Going to university as a mature student

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Feb 22nd 2012, 1:50 pm

#16

njmackem

Forum Regular

Joined: Apr 2011

Location: Summit, NJ

Posts: 251

Re: Going to university as a mature student

Quote:

Originally Posted by polar_bear

I am 31 years old, a permanent resident in US and self-employed. Did not go into further education back in the UK as frankly I was a feckless waster at that age but as I get older it interests me more and would improve my employment prospects should that be necessary further down the line.

However, I know that any respectable university will require certain results at high school level for admission, and also I believe US universities also make you continue Maths, English etc at university even if you are studying something totally different (I am considering Philosophy (yeah yeah, I know) and/or Economics). All I have is A-Levels in Economics and Maths.

So my questions are, 1) Am I likely to get into any decent University or will I first have to do the equivalent of a high school graduation? Obviously that would be a lot of work, re-learning stuff from 15 years ago that I have since forgotten. And 2) are there any Unis that simply focus on the subject you wish to study rather than making you do Calculus/Shakespeare etc on top?

Please go easy on me as I'm sure there are many negatives but I'm new to all this stuff.

During my first stint in the USA I attended Rutgers to to a Business Management Degree. I was able to provide copies of my A-Levels and they were happy to accept them. Unofficially I was told the A-Levels were seen on a similar level to an associates degree here in the US.

Now each school or college will have different standards, but you should have no problem getting into a US college with A-Levels

Feb 22nd 2012, 4:32 pm

#17

caleyjag

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Joined: Jun 2008

Location: Malibu, CA

Posts: 921

Re: Going to university as a mature student

Quote:

Originally Posted by njmackem

Now each school or college will have different standards, but you should have no problem getting into a US college with A-Levels

I would generally agree with this.

I think you may have to just do the general ed/breadth requirements and suck it up. In any case that's not so bad - you generally get a wide swathe of classes to pick from and you should be able to find something that piques your interest in each category.

Also agree that from a cost perspective you can use community college to get all the trivial stuff out of the way cheaply. If you work hard and do well there, you can transfer to a more prestigious school down the line.

However if i were you, I would go straight to the big school, move into a dorm or frat and start doing keg stands right away.