Then today, during lunch I was speaking with the young woman working in the food court. She mentioned that her mother had a doctorate in Mathematics and so was not allowed to come with her family from Cuba to the United States. Both statements got me to wondering about how equivalent, or not, advanced degrees are from different parts of the world.
Is a degree from the India Institute of Management the equivalent of a degree from Wharton, Harvard or MIT business schools? Is there any way of gauging a degree from Cuba (PhD in Mathematics) against a degree in Mathematics from a US University? What about Canadian and American Universities? Or degrees from Europe? Is there any group that attempts to objectively rate degrees across countries? I know that US News & World Report does an annual rating of American universities that tries to be objective? Is there any other (relatively) objective measure?
I do not think there are any “standards” for comparison, nor is there any association of colleges and universities of the world that ranks or awards merit/demerit points to its members. The “class” or “fame” of an institution in fact depends on several factors that are linked and dependent on each other. It perhaps starts with both the amount and the quality of the initial investment made in the institution. Then come the standards, quality and levels of education prescribed and how sincerely they are adhered to. Good salaries and good research facilities draw good teachers, who then impart good education. The people who pass from such institutions then get good jobs and this feedback increases competition for admission to the institute which then acts as a positive feedback for the system, churning out better and better workers on a continuous basis. I don’t think I have really answered your question, but yes it would be good idea I believe to have an international body that would have the means and the measure to classify universities and colleges, at least in some sort of broad bands or groups. Then we would not be left wondering whether a Doctorate in Mathematics from Cuba is the same as one from Harvard or not.
Well, I was initially thinking that there might be some common test and a way to weight the results by country. For example, if you looked at people with bachelor’s level degrees and their relative success on some other test, like the Graduate Record Examination, then use some data to filter out that a broader range of people from the USA versus India take that test, maybe also factor in class rank, etc.
For example, I’ve heard several people say that the University of South Florida has a very good accounting program because a very high percent of their graduates pass the CPA exam the first time that they sit for that test.
Of course this doesn’t help with people that already have MBAs, since I don’t know of any post-grad standard test which they all take.
Yes, but they’re probably prepared for this test and its peculiarities. Indians would have been prepared for another different test. So, most likely, the Inians would tend to fail at the american test, and the americans at the Indian test.
And besides, test can only have sense for either the lowest degrees or the degrees obtained in a technical field. I really can’t imagine what kind of test could be devised to tell apart two doctors in mathematics. Each of them would probably be unable to understand what the other is working on.
This is more or less specific to India and Computer Science.
I served on numerous grad admissions committees in CS, which of course meant reviewing a lot of applications from India. Indian higher education is based on the old British system to some extent. (But a lot more test driven, esp. in admissions.) So we considered a standard college degree to be the same as a US bachelors degree. Masters degree are about the same but with some differences. We never had someone with a PhD level degree apply, of course.
But there is a major difference in quality among the various Indian colleges. Most of them are certainly not Whartons, MITs, etc. At the most selective place I worked, we only considered applicants from a handful of colleges and those were selected based on the personal knowledge of our faculty as well as info provided by Indian professors in the US we knew. (At the less selective place, there was less knowledge about schools, but more knowledge about professors over there. A good letter from someone we knew helped a lot.)
The typical Indian CS grad was very, very, very good at taking tests. So that meant we generally ignored test scores (e.g., GREs). There had to be other info in the folder that indicated they were actually good at what we were looking for. I don’t think American companies off-shoring to India understand this. Most jobs they are being hired for don’t involve taking tests! The questions always has to be “how do we know that this person is good for doing X?” Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. Degrees, exam scores (the basis for grades) won’t tell you that.
Australia is very big and very professional on assessing overseas qualifications --> National Office of Overseas Skills Recognition (AEI-NOOSR) “The Country Education Profiles are a series of over 80 booklets which describe the education system in different countries and provide guidelines on the assessment of many qualifications from these countries. The Profiles are available for purchase from the Government Info Shops (formerly Commonwealth Government Bookshops).”
This is from memory but education, training and skills obtained outside of Australia gennerally are ranked lower than the Australian equivalent from most, if not all Asian countries, including India. Conversely, education, training and skills obtained in the USA, Canada and the UK rank higher than the Austrlian equivalent.
For example, many PhD degrees throughout Asia are rated a baculoreatte or equivalent in Australia. At the same time a four-year undergraduate degree from a Level I university in the US ranks as a undergraduate withhonors degree in Australia. Of course, there is a three-year physiotheraphy undergraduate degree from one university in Australia that outranks all other similar degrees from any other university world-wide.
To my knowledge, the USA has no equivalent government agency devoted to assessing overseas education for those coming to America.
In physics, at least, (and I understand in most other fields) a PhD is a PhD, no matter whence it came. But for any degree less than a PhD, comparisons are less meaningful. When admitting students from other countries into an American university, one has to go much more on a student-by-student basis.
In mathematics, at least, anyone trying to compare two Ph.D.s would compare the dissertations. An excellent dissertation written at a school without much esteem is still an excellent dissertation.
My father is a professor of CS in Australia and he regularly has people from china with a chinese PhD and 5 - 10 years of experience in academia come and work under him for an Australian PhD. This is not so much a matter of experience as demand though. He gets a bunch of bright and competant people under him which means lots of papers published and they get promotions up the yin yang when they return to China.
That is exactly my experience. The last time I taught in Italy my own class told me that I shouldn’t worry about the fact that 90% of them had doctorates, as “they were equivalent to a US Bachelor’s with an extra year” - IIRC, they said you could get one in 5 years.
I know that when I told some friends in the UK about getting my MS they weren’t all that impressed, and I didn’t understand why - until Fierra informed me about how little study is required and how few years are needed, relative to the US - especially at Cambridge, IIRC. But I cannot remember what the deal was with Cambridge, if any - something about people automatically receiving an MS after one additional year?
Re: Cambridge and Oxford Masters degrees. Both Cambridge and Oxford originally (circa 1200) awarded an MA as the initial degree, after years of residence and exams and such - roughly seven years’ worth, though as I recall this included some teaching.
Now, after these upstart Universities like London appeared on the scene awarding BAs and the three year degree became standard Oxbridge somewhat reluctantly complied - Oxbridge graduates are now awarded BAs after three years like everyone else.
However, it is still the opinion of the ancient universities that their undergraduates have done enough work to deserve a Masters - and certainly, comparing my workload at Oxford to my brother’s at Manchester I tend to agree - so seven years from matriculation (about 4 years after graduation) an Oxbridge graduate simply has to apply to the University to be awarded an MA.
In order to differentiate these from the Masters’ degrees obtained by research, they are commonly written as MA (Oxon) or MA (Cantab), depending on University.
On the more general topic of advanced degrees, in the UK the school system specializes earlier - juniors and seniors in high school study 3-4 (latterly 5) subjects in depth rather than a broad range; this is considered to bring UK students to the level of American first-year undergrads. This carries on through University, with students focusing on their ‘major’ and having few if any general education requirements. Thus, UK Universities consider their honours graduates to be at the same level in their subject as first or second-year grad students in the US, particularly in the sciences. So a British Ph.D. student moves straight into research, and spends three years on that alone to be awarded their degree.
How true all of this is depends, of course, on the University. I wouldn’t personally want to put a graduate of South Bank University up against a Cal-Tech grad in an intellectual cage match, but equally an Oxford, Cambridge or Imperial grad would wipe the floor with a Podunk State grad.
As QuizCustodet explains, the Oxford/Cambridge thing is a little weird; however the universities offer “proper” Master’s degrees in their own right - for instance I did a Master’s in Engineering, so next January I’ll have two Master’s degrees - an MEng and an MA. I’m conflicted about whether to put the MA on my CV, since I know full well I didn’t actually do anything relevant to get it.
As for the actual Master’s, those too are a little different to US ones, I suspect. I did it as part of one continuous undergraduate course - three years are spent gaining a BA leading straight into the final, Master’s year. It’s a far more taught course than most, being 50/50 lecture courses and project, respectively. Personally, I wouldn’t classify it as a research degree. I would dispute that relatively little study is required for it (naturally ;)) - my experience is that UK courses are far more concentrated and focused than US courses. An engineer does solely engineering courses, specialises early and graduates on a strict timescale. My impression is that the US system is by and large more flexible about these things, with greater scope for diversity within a particular course. Don’t have a clue which I think is preferable, though.
At the risk of hijacking this thread, would it be possible for any US types to let me know what sort of reputation, if any, Imperial College has over there? I’m turning over the idea of doing a PhD in robotics there with a view to coming back to the States to work, eventually. I know y’all have heard of Oxbridge, but am not sure how far perceptions extend to other British institutions…
The UK system (outside of Oxbridge) of continuing an extra year to recieve a Master’s is mainly a preserve of science subjects.
In my field (music), a Bachelor degree takes either 3 or 4 years, at the choice of the institution. A Masters is completely separate - many people move to a different university, to be with a specialist in their developing field of specialist interest. These further divide into ‘taught degrees’ and ‘research degrees’, the former being about 50/50 between a short research thesis and various specialist taught classes, the latter being solely a medium-length thesis. In many cases, people will do one followed by the other, before progressing to a PhD, so they will result with four independent qualifications. (I’m considering doing this myself, but for a slightly different reason, that I want to do some serious research in the research masters in an area unconnected with my potential PhD topic).
Certainly from my experience of working alongside foriegn students, the taught Master’s seem comparable to final-year undergraduate standards in America, no doubt due to the greater specialisation at earlier levels of education as mentioned by QuizCustodet.
In my field (Earth sciences), students with B.A. or B.S. degrees from foreign universities are often regarded as being at pretty much the same level as undergrads here, with perhaps a few exceptions. The situation is rather different for M.A./M.S. degree holders applying to Ph.D. programs, though - people coming from China, India and Russia (the primary sources of foreign grad students not from western Europe) are often advised to re-do a master’s once they arrive here. The reason for this, in my experience, is two-fold:
Financial constraints of many overseas institutions means that professors, never mind students, don’t get regular access to current publications in their fields and have limited opportunities for international collaborations. That means it’s not uncommon to find someone who has the work ethic and raw capability but is about 15-20 years behind the current levels of thought and expertise. Students need the class time in a master’s program here to come up to speed.
Students from places like India and China, in particular, come from an academic culture wherein the professor is like a god, and is not supposed to be questioned. These folks are just not used to the kind of inquiry expected of a science grad student here, especially at research-oriented institutions. Doing master’s level research here gets them used to the fact that not only can they challenge their professors, but that they should as part of their growth as scientists.
There are always exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking that’s the situation I’m familiar with as far as degree comparisons go.
By the way, w/r/t the grad student workload in some parts of Europe versus the U.S. - I was once told by a French researcher that no French student would ever stand for the kind of workload I described to him as being my daily routine. He was very favorably impressed by my schedule. I told him I would settle for his being less impressed if I could ever get a vacation in return.
