What are the requirements for being accepted to the universities in the USA?

Question

Hi, I am a german schoolgirl and I have to make a presentation about universities in the US about what are the most important universities there and what are the requirements for being accepted. Can you please help me and explain what the SAT or ACT are? Thank you very much!!!!

Answer 1

Most important universities:
The following are an elite group of colleges that are the top colleges in the nations--
Harvard University
Princeton University
Cornell University
Yale University
Darthmouth University
Columbia University
The University of Pennsylvania
Brown University
(I think that's it)

These are not in the "Ivy League" but are also top colleges in the nation:
Stanford University
The University of Chicago
New York University

REQUIREMENTS for getting into 4-year colleges are usually:
High school diploma
SATs

Guidance counselors and High School teacher usually recommend:
Community involvement
Extracurricular activities
Good letters of recommendation

The SAT is an aptitude test that does not determine how much you know but rather how well you can apply your knowledge. There are 3 sections -- Math, Verbal, and Writing. The Math section is mostly algebra and geometry, the verbal section is mostly vocabulary, and the writing section is grammar and an essay. Colleges use it because if a test that determined how much you learned in high school was given, that would single out kids who went to better high schools and colleges would really only be accepting rich kids. With the SATs, it's basic stuff that colleges can use to measure your potential.

Answer 2

The SAT and ACT are entrance exams that most colleges require you to take and obtain a certain score depending on the college and degree that you need to achieve before you may be accepted in the school. A great source for learning about entrance requirements is http://collegeboard.com. This allows you to see every schools entrance requirements you'll also be able to get sample SAT questions and the like. As for the most important schools, the IVY League schools are some of the hardesst schools to get into, and most State schools are fairly competitive and important such as University of Texas, University of California schools, Oklahoma University Penn State etc.

Answer 3

the "most important" university is whichever one accepts you! seriously though, it depends on what you are studying. there are a lot of good schools in the ivy league, big 10, acc, and pac10. look them up, some of them are harvard, yale, brown, duke, northwestern, virginia, ucla, stanford, cal berkely,wisconsin, michigan, columbia, north carolina, etc. if you are into the sciences, especially engineering, then the best schools would be MIT, Purdue, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon, etc.

The SATs and ACTs are pretty similar. Every student has to take either the SAT or ACT test to get into college. A lot of high schools vary in quality, so these tests are a good way to measure all students against each other. Your GPA, and SAT scores are the main things that matter in admission. Other factors include your extracurriculat activities, such as volunteering, sports, and such. Most students will also need recommendations from their high school teachers, saying that they are qualified to go to college.

Answer 4

You can get a list of the top rated US universities at the web site for US News. You can look up lots of statistics for being accepted at US schools at the web site for Princeton Review.

The SAT and ACT are standardized tests that American students can take to get into college. The ACT is used at less prestigious schools -- and most people only take the SATs.

Traditionally, the SAT had two areas -- math and verbal. Scores range from a low of 200 to a high of 800 for each area. The new SAT has added a written essay section.

I've included links below for the US News rankings, the Princeton Review site and the SAT site.

Answer 5

The SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is a series of one hour tests covering a wide array of subjects. It is the most widely recognized and accepted admissions test. Virtually all American universities will require or accept specific SAT tests.

The ACT (American College Test) is almost as ubiquitous and widely recognized.

Every university has specific entrance requirements, so I suggest you contact several of them directly. Here are a couple of links for you.

Best wishes!

Answer 6

Hi

What a great assignment - I wish some US teachers would assign some kids to study how schools in Germany and other countries work!

Here is how the whole system operates:

In the USA students normally graduate from high school after 12 years of school, about age 18. During their last year of high school they apply to colleges for acceptance the following autumn, There are over 4000 college/university (in the US these two words are used interchangeably) campuses so there is a huge range of choices about where to go and what to study.

Over half of all US high school graduates take at least a few college courses. About half of those kids eventually receive a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree - this is supposed to take four years of study, but it often takes 5 or 6 years. There are hundreds of different majors or concentrations of study : biology, chemistry, physics, geology, or English or Modern Languages, Classics, psychology, sociology, history, art, etc. In nearly all US colleges the students are required to take about half the courses in their major area and one-third to one-half in general studies - that is, all the other areas of the university that are outside their major.

American universities are private or public - every state has its own public universities that are supported by the state, but there are hundreds of private universities that are independent of the government. Many of these are old (by American standards) - There are about 15 or 20 schools that are the most prestigious and are extremely competitive to get into. These include the eight schools of the Ivy League (technically a sports union, but in practice, an elite unofficial organization for educational policy) - they are Dartmouth, Harvard, Brown, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, Princeton and Uinversity of Pennsylvania(not a public school). Some of the other very prestigious private schools are Duke, University of Chicago, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Washington University of St Louis, Emory, Johns Hopkins, etc. All of these private schools are rather small. The total number of students entering these schools as first year students next september will only total about 20,000 kids total for all these 16 schools combined. You might be interested to know that although most of the elite schools were (naturally) founded in imitation of the English universities, that Johns Hopkins and Chicago first became prestigious because they were deliberately modelled on the German university model.

Some of the most prestigious public universities are the state universities in Michigan, California, Virginia, North Carolina,
There is a controversial ranking system which is published annually by the US News magazine... google it online.
Another list of 300 highly respected schools is published by the Princeton Review.

When US students apply to these schools, they need to submit their high school grades - based on a scale where 4.0 is excellent in every subject, to be admitted to any presitigious school you need a Grade Point average close to 4.0. The SAT is a difficult test that is given several times a year - it includes sections on mathematical skill, verbal skill and writing. Each section scores up to 800. If you check the websites of many colleges they will post the average SAT scores of their entering students. The top universities have students who averaged about 1450 t0 1550 out of 1600 on the first two sections when average students totalled about 1000 -1100. The ACT is a similar competitive test which is scored on a scale where top students score about 31 or 32 and average students score about 21 - 24.

Good luck with your presentation.

ps almost every college in the USA has a big website telling all about itself. In the USA the college web addresses end in .edu so the website for any college is almost always the name of the college dot edu


Like, http://www.duke.edu or http://www.harvard.edu or http://www.uchicago.edu or http://www.uri.edu

Answer 7

Well so far all my teachers say you have to be active in your community, get excellent grades, and so forth. All-in-all, you have to be a well rounded individual.

The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States.The ACT test assesses high school students' general educational development and their ability to complete college-level work.

Answer 8

You need to get a high SAT score to get into a good US university. I got 2 perfect scores in math and reading, but my writing score was only 720, for a total of 2320. I only read this SAT guide, and that is how I got such high scores:
http://www.guideparadise.com/index.php?option=com_guides&task=buy&id=10
I recommend this guide to anyone seeking to get a higher score to get into a first choice college.