Okay, this is one of those things I always seem to hear about and it’s taken for granted that I’ll have some idea of what is being talked about. I get the basic idea that it’s some sort of standard of excellence or achievement in academics, but what? And what do they correspond to in America?
Cambridge International Exams sets public exams called the General Certificate of Education (GCE) in many subjects. The ordinary (O) level exam is usually taken at about age 16. The advanced (A) level exam is taken 2 years later. A levels are the international ticket to tertiary education. So my English father tells me.
I forgot to mention that these exams were superseded in England by the General Certificate of Secondary Education GSCE in the 1980’s.
Only the O-level was superceded, by GSCE’s.
The A-level examinations are still in full flow, with AS-level exams (about 1/2 an A-level) also emerging to allow greater spread of subjects for the sitter.
Very generally (as it varies between individual and school), you would sit about 8-12 GSCE’s in various subjects at the age of 16.
You would then sit 3-4 A-levels (or more AS-levels) two years later (or one year if you are damn good in that particular subject.)
BTW, A-Levels are considered by many employers to be of higher standard than University courses, in fact higher than any exam taken up until actual professional qualifications (in law, accounting, architecture etc…).
There used to be O(rdinary) level examinations which were graded A>F and U(ngraded) - anything A>C being considered a ‘pass’
and CSE (Certificate of Secondary Education) examinations which were graded 1>5 and U - a grade ‘1’ CSE result was (IIRC) considered roughly equivalent to a Grade ‘C’ O level.
So to simplify: O-Levels no longer exist, and nor do CSEs.
Generally, this is the situation:
@16 => GCSEs
@18 => A-Levels
A-Levels are optional and conditional - people can leave school after their GCSEs, or continue to As if their GCSE grades are high enough.
Here’s a random site with a breakdown of the Maths A-level (links on left), to let you 'Merkins compare the level with the US school leaving exams.
(There are probably better pages, but I can’t find them at the moment.)
It’s not easy to compare the A-levels and O-levels (or the GSCE’s, to use the current name) to anything in the U.S. The GCSE’s are taken at 16. Most Britons drop out of school at 16, so that’s the final record of how they have done in school. (These people aren’t really the equivalent of high school dropouts in the U.S., who are clearly leaving school without getting a degree. People who drop out at 16 in the U.K. are called school-leavers, and that’s all that’s expected for most jobs.) Passing one of the GCSE tests is equivalent roughly to passing a high school course in the U.S., and there are approximately as many different GCSE tests as there are different sorts of high school courses. You can expect average students in the U.K. to pass a few of the GCSE’s and you can expect students who will eventually go on to university to pass nearly all of the GCSE’s that they take.
A-levels are given at 18 in the U.K., but the knowledge required to pass them is higher than what is required for average high school courses in the U.S. Maybe it’s about the equivalent of the first year’s work in a subject at a university in the U.S. Again, there are approximately as many different sorts of A-levels as there are sorts of high school course in the U.S. Someone going to a university in the U.K. (a distinctly smaller proportion of the population than goes to university in the U.S.) probably passes a couple of their A-levels on average.
University education is only three years long in the U.K., not four as in the U.S. On graduation at 21 (if they didn’t take any time off) a U.K. university graduate will probably know a little more about their major subject than a U.S. university graduate will at 22. A lot of the U.S. graduates will have degrees in non-liberal arts subjects that don’t exactly correspond to anything in the U.S. People who do the equivalent jobs in the U.K. will probably have only A-levels, not a university education.
It’s not easy to compare the A-levels and O-levels (or the GSCE’s, to use the current name) to anything in the U.S. The GCSE’s are taken at 16. Most Britons drop out of school at 16, so that’s the final record of how they have done in school. (These people aren’t really the equivalent of high school dropouts in the U.S., who are clearly leaving school without getting a degree. People who drop out at 16 in the U.K. are called school-leavers, and that’s all that’s expected for most jobs.) Passing one of the GCSE tests is equivalent roughly to passing a high school course in the U.S., and there are approximately as many different GCSE tests as there are different sorts of high school courses. You can expect average students in the U.K. to pass a few of the GCSE’s and you can expect students who will eventually go on to university to pass nearly all of the GCSE’s that they take.
A-levels are given at 18 in the U.K., but the knowledge required to pass them is higher than what is required for average high school courses in the U.S. Maybe it’s about the equivalent of the first year’s work in a subject at a university in the U.S. Again, there are approximately as many different sorts of A-levels as there are sorts of high school course in the U.S. Someone going to a university in the U.K. (a distinctly smaller proportion of the population than goes to university in the U.S.) probably passes a couple of their A-levels on average.
University education is only three years long in the U.K., not four as in the U.S. On graduation at 21 (if they didn’t take any time off) a U.K. university graduate will probably know a little more about their major subject than a U.S. university graduate will at 22. A lot of the U.S. graduates will have degrees in non-liberal arts subjects that don’t exactly correspond to anything in the U.S. People who do the equivalent jobs in the U.K. will probably have only A-levels, not a university education.
Can’t somebody fix this message board so that it doesn’t post two copies of a post when you’ve only hit the submit button once?
Just a minor nit-pick, but Univerity courses are only 3 years in England, not in Scotland, where they are 4 years.
(of course that depends on what course you study also).
My field of study (in architecture) takes a total of seven years, five of which are in full-time 3rd level education.
Nitpick: many university courses in the UK are longer than four years. Medicine, nursing and veterinary science can last between five and seven years full-time. Scottish universities usually offer four-year courses in all subjects due to the different secondary education system in Scotland.
The education system is in somewhat of a state of flux at the moment, as last year they reformed the A-level system. As far as I can remember, pupils now take around 5 AS-levels in the first year after GCSEs, around three of which they then continue with to A-level standard, called A2s. So pupils now study a broader range of subjects in the first year. However, the increased exam workload has led to scandals and resignations, with much worrying in the British educational system. I’m glad to have got out of it before they introduced the new system.
The old CSE and GCE O Levels were amalgamated in 1986 to form the GCSE examination. Taken at age 16+, this is the final set of examinations at the end of compulsory schooling. Depending on their results at this stage, students may be recommended to continue to the optional A Level stage, either at the same school or at a specialist college. There is no formal qualification for A Levels, but in practice schools/colleges are unlikely to admit any student whose GCSE grades were too low.
At 18+, if students apply for further, post-school, education they will typically be interviewed by the university(-ies) of their choice, and schools will predict their likely A Level performance. The universities use this information to issue the student with an offer of admission, dependent on hitting a target of A Level grades. In other words, if the university makes an offer of “an A and two Bs”, the student needs to get those grades or better in any of their three or four A Level subjects to be admitted to the college making the offer.
BTW, there is no graduation ceremony at the end of school, either at GCSE or A Level; graduation is a university ceremony only.
Following a series of recent problems there has been some dissatisfaction expressed with the current UK schools examinations system. Suggestions have been made ranging from the simple (abandoning the recently-introduced two-stage AS/A2 Level and returning to A Levels only), to the radical (abandoning A Levels altogether in favour of the International Baccalaureate or some British variation of it). It remains to be seen what changes will be made, if any.
Nitpick to the nitpicks: You’re right, Aro, I should have restricted my claim to England (and Wales and Northern Ireland?), since the Scottish educational system is somewhat different. It’s somewhat confusing to Americans just saying that the medical course is seven years long, Crusoe. In the U.S. there’s no such thing as a university-level medical course. In the U.S. a student wanting to become a doctor usually goes to university with the plan of majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry. A student can instead choose to major in something else, but there’s a list of biology and chemistry (and perhaps some physics and math) courses that they have to take. At the point that they graduate from college (well, actually in the last year of college), they then apply to medical schools, who look at their college grades and their scores on a medical school admission test and decide whether to admit them. Many people graduate from college but can’t get into medical school. It’s not like in the U.K. where you get accepted into a medical course at the point you enter the university.
Ah, so there’s no correlation at all. I think I’ll stick with my HS diploma and a (hopefully) BS in chemistry (if not eventually a Ph. D.)
I’m just about ready to give up on understanding European–especially British–social systems. Parliament? Confusing. Schooling? Confusing. Why Scotland!=England!=Wales!=Ireland? Confusing.
I wrote:
> A lot of the U.S. graduates will have degrees in non-liberal arts
> subjects that don’t exactly correspond to anything in the U.S.
> People who do the equivalent jobs in the U.K. will probably
> have only A-levels, not a university education.
I meant:
> A lot of the U.S. graduates will have degrees in non-liberal arts
> subjects that don’t exactly correspond to anything in the U.K.
> People who do the equivalent jobs in the U.K. will probably
> have only A-levels, not a university education.
I can see that we may have confused you with all those names and initials, otherwise what’s the problem? You study subjects, you take exams, if you pass them you can move on to the next stage.
This thread may help.
I don’t think that it is still the case that most pupils " drop out " at age 16 after their GCSEs. Nowerdays a very high proportion stay on to take A levels . Not all go on to Uni. at that stage but they still find the A levels helpful when looking for employment or to take non-universtity courses.