College/Universities explained... please.

Factual Questions
1

Can someone please explain the different school systems used in the USA, Australia, and the UK?

Here in Australia we have Primary (Kinder to grade 6 or 7, depending on school), Secondary 7 or 8 to 10 or 11) , and Tertiary (11 or 12 to 12 or 13, also called Matriculation College). Some (mainly private schools) are introducing “Middle School” which is usually grades 6 to 8, ie, a transition from primary to secondary.

When watching TV or Movies based in the USA, I hear references to College, they seem to be pre-16 year olds, occasional references to Middle School, Junior High, Senior High.

In a nut shell, can anyone provide a comparison showing what grades go where? Just so I can understand exactly where “Lizzie Mcguire” is is going and why someone in college is not old enough to drive. (On an aside, are all states in the USA have the same minimum age for drivers licences?)

2

Grades 1-6 Elementary School
Grades 7-8 Middle School
Grades 9-12 High School

College and University are somewhat interchangeable but generally speaking, colleges are undergraduate post-secondary institutions while Universities provide undergraduate and post-graduate programs (medicine, law, Masters and PhD programs.)

The first part about primary education can be somewhat flexible - my daughters went to Elementary school for grades 1-5 and Middle School was 6,7,and 8 (public schools.)

3

In the United States, colleges are institutions that only have undergraduates - ie, they don’t give out degrees higher than a BA/BS. Universities are institutions that also give out higher degrees - masters and doctorates. There are also community colleges (sometimes called junior colleges) that only grant an Associates Degree, which is like half of a BA or BS, completed in two years. It is generally expected that someone who attends a community college will transfer to a four-year institution to complete their degree. Local people can also take classes at community colleges for a small fee, without working toward any degree. Like, I’ve taken Spanish at a community college, just because I wanted to improve my Spanish.

However, it is common usage in the US to refer to all four year institutions as “college”. For instance, I went to college at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I got my BA there. It is unusual (not totally unheard of) to refer to college as university, even if it is, in fact, a university. OTOH, I went to grad school (master’s degree) at the University of Michigan, and I wouldn’t say I went to college there - I went to college at UCSC, and I went to grad school at UM.

In other words, you’re unlikely to hear an American ask, “hey, where did you go to university?” You’d be more likely to hear “where did you go to college?” or “where did you go to school?” So when you see TV shows where kids in high school are talking about what colleges they want to go to, that includes university. The terms are largely interchangeable.

And unless someone is some kind of child genius, anyone in college is old enough to have a driver’s license. I think the age limit is 16 in all of the states, although I could be wrong, I guess. But just because someone is old enough to get a license, doesn’t mean they have one. I didn’t get one until I was 22 or 23.

Um, I hope I haven’t confused you more.

4

In Ontario, the terminology is broadly similar for naming the grades, at least in the government-funded schools.

We have kindergarten to grade 6 as “public school” (officially called “elementary school”). Grades 7 and 8 are “middle school” or “senior public school”, where they aren’t just part of public school. The big dividing line is between grade 8 and grade 9. Grades 9 to 12 are high school (officially known as “secondary school”). Earlier, in Ontario, grade 13 was available as an optional fifth year of high school for people going to university.

One terminology the US uses which is sharply different from Ontario is the naming of people in each grade. US people will say “freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior” for grades 9, 10, 11, and 12. This is not done in Ontario, to such an extent that I am not certain I got the US terms right. We simply say “grade 9 student” and so on. There is some use of “frosh” when entering high school, but that fades after the first few weeks.

5

I have never heard years 11 and 12 referred to as “tertiary” in Australia. Tertiary education in Australia is after high school – TAFE and universities, more or less. You are from Victoria, right? I think the final two years are somewhat separate from lower grades of high school there (and also in Tasmania and Canberra), and those two years are referred to as “college”. But that doesn’t mean year 11, 12 or 13 are at a tertiary level of education.

The Wikipedia article on education in Australia should give you an idea of the differences in schooling throughout Australia.

Also, the concept of “middle school” is discussed even when there is no physical middle school – it can be a way of talking about how to help kids become more independent and manage the transition from primary style learning and behavior management to secondary style.

6

I don’t watch Lizzie McGuire, but I just read the plot summary from 2001, and it says the character was 13. In general, subtract 5 years from the age to get grade in the US school system, although by the end of the school year some students may be 6 years older than their grade. A 13 year old would normally be an 8th grader, last year of middle school. The IMDB summary says “The show is about growing up, in the beginning Lizzie and Miranda (played by: Hilary Duff, and Lalaine Vergara-Paras) buy their first bras. And towards the series ending they will be saying good bye to their Junior school.” “Junior School” or “Junior High School” used to be a more common term, and usually meant 7th, 8th and possibly 9th grades. Most districts now have “middle schools”, which often include 6th grade. Driver’s licenses are determined by state law, but 16 years of age is sort of a standard, with some kind of “learner’s permit” obtainable several months earlier.

7

This is false. The country is rife with colleges that grant postgraduate degrees. You may have heard of the College of William & Mary, for example.

While most institutions that grant graduate degrees call themselves universities, there is absolutely no standard nomenclature nor any generally accepted convention about what is called what.

8

Another statement I’ve heard which probably isn’t always true is that universities are collections of colleges. It’s true that most US universities divide themselves into a “college of engineering”, “college of liberal arts”, etc, it’s pretty much just an administrative division with no physical separation. Bottom line - you can pretty much assume “college” and “university” mean the same thing in casual US conversation. COMMUNITY college means something different, though, as noted.

9

I’m not tremendously familiar with the “Lizzy McGuire” timeline but High school students around 11th grade begin to think about where they might want to go to college. There are many, many options, from small schools of 2,000 to enormous ones of 40,000. They cost different amounts of money, provide different levels of financial aid to needy students, are known for different types of curriculum, and are more and less competitive. Many factors – including grades, entrance exams, coursework, activities, volunteer work and more – go into whether you can get accepted into a particular college/university. Because there are so many schools, they are all so different, and many students aspire to travel far from home and live full-time on campus, it is a stressful decision making process.

Most students begin college around the age of 18, depending when their birthday falls. Most 18 year olds are eligible for, and possess, a driver’s license. However, most students beginning the process of applying for college, are about 16 and only just becoming eligible to apply for a learner’s permit or limited driver’s license (in many states you can only get a restricted license at 16 - no other teens in the car, no driving at night, etc).

Some schools are privately operated, others have taxpayer funding and preferentially accept students who are residents of the state they are located in (“state schools”). State schools accept students from out-of-state for a higher tuition, which is still usually cheaper than top private schools. Some state schools are extremely competitive and prestigious, others less so. Not every state has a prestigious university of nationwide renown, but most states have a well-regarded university and/or college, some middling universities or colleges, and a couple that are kind of crappy. As well as a large system of 2-year community colleges as noted above.

Some of the more famous state schools are the University of Michigan, The University of Virginia, and the University of California - Berkeley. Some of the more famous private schools are Harvard, Brown, Oberlin and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There are many famous public and private colleges/Universities.

For historical reasons, a few universities are known by the name [something] College, such as Dartmouth College (private) and The College of William & Mary (public) but they are exceptions. Most places known as [something] College are actually undergraduate colleges. “College” as others have noted, is the blanket American term for undergraduate education.

10

Regarding William and Mary, it is my understanding that it retains its “College” title in honor if it’s origination – a royal charter from King William in 1693. It’s wikipedia entry mentions this as well (as far as you can trust Wikipedia), as well as it being one of the nine Colonial Colleges (Colonial colleges - Wikipedia).

Disclaimer: W&M graduate who took a few courses specifically to take a few courses in the Wren building (oldest college building in the United States). It turns out the courses were interesting too!

In general though I find folks use the term college and university interchangeably with college being more common unless they are speaking of a specific university.

11

People generally get driver’s licenses starting at 16 in the US. In some states, it’s a little older.

You might find someone 16 or younger in a college or university in the US (not a community college), but it’s fairly rare.

Of course, not everybody gets their driver’s license as soon as they are legally old enough to do so. This is supposedly becoming more common.

12

There is no certainty or rule in the US. I went to:

K-1-5 Elementary School
6-8 Middle School (some call it Junior High)
9-12 High School

I’ve heard of people who to 6-9 or 7-9 for middle school, and 10-12 for high. Many places combine middle and high; for reasons to complicated to explain here my HS was technically 7-12 as well, and I believe it is now 6-12.

There is no legal distinction between “US College” or “US University” or even “University of US.” Colleges tend to be more liberal-arts oriented on average, but that’s about it. As mentioned, there are colleges inside of universities, these are not the same thing and sometimes similar to colleges at places like Oxford.

13

Hence the term university. However, I think it’s safe to say that while some institutions which refer to themselves as a “college,” have graduate programs, this is usually because they have expanded, but kept the name for the sake of its historical prestige (College of William and Mary). Many of the Cal State universities were originally colleges, and referred to as such:

Got that?

14

There’s also Dartmouth College, which gives graduate degrees. St. John’s College in Maryland has graduate students, too, as does the College of Charleston, Ithaca College, Providence College, and Bennington College.

The main difference between a college and a university is that a university is made up of separate colleges (sometimes called “schools”). Thus Syracuse University is made up of The College of Arts and Sciences, University College, College of Visual and Performing Arts, School of Architecture, Newhouse School of Public Communication, College of Law, Graduate School, and others. Harvard as eleven academic units in the University.

This distinction is being blurred as colleges start calling what used to be called Divisions (i.e., Division of Liberal Arts) are now being called “schools.”

15

Are you in Tasmania? I think i remember their system being like that, but I was only little when I was down there.
In Queensland, we have primary (prep-7) High school (8-12) and very rarely middle schools.
I just graduated this year (yr 12) from St “insert name here” College. It’s called college, but it is a high school, it happens here too.

16

In the U.S., most school districts have age cut-offs to enter schools. For example, a school may not allow a kid to enter kindergarten unless he is 5 years old by September 1st of the school year (or 1st grade unless he is 6 years old by such a date). And, in recent years, there are some parents of kids (especially parents of boys, from what I’ve seen) who hold their kids back from starting school for a year, in order to let them mature a bit.

In general, American kids who are 5 at the start of the school year (around the beginning of September) are entering kindergarten, and those who are 6 are entering 1st grade. But, as others have said, very little about primary education is absolute in the U.S.; a lot of the rules are established at the state or local level.

American kids who are starting college are typically 18 years old. Relatively few start college at younger than 18 – those who do might’ve “skipped a year” at some point during grade school or high school, or somehow have been allowed to start grade school or high school earlier than the norm.

17

Any universities out there that don’t have post-graduate work?

Going along with the “universities are a collection of colleges” aside - Notre Dame has four colleges (Liberal Arts, Engineering, Science, and Business) and a school (Architecture). The School of Architecture is only a school because it’s just one major - and therefore not a college.

18

Australia has that too. In Queensland it was the last day of the school year ( early december sometime) but it has now been moved to the middle of the year. (around june 24th, if I’m not mistaken.)

19

And some parents and some kids are obsessive about college at a young age. Lizzie McGuire was one of those shows where Lizzie and her parents were all worked up about her getting into a good school - that was part of her trials.

There are a number of reasons for that. It isn’t only the good school, its qualifying for scholarships that will make the good school affordable for middle class people. And a lot of people believe that a good school will pay off in better economic success. Lizzie is under a lot of pressure to do well at school, get scholarships, get into a good college - because middles school starts to be the time when it all starts to MATTER.

20

When I was a kid, you could get your drivers license in Texas at 14 if you could prove hardship. I lived in the richest area of Austin, and almost all of the kids I knew were “hardship” cases and got their license. My parents wouldn’t sign the form, and I had to wait until I was fifteen before I could get my learner’s permit. In New Jersey, you get a permit at sixteen, and a provisional driver’s license at 17 which comes with all sorts of restrictions. You get a full driver’s license at 18.