The application for

comprehensive universities- undergraduate

Many students who pursue overseas study in America always dreams to attend those elite schools and they always try their best to choose the fancy universities to apply. While in fact, universities in US have different types and teaching formats. Thus, we suggest Chinese students get clear idea of them first and choose the most suitable schools for themselves. Now, let’s introduce the types and features of universities in US.

Based on the scale of the faculty and diverse development direction of students, the 4-year universities of America can be divided into comprehensive universities, colleges and professional universities.

The four-year comprehensive universities:

You will have more choices based on the courses offered here. These schools advocate more of self-study and independence. As the world renowned schools, you must be very familiar with Harvard University and Stanford University. As the most common form of the local universities, they are well-known to Chinese students. Generally speaking, there are more than 20,000 to 50,000 students in the university and based on the scale of the school, there are faculty of Arts, faculty of Science, faculty of Education, faculty of Engineering, faculty of Business and faculty of Agriculture, etc. Schools offer Bachelor degree and also provide grad school to foster masters and doctors.

The merit of these schools is they are public universities which means the tuition are relatively cheap. The campuses are big, the resources are extensive and there are always wonderful libraries and well-equipped laboratories. More importantly, these schools can provide students with abundant courses to choose from. For an enthusiastic and independent student, environment like these couldn’t be better.

Colleges: to cultivate elites.

The majority of Chinese students may not be quite familiar with the four-year colleges, but they are sure not strange to MIT and California Institute of Technology. Compared with the four-year comprehensive universities,the Liberal Arts Colleges are smaller in scale and the number of students often range from 1000 to 3000. The colleges lay the foundation on undergraduate education which include liberal education, social science and natural science. Most colleges just offer Bachelor degree and only a small portion of colleges provide Master and Doctorate degree. Plus, the faculties of such colleges are pretty strong and most of the professors here possess Doctorate degrees. The professors attach importance to teaching itself and pay lots of attention to tutoring students. In recent years, colleges of arts and science have developed rapidly. And some preparatory schools of business, medical and laws have opened. In US, these colleges enjoy very good reputation because they simply offer undergraduate education, so the teachers could pay attention to teaching and don’t need to think about scientific tests and the issue of papers. Meanwhile, America has vastly applied small-class teaching method, so the students can closely interact with teachers which can be of great help to cultivate the ability of communication and foster the strength of leadership. Afterwards, the many graduates pursue higher education which can be valued as the elite producer.