Are American schooling expectations in films the same in real life?

[Offandonagain]

I find that Typically in American high school type films such as She’s all that, 10 things, fresh Prince, American pie, Spider-Man etc there is a big emphasis on going to college after school…. Grades, scholarships, summer schools, locations.

It seems to be a bigger deal that the UK, and you’re a failure if you don’t go. Hope true is this though?

Also, are us unis better both academically and socially than uk ones?… not sure if that question can be answered

Interesting.regarding misinformation, note that not all children in the UK take 3 A-Levels - the entirety of Scotland for example. The Scottish education system is based on breadth. I took 5 Highers, as was the norm. We need to start referring to the English education system when that is what is being discussed; education in the UK is a devolved issue.

Apologies @underneathleaf, I had no idea about the Scottish system and now feel a bit daft

you've proved my point exactly - all of your children have had to go on to postgraduate study in order to go into a high paying field after university. In the U.K. a first class /second class upper student could go straight to working as a banker earning 6 figures (many from my graduating class did).

No, only one has gone on to postgrad studies so far - he's in med school. DD3's masters degree will put her on a career track, but if she gets a job offer in another field she will have some decisions to make. She's doing a double major, and the options open to her would net her a starting salary of approximately $70k. With the masters (which is in a specific field of interest to her, not a professional qualification) she could start at $100k as a specialist in that field. The other three will have solid careers based on their bachelors degrees.

Do you know anyone in the US that goes straight into 6-figure corporate employment immediately after completing undergrad?

DD1 was hauling in six figures two years after graduation. Close enough, I think, and she doesn't work in banking. There are several others from her university graduating class who had a similar trajectory, and the same goes for DD2's university. They both have friends from high school who went to various universities for Finance or Math/Econ whose careers got off to what might be called an excellent start. Some of them went to universities like U of Iowa or lowly Dayton. Quite honestly, it is a surprise to me that all graduates of superior UK universities graduates are not raking in the moola.

@nightwakingmoon Your assessment of A-level vs IB is interesting, I’ve heard the opposite regarding academic level and would be curious to hear more. We live in the EU, and students here aiming for a British university are encouraged to go for the A-levels option instead of IB or EB precisely because it is widely seen as the easier path. No point killing yourself to graduate from an IB or EB program that requires a high standard in a much broader range of subjects if you can just focus on the few things you excel at without being penalized for it by UK university admissions departments.

In a semi-related vein, do admissions departments in your experience make much of a distinction between IB and EB graduates?

@underneathleaf I also did not know this, thanks for pointing it out.

@mathanxiety I can see I've offended you so let's agree to disagree .

I stand by my view that the USA focuses on breadth of study at an undergraduate level whereas in the U.K. we focus on depth.

I'm not entirely sure what your summarised position was except to say your DC are hoping to excel in their chosen fields.

Maybe we are both right.

For school his GPS is about 3.8 and I always thought, based on the movies, a 4.0 was the perfect score. But no… this year the valedictorian and the next one down (his twin brother) got 4.8s! As did many others at different HSs in our district. They have to be better than perfect! And I believe it’s extra credit coming from advanced classes and maybe taking a PE class in the summer to get it done which then frees up a class during the school year to shoe horn something else in.

You are looking at weighted GPAs there. Weighted GPAs are arrived at using calculations based on the level of classes taken, not the number of classes. A student taking all AP/honours classes and getting an A or B in each will have a higher weighted GPA than one who does college prep level courses and gets an A or B in all of them.

You really don't think studying 5 or 6 subjects at Higher is broader than studying 3 at A level? And studying a range of subjects at University is broader than studying 1?

My kids are at school in England and a) English is split into two subject and b) only the brightest kids study the individual sciences and c) they have no opportunities to do extra subjects later. DDs GCSEs are English Lang, English Lit, Maths, Spanish, Triple Science, History, Art, so 9 subject but she'll then do just 3 at A levels. In comparison my Highers were English, Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, History, Art and Design (two of those were studied in 6th year). I also did Standard grades in Arithmatic, French and Technical Drawing (one of those studied in 6th year). So more subjects for longer and picking up extra subjects in 6th year, interestingly my career is in one of the subjects I picked up again in 6th year.

I have lots of teachers in my family and know the changes to the Scottish system aren't all positive (and the 'education' my DNs got during lockdown was shockingly poor) but it does still teach broader for longer than the English system and ~90% of children don't leave school at 16 so your DCs school is unusual if lots leave then.

I was talking to a British friend last week who had commented how his recently-graduated son regretted his degree choice and now had no interest in the topic/career. This same son decided on that path at 16 or whatever - it just blows my mind that the UK system expects and funnels kids into specialism that early. Now the son is doing the normal early 20s thing of trying to figure out what he DOES want to do, and considering masters programmes to do exactly that. So... he ends up doing 4 years anyway? I changed major three times but to this day I use skills I learned in the specialist classes I took for all of them.

My two DCs went through elementary and part of middle school in the US. We found the curriculum was broadly similar in math(s), science and English apart from the unit measurement/spelling differences but very state-centric in history and geography. RE/learning about other cultures was pretty non-existent. And they had to do active shooter drills 😢 alongside tornado and fire drills.
The teachers were absolutely incredible, there were lots of extra curricular clubs and the library was incredible. The school had a dedicated full time nurse and counsellor.
They were pretty much top of their classes and excelled at SAT tests (checking boxes rather than long form exams like UK) but were slightly behind on maths when they re-joined their UK school, but soon caught up.

@mathanxiety Did your kids go to New Trier?

No, we're not both right; you misread what I posted, @wannabeamummysobad

My summarised position in response to your contention that US graduates have to go on to grad school before they can become high earners was that it's not unheard of for US graduates - even graduates of universities quite far down the rankings - to get excellent jobs with six figure salaries upon graduation. It's not the norm either, but let's face it, it's not the norm in the UK either, is it? It's certainly not the norm for every career path. And I offered an example of someone personally known to me who was earning six figures, as you requested.

No, but I have some good friends whose kids went there.

my experience with US students is there is a much greater sense of individual choice/responsibility in choosing what courses and activities to do, and what level to do them at. If someone wants to take the hardest level classes and is willing to take on the work, they can (obviously to an extent, they have to be at a vaguely suitable level) - but it's seen more as the student's choice, and their risk if they don't pass it and end up having to drop down or take a different course. And if they're capable of doing a higher level one, but don't fancy doing that, it's also up to them, rather than being put into sets by the school. It seems more choice driven, so that you come out with the requirements that you need for graduation and entrance into whatever you want to do. It's more up to the student to make sure they do that, somehow, rather than something imposed on them that is the school's responsibity to get them through. And the highest of the courses available can be just as hard as GCSEs and A-levels. Not everyone will do the hardest courses on offer in every subject, just what they need to get the right number of credits in the right areas to satisfy the requirements. Some will choose the very minimum to get those credits, others will pick the hardest levels available in the all the subjects, to look better for university entry. And some of the courses can be very hard. So you can't compare it to GCSE or A-levels directly. You can also look at what the lowest level of GCSE requires, which can really be very low - and a proportion of 16-year olds here do get those grades. So comparing higher level GCSEs here with some of the more average courses in a US high school isn't a very valid comparison.

Really interesting thread.

Do you think US teens are under less pressure than here in the UK with 2 lots of public exams being sat?

If anything, American teens have more pressure because the GPA system means every homework exercise and every test counts toward your final grade. Some kids work really well under pressure and respond better to a final exam system, and some thrive on getting into a habit of consistency, so it's hard to say which has a worse effect.

Americans who are heading to university have the ACT or SAT, and the PSAT/NMSQT to contend with on top of the GPA pressure, where they are up against a nationwide peer cohort. (Though in an effort to level the playing field, these exams are no longer required for all university applications).

Agreed, and the standardized testing and GPA pressure are, of course, in addition to the high-level extracurriculars which are expected for university applications (things like music, sport, student council, school newspaper, etc). University competition is so fierce for so few ‘name brand’ places that universities have to use criteria like extracurriculars, volunteering, and internships to determine who gets a place. Excellent grades in a wide variety of AP classes and high standardized test scores are not enough.

@Blaggertyjibbet no problem — U.K. universities are v familiar with the IB and also the EB. It’s interesting as a fashion too, because about ten years ago a lot of U.K. schools and sixth forms - both state and private - were switching to the IB as an alternative to A-levels, or allowing students to choose from one or the other; and there was a lot of noise about many schools moving permanently to the IB. (For a period around 2010-15, easily more than half of our U.K. applicant pool was taking the IB, interestingly!)

For the most part, in humanities subjects this was fine, as though the style and depth of content of the IB was not quite the same as the A-level, this didn’t cause many problems for students. Unsurprisingly, the IB was quite beneficial to students going into subjects not generally studied at school - eg law, social and political science, human geography, psychology, new languages and so on.

I do know that colleagues in the sciences were not as happy with either the breadth or depth of maths and science content at either the standard or higher IB levels, in terms of preparation for science degrees. Often applicants for the sciences did not have enough higher level science and higher level maths to cope with the course content as easily as those who had done A-levels. But in my (humanities) subject, we didn’t see a massive amount of difference - but then where I am we tend to be asking for points scores of 43+ and in fact usually expect 44 or 45, which normally roughly cover 1-1.5 percent of the global cohort taking the exam (the percentages getting higher points scores increased over Covid provisions, but before Covid a score of 44 or 45 would normally put a student in the top 1-2 percent of all candidates taking the IB worldwide - one of the great pluses of the IB is that they do a very efficient statistical report of their own data each year, so you have a good sense of international benchmarks).

The trend for more and more U.K. schools offering IB has almost completely stopped since the start of the Gove reforms, the reorganisation of GCSE grading and the removal of the AS/A2 system. It’s not clear to me whether this is because of educational fashion, or whether it’s driven by schools reducing what they offer so that they could focus on the introduction of the new 2-year A-level format, or school funding issues, or DfE policy, or Brexit, or a whole mixture of things. But it’s certainly the case that universities here are well versed in making IB and EB offers as well as A-levels, and know the IB well, and so neither system would necessarily advantage or disadvantage an international student.

If your DC, say, are hoping to apply to Russell Group or Oxbridge for science or maths degrees, or very “traditional” academic subjects (history, Classics, languages, etc.), they might be better served by A-levels; but if they are thinking of more blended social science subjects, or subjects not normally done at school, or are casting their net more broadly at a range of international universities, then the IB is probably a good choice. EB is pretty similar to the IB (with a few minor differences), and either are fine, not much difference made between them, though IB has more global “brand recognition”.

On the subject of educational fashions, one which has seemed to persist in some of the academic independents and grammars is the Pre-U, which is meant to be a more in-depth version of the A-level. We do see some applicants offering a mixture of A-level and Pre-U courses. It’ll be interesting to see whether this lasts with the return to the 2-year “depth” A-level.

Ah a quick Google tells me that the Pre-U is being withdrawn from 2023 🤣 My guess is that there’s not anticipated to be enough take-up now that the new A-level format has moved closer to the Pre-U model.

I do think the decline in U.K. schools offering the IB as an option is not a good thing. In fact, the old AS/A2 system in operation between about 2000-2018 was actually a really good compromise — students tended to take 5-6 ASes and then take 3-4 subjects to A2, but could also take stand-alone AS subjects in their A2 year, as well as various extended project qualifications (EPQs). That was actually a really workable system - some of the depth of the 2-year A-level was sacrificed for breadth, but there was a good compromise between both. We also had the unit module scores at the end of the AS year which were a good predictor of final achievement. I’m sad to see that system go; I guess we’ll have to see how the new (return to old) one gets on.

@nightwakingmoon This is really interesting to read, thanks!

My take has always been that American students are under less stress and pressure than UK students, because we have a much longer period of time to get it right (or wrong).

You have three years (since you apply to university after your third year of high school) of coursework, quizzes, tests, and class participation that all count toward your GPA. There are discrete events like the SAT or AP tests, but they are a few additional data points among an ocean of other data points. And all of this is supported by your extracurriculars, your volunteering, etc. You never have a moment where you say "This is it: all the money's on the line" in the way that students might with GCSEs or A-levels.

So maybe the total amount of stress is equivalent, but it is spread out differently: highly concentrated in the UK, highly dissipated in the US.

Saying that, I do feel that beyond academics, the US system prepared me very well for adulthood in the sense that it is very reflective of the patterns of life. In any moment, I'm juggling a lot: work, parenthood, recreation, civic participation. You do learn a bit of work-life balance in the American system.

Going to read the thread now but want to add my experience.. I have lots of relations living on the east coast.... Parents moved in the 60s & all 8 uncles of mine did amazingly well & all married British expats also .. They put a huge emphasis on my cousins education (I have alot!) & now these cousins are raising dc similar ages to mine... All attend private school, many are at catholic privates, huge emphasis placed on education, extracurricular activities for their college entrance applications , music, foreign trips, skiing etc... They don't hide their snobbery when they visit the UK, there is a snobbery about universities, they only want ivy leagues.. However St Andrews, Oxbridge, Cambridge or Trinity college Dublin also desirable... Anyone without a top class education & money (money is king to my American family!) is dismissed as white trash.. Their children have inherited their attitudes...

they only want ivy leagues.

I wonder if they're aware that together, the Ivy League schools only have 68,000 undergraduates, which is 0.4% of the total number of undergraduate placements in the US.

I haven't read the entire thread but the reason there are standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT for high schoolers applying to university is because of the vast difference between high schools and level of attainment. The USA is as big as the all of Europe, East and West and there are hundreds of different school systems. Some states (mostly the West Coast, the NE, Texas and Colorado) are very wealthy and have a combination of good public (state) schools and private schools. We are in the suburbs of a West Coast City and all the schools whether public or private are outstanding. A huge number of highly educated couples from around the USA and the world have moved to the area in the last 20 years and so their children are bright and ambitious. The flagship public university is highly competitive as it offers a world class education at a good price for state residents. Those coming from out of state or internationally have to pay 3 times as much to attend.

On the other hand some states are much poorer and don't offer such a competitive education.

It would be fairer to compare the UK.with a state like Massachusetts which has a large range of colleges and universities and has a highly educated population. When compared internationally Massachusetts rates in the top ten. If you compared the UK with Nevada, Mississippi or Kentucky it would be a very unfair comparison, as the population of those states is much smaller and poorer than the UK. The UK is roughly the size of California with a pretty equal population and if California was an independent country I think it would have the 6h largest population in the world

Sorry that posted too early so has typos! I meant California has the 6th largest economy not population.