

 

I think that is ridiculous as well, especially given the rigor of a full BEng :|

I know someone with a BSc from the UK and is currently doing her PhD at NYU - so it probably isn't state/university-specific as much as program/field-specific. 

 

I am going to echo the above that it really is quite odd. I read somewhere that only 3-Year BScs from certain countries are an issue (eg. the Indian 3-year BScs are not accepted by many institutions). I am not sure in your email to the admissions office if you had specified that it is from the UK (you probably had, but just being sure!).

 

And if it helps, I just found this for Indian 3-year Bachelors: http://www.wesstudentadvisor.org/2014/04/how-us-universities-evaluate-indian-degrees.html -- with a list, some of which not on your list eg CMU. 

[Counterpointer]

You can try Canadian Universities as well.. Many Canadian universities have 3 year bachelors degree anyway, although many take 4 years to complete Bachelors with honours.

For whatever reason, maybe you have to go to US, but wouldn't hurt to look into Canadian universities!

[metalgirl22]

You can try Canadian Universities as well.. Many Canadian universities have 3 year bachelors degree anyway, although many take 4 years to complete Bachelors with honours.

For whatever reason, maybe you have to go to US, but wouldn't hurt to look into Canadian universities!

I have applied for Toronto, and am planning to applying for McGill as well. I haven't had any negativity from Canadian institutions I have contacted - they are probably more aware of the British system as they are part of the Commonwealth

[TakeruK]

Indeed, Canadian schools do have more familiarity with the British system! Maybe it's field dependent, but the science/engineering undergraduate programs in Canada usually have a minimum credit limit that add up to 4 years of coursework if you are taking a full load (generally that is 5 courses per semester, 2 semesters per year, for 4 years).

 

However, some students overload and can finish in 3 or 3.5  years. Or, some students come in with so many AP and IB credits that they already earned enough credits to skip the first year and start at year 2 right away. But these cases are generally still considered "4 year degrees". That is, the length of the degree does not actually depend on the amount of time you take to complete, but the number of courses required! The opposite direction happens too--many of my friends, including me, took 5 years to complete because we either took less than full courseload in order to work to pay for school and/or we were in a work co-op program where the degree is 4 years of classes and 1 year of work experience. In this case, we still count as having 4 year degrees even though it was 5 years in total.

 

Finally, it might help to know that the top Canadian schools (Toronto, McGill, UBC) generally would like to see their students graduate with an "honours" degree. In Canada, an Honours degree requires about 10% more courses than a regular degree and usually require a final year thesis project. I'm not sure if this is the same thing as a British Honours degree (I know in some countries, "Honours" is a designation for performance/standing, not increased requirements). I also know that when I was in Canadian schools, many British grad students came in with a Masters degree (3+1 year I believe?). I don't think it's an actual requirement, but the extra year of research does increase your qualifications since international students cost the school more! But this is for physics/astronomy programs mostly, maybe Engineering is different!

[metalgirl22]

Indeed, Canadian schools do have more familiarity with the British system! Maybe it's field dependent, but the science/engineering undergraduate programs in Canada usually have a minimum credit limit that add up to 4 years of coursework if you are taking a full load (generally that is 5 courses per semester, 2 semesters per year, for 4 years).

 

However, some students overload and can finish in 3 or 3.5  years. Or, some students come in with so many AP and IB credits that they already earned enough credits to skip the first year and start at year 2 right away. But these cases are generally still considered "4 year degrees". That is, the length of the degree does not actually depend on the amount of time you take to complete, but the number of courses required! The opposite direction happens too--many of my friends, including me, took 5 years to complete because we either took less than full courseload in order to work to pay for school and/or we were in a work co-op program where the degree is 4 years of classes and 1 year of work experience. In this case, we still count as having 4 year degrees even though it was 5 years in total.

 

Finally, it might help to know that the top Canadian schools (Toronto, McGill, UBC) generally would like to see their students graduate with an "honours" degree. In Canada, an Honours degree requires about 10% more courses than a regular degree and usually require a final year thesis project. I'm not sure if this is the same thing as a British Honours degree (I know in some countries, "Honours" is a designation for performance/standing, not increased requirements). I also know that when I was in Canadian schools, many British grad students came in with a Masters degree (3+1 year I believe?). I don't think it's an actual requirement, but the extra year of research does increase your qualifications since international students cost the school more! But this is for physics/astronomy programs mostly, maybe Engineering is different!

In England and Wales you can graduate without Honours if you get don't finish with enough passed credits for Honours, or you pass with the very minimum average percent to pass the degree, or of course you choose not to do Honours.. but it is the default to do the Honours course. For an Bachelor Honours degree you need 120 credits passed per year (360 altogether) and for an ordinary degree its 80 passed credits per year (240 altogether). You can opt I think to do an ordinary degree but it is very unusual in Eng & W, but in Scotland they can start university at 17 if they choose to do that they have 3 years for an ordinary and 4 years for an Honours degree - if they start at 18 its 2 and 3 years for the same. With regard to Honours designating performance/standing, when we graduate we are given a degree classification 1st Class, Upper Second Class , Lower Second Class, and Third Class, depending on how well we do so our weird system shows both increased requirements and performance. I am not a massive fan of my country's education system to be honest because a GPA gives a better show of how well you are doing/have done and I would have loved to have done a minor.

I should also point out we have zero flexibility for how many courses we take per year or semester I don't even get to choose what courses I do - currently doing six only two I find interesting! And we cannot spread out modules to make our degrees longer unless we go part time - but most courses cannot be part time. So it is very hard to work to pay for university - partly because under uni regulation we are limited on how much we can work per week.

With regard to Masters degrees (MSc and MA they are 1 year long (12 full time months of torture), there is also the MEng which is confusing to explain, as it is a BEng with an extra year of combined management and research/project work but you only graduate with an MEng. I am applying for Masters and Masters with plan for PhD