dolydd

I have had the same problem, I got my Bachelor of Science degree in the UK, recently went to the local university open day to see about getting a masters in Education to become a high school teacher.
They told me it would be 5 - 6 years to get a masters, when I explained that I already had a degree, they said it might not be recognised and I would have to do the SAT test to get my GPA!!!!

What can I do, I see people have used agencies to convert their UK degree to get a GPA, anybody got any web addresses or general information or has anybody got their masters?

GXE

Try the web address
http://www.ece.org

My 2i hons converted to a 3.5 GPA.

They have a section specific to most countries and what they need.

Bluegrass Lass

I obtained an MEng degree from a US University, as do most of my friends. I missed getting a "With Honors" distinction by the skin of my teeth. But I've never seen anyone put (Hons) on a resume. I've seen lot of resumes with the GPA (which wouldn't be applicable in this case I suppose). I would probably just write "Graduated from this program with an Honors distinction" or something like that. I've never even had a potential employer ask or even care what my GPA was. But then again, I've only been on about 3 interviews since I graduated this past May. Before graduation, other employers I've had were interested in my GPA.

If you're far enough along in your career, it's the experience that counts more than your type degree. If you're still worried about converting the degree courses & grades, I would try that link that GXE included.

Cheers,
Jamie

Steff

That sounds kinda weird that they would give you a GPA by looking at your SAT scores. I think that you should go to another school and ask. I'm not sure if you know how GPA is calculated, but here is how it is at most universities:
A- 4.0
B 3.0
C 2.0
D 1.0
F none

They look at all of the grades that you got and the number of credits they were worth and calculate it from the average of all of them . I don't know what your grades would tranfer as though, since you have E's in the UK and A's are supposed to be harder to get.

Bluegrass Lass

I don't know why the person told you that you would have to take the SAT to determine a GPA. As far as I know, the SAT has absolutely nothing to do with GPA, it is used as a college entrance exam - to determine if you have enough basic knowledge to get into a university. You take this test when you are still in high school. I've not heard of anyone taking it to determine a GPA. You just want to convert your transcripts into a GPA possibly. When my grades from Uni of Glasgow were converted, I found out that in a few cases, my UK 'B's translated into 'A's here in the US. I would think it would be very hard to do this kind of grade translation on your own; I would recommend professionals - creates less of a headache!!

I still say, though, that if you have been working around 3-10 years post-graduation in your field, employers (and anyone correct me if you think I'm mistaken!) look more at the experience you have, and what you have done/accomplished, rather than what GPA or 'distinction' you graduated with. A lot of jobs ask for at least a BA, and most a BS from what I've seen.

In the engineering fields, and maybe this is the case in others as well, interviewers are going more towards the 'behavorial' interviewing (I think this is the proper term). They ask q's like "Name a time when you did this..", "Explain if you've ever encountered this, and how did you handle it.." Don't know if any of you have seen this in the UK, but it is rather interesting how interviews seem to have changed over the years!

Later!
Jamie
------------------------------------------
Take everything I say with a pinch of salt.

dunroving

- I think the answer you get really depends on who you talk to (at the university). A U.K. 3-year bachelor's degree clearly is as good as a typical US 4-yr degree, and most decent US universities recognize that. BUT, that doesn't mean all US science professors, or student academic advisors know it. So, unless you were talking to an international student advisor, I'd just figure out who at the university does know about international degrees.

Thousands of UK degree-holders get into masters degree programs here every year. It's possible, you just have to figure out how/who to talk to.

Unless you really do want a masters degree, You might also look into whether your state has a "lateral entry" program for getting into teaching. It's like a teaching cert for people with content expertise (degree in science), who want to teach that subject area. Easier and quicker than a masters.

And by the way, a UK bachelors degree is not the equivalent to a US masters. That may be true of one or two very weak programs in small, backwoods colleges, but not of the majority of US schools. In fact, there are masters programs here that are superior to UK masters programs.

dunroving

The typical US Honors program is different from the UK honours degree, and does not typically carry the (Hons) suffix. Most US universities don't know what (Hons) means on a degree. I have a B.Ed. (Hons), and at every institution I have studied or taught at, they've butchered it or, usually, removed it completely when listing my prior degrees.

The honors designation in the US does not require an extra year of study. It is a recognition of higher-achieving students, who get to register for classes early and take sections of classes designated specially for them (and are usually taught by master teachers). They usually also involve a terminal "research" project. That is about the only difference between the coursework of a US honors student and regular students. So, although honors students are usually brighter than most regular students, they don't get a different degree, and don't do different or additional coursework.

So, although they may understand bachelor's degree, they may not always understand what is meant by a "British" (Hons) designation. Again, it depends upon who you talk to and whether the university has a decent international student officer. Certainly, the average US university official or faculty member does not know what British Hons means. And if they think it means the same as a US honors program, they'd be flat wrong.

Englishmum

[QUOTE]Originally posted by dunroving

The honors designation in the US does not require an extra year of study.



Dunroving: The honours designation in England (and I think Wales) also does not require an extra year of study. I understand that Scotland is different and you do need to do the extra years for the Hons - although isn't it the case that in Scotland they take their Highers exams at 17 and then go to university?.

My daughter is in London on a three year BSc (Hons) course. If she had taken the same degree in Edinburgh, the BSc is a three year course, but if she wanted the BSc with Hons then she would have had to take it as a four year course.

Most of the prospectuses I have seen in the past couple of years for English universities do offer a standard BA(Hons) BEd (Hons) or BSc(Hons). Very few of them offered a standard degree course without the honours.

adamfdz

I know this subject is very emotive as people don't want their degree slagged off but the UK government says that a British honours degree is the equivalent of a US masters, and a US BS/BA to a UK pass non-honours (pass) degree.
The UK government body which evaluates degrees called Naric will do this.

In my experience the American masters, like the US undergraduate degree requires less in terms of critical thinking and more rote memorisation for high stakes 'tests'. In the UK there are less 'tests' during the term with final exams each year, or end of term. Both are different formats, but in the end prepare people for their jobs well. I guess it comes down to memorisation or deeper understanding......
Choice is yours.

dunroving

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Englishmum
- I'm always looking to be educated: so what would be the difference between a 3-yr ordinary BSc in Chemistry, say, at an English university, and a 3-yr Hons degree in chemistry at the same university?

Or is it that now all 3-yr degrees in England are "classified", and "3rds" are essentially the same as an ordinary degree (it seems that way from your last statement)? If this is the case, then is an Hons only a 1st class or 2nd class designation? And do all students on Hons courses still have to do a research project?

- also, how long ago did English schools stop requiring a 4th year for Hons?

adamfdz

As i am sure you know, each University, by Royal charter can issue degrees, and they set the requirements themselves for honours etc. Most of the good ones require the successful completion of an independent research project either dissertation or thesis (book research-typically for the arts, or a lab project for science). The project should last normally at least 2 terms (2/3 of a year) and must be of a high level to be awarded honours. A pass degree is where the student fails the honours project.
As far as classification, a first is where the student scores above say 70/100 (very difficult to achieve-normally one only per subject per year)!, an upper second above 60/100, a lower second above 50/100, a third above 40/100. By American standards 70/100 is crap, but it just is a different grading criteria-no better, no worse. I have never come across anyone in the UK who has been able to achieve 100/100, i think most lecturers would believe 100/100 to be ridiculously hard to get.

Hope that explains a bit!!!!

dunroving

I took a quick look at the NARIC site, and they look like a commercial company that performs a service under contract for the Dept of Education. There was nothing on the site that indicated a US masters is equivalent to a UK BSc (Hons). I'd be very surprised if it were as simple as that. I don't think it's accurate based on this information to say the UK government says UK bachelors(Hons) = US masters.

Your comment about "memorisation" vs "deeper understanding" is also an oversimplification, and in my opinion incorrect for many of the high-quality masters programs in the States. I took hardly one multiple-choice exam in my masters program, and conversely spent most of my 2-year program working on research and applied asignments that focused on whether you could understand and do, rather than spew back memorized facts. On Bloom's taxonomy, I'd say maybe 5% of my assessment was at the knowledge level, in fact.

As I and others have said before, the biggest difference between the US and UK system is that the US system is far more variable/less standardized. So, although I would rather hire someone with a UK BSc(Hons) than someone with a masters from *some* US universities I could mention, I could list far more US institutions where the masters preparation is far superior to the UK BSc (Hons). And again, some US universities' masters programs are probably better than the average UK masters (MIT, for example).

dunroving

So, it seems that all English bachelors are now effectively Hons programs ... and if you fail your project, you can't put a (Hons) after the degree? It really seems that it (English Hons, at least) now IS more like the US honors, where hons indicates a higher level of achievement rather trhan different coursework. Except that US honors students can't put (Hons) after BSc.

I still wonder when it changed from 4 to 3 years ... and whether the original poster has what I would call a traditional Hons (i.e., one extra year of work) or the current 3-year degree with classification?

I taught in the Scottish system for a while (2000) and they do require an extra year. Even though the students come in at 17, I don't think their first year is any different than English programs, at least in my field.

Heck, if I can't understand the distinction between the "old" UK Hons, the "new" English Hons, and the "same" Scottish Hons, how the heck will people in the US system figure it out?

I would definitely put the 3-yr British degree (Hons or not) at a similar level to the US 4-yr (i.e., not inferior). But at the masters level, my experience has been that US programs can be very rigorous.

As for your comments on grading, too true. When I tell my (U.S.)students I used to jump for joy if I got 70% on an exam they think I'm kidding. Grade inflation is getting to be a big problem here.

adamfdz

i agree with you on the point that some US masters are better than UK ones, heck i have a masters from a US institution! My undergrad is from the UK and personally found the masters easier. I fully agree that an MS from MIT is a billion times better than an MSc from Wolverhampton "University" or others. On this score we are in the same corner, but i think on average most masters from average universities in the US are about an undergrad level from an average UK university. Of course this is not 100% all the time.
The information i quoted on UK governmental opinion on US degrees come not from the naric site but the DfEE site, sorry forgot to mention that. There was an enquiry, ultimately led to a house of Lords ruling on equivalencies. If you look hard enough i think one may find it on their website.

Finally in regards to Blooms, i think also that depends on the university and the faculty. I had a lot of older faculty who were more into the knowledge, less into the evaluation and synthesis aspect of bloom. I'm glad to hear your experience was a good one, and at the end of the day if US universities produces graduates who can make the space shuttle, boeing 747's and aircraft carriers, there is little to worry about.

Best of luck!

dunroving

When adamfdz said:

"the UK government says that a British honours degree is the equivalent of a US masters, and a US BS/BA to a UK pass non-honours (pass) degree."

I understood what he meant, thanks all the same for your translation. I don't recall anywhere in my postings saying anything about listing a UK bachelors/Hons as a masters.

And when I said:

"There was nothing on the site that indicated a US masters is equivalent to a UK BSc (Hons). I'd be very surprised if it were as simple as that. I don't think it's accurate based on this information to say the UK government says UK bachelors(Hons) = US masters. "

- I meant it in the same vein. In other words, it is not as simple as saying that the level of learning in a U.K. BSc (Hons) is equivalent to that in a U.S. masters (I'm surprised you didn't understand that from the rest of my post). Nor is it an accurate characterization, again for the reasons I stated. Nor is it accurate to say *the British government* (THAT was the point of my sentence, and adamfdz has now cleared that up for me) says UK bachelors/Hons is at a level of US masters (b/c NARIC is a commercial company, at least from what their Web site seems to say).

- please don't condescend to help me understand English. If it were your posting, I'd be open to clarification. But to presume (a) that you understand someone else's posting better than I do and (b) that you understand what I meant better than I do is a bit too much. Besides, I think adamfdz can speak for himself.