How do American universities work?

[VivaLeBeaver]

In my fantasy life I’ve been accepted for Brown, Cornell and Columbia.

I’m accepting Cornell because the campus looks nice with on campus hiking trails and a waterfall and they seem to have some nice “Greek organisations”. .

I’m slightly put off by the amount of double roomed dorms.......do most college students really have to share a bedroom with a total stranger? Can’t think of anything worse.

Also do American students apply for a particular course like we do in the U.K.? Or do you just turn up and study a bit of everything and then decide on a “major” later on?

Ooh I always wondered these too! Following!!

My sister is studying in the US and has started a foundation course so far, so a little bit of everything, but then you specialise.

I was looking at Harvard and would have a major and a minor, so Creative Writing as my Major, and a minor in whatever else is have chosen at the time. Maybe history or something idk.

A lot of dorms are shared, or you can rent places with friends etc and have single rooms like many do over here. But on campus you tend to share, and tend to share bathrooms as well. Oh, and if you rush, then you risk losing your dorm room so you've got to be pretty certain/confident about rushing.

Where my son went all first and second year students had a shared dorm room, so two students. Then year three and four they could live in the campus apartments, 4 bedrooms with 2 bathooms, with a shared livingroom and kitchen.

I ended up not applying for Harvard btw as I just cba to apply. I'd been looking into scholarships and everything, sponsors as well, but the process was too much for me and I hated looking through the US uni websites as well.

I did really like a uni in Denver though. Beautiful campus, I liked the course, and the staff were very helpful with all the emails I sent them. They even mailed me a prospectus to look through, and were super happy to try and get me to join them as I was an international student.

I'm tempted to apply for masters now, just to see how I would do.

Oh, and as for my sister, she's top of her class, and her professors top choice for taking her on as a work colleague when she graduates. She's studying accounting.

You apply for the school that your focus will be in - so you apply for school of Arts, Sciences, Business, Engineering or whatever and then you usually do 2 years general and then two years more specific (for a Bachelor's degree). The idea is that the first two years can help you to narrow down your specific interest within a more general field.

@OneTooManyBathtimes was it DU? It is a very pretty campus! I live in the area.

@OneTooManyBathtimes what’s rushing?

I do like the idea of a year or 2 of more general study before picking a specific course.

Harvard looks nice.

I think a traditional American campus uni like in the movies is so nice. We don’t really have that in the uk, apart from Oxbridge I guess. My brother went to York which is a campus uni and I didn’t get that vibe when visiting. I’ve been to 6 different U.K. universities and none really had that nice campus feel.

Rushing is when you want to join a fraternity or sorority

American here!

Yes, most people share a room with a random stranger. But only for the first year. After that you would choose who to be roomed with on campus or rent with friends.

Most places you go in and basically do a general study until you pick your Major / Minor areas of focus. Usually end of your 2nd year.

@Coldhandscoldheart Rushing is trying to get into a sorority/fraternity. It's different at every university, but essentially going around and "testing" the different groups and trying to get them to like you and invite you to join their "house"

@Nandocushion Yes! DU it was. Beautiful from the photos etc, really wanted to go but things changed. Went to Falmouth instead, loved it, met some great people and now have a load of contacts for various things.
I think I'd still like to go to Denver though if the opportunity arose.

My DD is a freshman in Chicago. She has a single room - not something she asked for but she ended up with one.

She 'rushed' for a sorority for next year, but as it's a music sorority and she already knew everyone in it, the process was more just 'turn up and say hi'. Her sorority has a house, so she'll live in that next year. It has 24 students in it, and she's already chosen a room mate and found out which will be her room.

She initially applied to do (I think) something like Biology in the School of arts and sciences, but she doesn't really have any idea what her final major will be.

Straightforward brag: she's had straight As so far so she's made Deans List (I only found out what this meant when I got a letter from the university).

Her campus is unbelievably beautiful - it's right on Lake Michigan. She's currently at home because of Coronavirus, and I think I miss her campus as much as she does. I love visiting.

BTW I think Bath has a nice campus feel, even though it is a hideously ugly campus.

I went to university in New England for a year on an exchange. Yes, most people had to share rooms and there were different levels of ‘luxury’. There were some single rooms but these were few and far between. There was also accommodation for married couples (like a little house) and single sex dorms.
I found that it was possible to study whatever I wanted to but I mostly stuck to what I was already studying in the UK. I did pick up a couple of ‘fun’ modules though.
The lecture time was also roughly triple that of in the UK. If I had 8 hours of lectures a week in the UK then there would be approx 30. hours in the US. That blew my socks off a bit.

I went to one of the universities mentioned on this thread. It wasn't completely free choice, in the sense that we had breadth requirements that we had to fulfil over the 4 years (so people who ended up majoring in eg. english literature would still have to take a couple of courses in science, maths, philosophy etc.).

And then some of the majors had a lot of requirements that were too much for just two years, so you would have to have a pretty clear idea from the start to have enough time to complete all the requirements in 4 years (because as a general rule, you have 4 years x 2 semesters x 4 courses per semester = 32 courses). The major I chose had one of the fewest requirements, but it was still 12 classes to graduate (not all of which are offered every semester), plus there were 12 breadth requirements, plus my first year I took some random classes which used up another 4 or 5 courses... so it's not a total free-for-all. Most semesters, I took one breadth requirement, one or two courses for my major, and one totally fun course if I could. A lot of people mucked it up, or changed majors later on, and then had to just take courses in their major and crowd in a 5th class to graduate on time. My brother got to the very end of 4 years, including taking a year off, and realised he'd left out ONE of the breadth requirement classes and had to come back for one more semester to do some kind of literature class - when he was a physics major and had spent the last two years doing physics. My parents were furious

My first year I had to share with 4 randomly assigned girls in a suite with one bathroom, three bedrooms and a sitting room. It wasn't great! My second year I shared a bedroom and bathroom with another girl (that I chose), it was ok except when we fought and I ended up living with my boyfriend at the time which wasn't massively healthy. My third and fourth year I had my own bedroom, but shared the sitting room and bathroom with one other girl (again that I chose) - that was much better!

No sororities or fraternities at my university so I didn't experience any of that but there was one down the road where it was absolutely insane, they didn't have enough accommodation for freshmen so they all needed to rush a fraternity just to find somewhere to live - we used to watch from afar, agog, as some of the cleverest kids in the world did some very, very stupid things just to get into a frat. I think that's all changed now and all the freshmen at least live in an assigned dorm.

Sorry for sounding really stupid, but what are these fraternities/sororities all about?

I’ve never understood the whole fraternity/sorority thing either - it’s completely alien! I think I would hate to live in a house with loads of other girls!

My friend went to an American university for a year and said it is much more challenging and competitive than back home, which I think I’d actually enjoy.

I think also some of the best American universities are private ones which is another unknown concept in the UK. Isn’t Harvard really expensive?

BTW I went to Exeter for my Masters and that is a beautiful UK campus! I wish I’d gone there for my BA as well.

I once dated someone who told me he was once in a fraternity. As if he was ashamed and I should be shocked. I just shrugged because I had no idea what it meant (and still don’t).

HulaHoop2 - places like Harvard are expensive but have a lot of aid to give away. If your family is on $65,000 or less you get a totally free ride - tuition, accommodation, food and books paid for. It then scales up by income - families on over $200k are often still getting aid.

I studied at Emory for my MBA and far prefer the US education system to ours. You don't have to narrow down your options at 14 like we do here when choosing GCSEs! The facilities at US universities are just incredible but of course it's super expensive to attend and highly competitive. I was lucky that my employer paid my fees.

Fraternities and sororities are a network that will keep you in work for the rest of your life if you're lucky. It's all about belonging and looking out for each other. There is kudos associated with certain ones or some are for black students only as are some historically black colleges like Moorehouse and Spellman. There are state schools, private, religious, liberal arts, technical and single sex universities.

College in the US really defines you forever as there are so many alumni networks and of course college sports have huge followings. College football draws bigger crowds than some NFL games.

So if anyone (or their kids) is really considering it, universities in Canada are very similar to the US experience, but with less emphasis on fraternities and sororities (they exist but are much less important) and I believe no private universities. For locals, this means the cost is much less - not sure how the international student cost compares though.

DD looked at McGill - as an international student it worked out more expensive than her US private college.

I'm currently doing part time study at Chicago, well this quarter is online only and I've not signed up.
The graduate school I'm doing classes in isn't that different to the UK one I did my full time course in a good while ago.
The papers are easier than I remember them being in the UK.
But the similarities are groups of smart, mostly young people who want to learn and then get out and put it into practice.
The campus has lovely buildings and a reasonably wide mix of students.
It is pretty similar to UK unis but expensive.

I do like the wider range of academic backgrounds you get in the classes though, all sorts of disciplines.