Higher education system
The country boasts of over 3,500 colleges and universities. The college refers usually for undergraduates, whereas a university is a collection of one or more colleges besides including a graduate school and various professional schools. Universities concentrate a lot on research in comparison to colleges, where the emphasis is only on teaching.

America usually divides its higher education system into two classes – one comes under the public system and the other under private system.

Public system: Public schools are funded by the state and the local government of the area in which they are located. Students who plan to earn Bachelor’s degrees can attend community college or pursue Associate in Arts (A.A.)/Associate in Science (A.S.) degree programmes, for both are designed to parallel the first two years of study in a four-year institution.

• Two-year community college (Grants Associate degree)

• Four 4-year state college (Bachelor’s degree)

• Graduate university (Master’s degree, PhD and Doctoral degree)

• Some vocational schools

Private system: As the institutions under the private system are owned by non-governmental organizations/people, the fees are much higher than those of the public schools.

• Two-year college

• Four-year college

• Graduate University

Academic year
Though most of the institutions divide their academic year into two terms/semesters, but some have the trimester (three terms) and quarter (four terms) system also.

You can choose the academic year beginning September ’08 or February’09.To apply for the september’08 session you need to start in March-April’07. Deadlines for submitting application forms and documents for September ’08 session will be December ‘07- January ’08.

To apply for February’09 session start in December’07 –January’08. Deadline for submitting application forms and documents will be between June-October’08.

Eligibility for studying in US
The American education system requires that students complete 12 years of primary and secondary education prior to attending university or college. This may be accomplished either at public (or government-operated) schools, or at private schools. For higher education the student must complete a 12+ 4 years of schooling before applying for a master’s program.

 

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