American College Admissions: A Foreign Applicant’s Glossary

Can’t figure out what’s “common” about the Common App? Keep getting your SAT mixed up with your GPA? The lingo of college admissions can be tricky, but mastering it is first step towards opening up that sought-after acceptance letter.

Here are some key terms you’ll need to know as you’re starting out on this journey.

ACT: or, American College Testing. With the SAT (see below), the ACT is one of the two primary “aptitude” exams accepted by American universities. The ACT tests students in four areas (English, Math, Reading, and Science), and is cumulatively scored on a scale of 1 to 36.

Bachelor’s Degree: The undergraduate degree awarded by American colleges and universities. The bachelor’s degree comes in two varieties: the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), awarded to students whose field of study lies within the traditional liberal arts (see below), and the Bachelor of Sciences (B.S.) conferred on those who have specialized in the technical sciences (engineering, computer sciences, etc). Most bachelor’s programs take four years, though some can be completed in either three or five years (depending on the specifications of the program).

Common Application: or “Common App,” this is the communal application portal used by the vast majority of American universities. The Common App allows students to submit their personal and academic information (grades, activities, educational institutions attended), as well as their recommender forms and the all-important personal statement (see below). Note that not all schools accept the Common App; M.I.T., Georgetown, and the entire University of California system are notable abstentions.  

Early Decision/Early Action: the two ways applicants can apply in advance to their first-choice university. Early Decision is binding, meaning that students are required to attend their chosen university if accepted. Early Action, however, gives students an early acceptance notice with no obligation to enroll. Early Decision/ Early Action deadlines vary, but most fall within the month of November, with notification expected mid-December.

FAFSA: short for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. This is the form used to determine all forms of student financial aid, including need-based grants, merit scholarships, and loans. It includes information about a student’s financial resources, and assesses their ability to pay for college. FAFSA forms are used by both the U.S. government as well as by individual schools. Note that international students are generally NOT eligible for U.S. government aid, but can still be awarded grants and scholarships at the university level.

Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior: terms used to designate the four traditional years of American college education. “Freshman” refers to first year, “Sophomore” to second, “Junior” to third, and “Senior” to the forth (and usually final) year. Thus a first-year student will be a “freshman,” or in their “freshman year.” This terminology is also used in the same way to describe the four years of American high school.

GPA: Grade Point Average., or the numerical value given to a student’s grades, usually on a scale of 1 to 4. American grading is fairly complicated, but here’s a super quick breakdown—

·       For individual courses, students are graded on a letter scale, from F (fail) to A (near-perfect achievement).

·       These letter grades are then converted into numbers (4.0 for A, 3.3 for B and so on) and averaged together to result in a combined GPA.

·       Depending on the school, a GPA can be either “weighted” (taking the difficulty of the class or number of credits into account) or “unweighted” (all grades averaged equally). 

IELTS: International Language Testing System, one of the primary exams used to assess the linguistic abilities of non-anglophone applicants. The IELTS is divided into four parts—Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking—and scored on a scale of 1 to 9 Exams such as this are an admissions requirement for nearly all students who completed their education in a non-English speaking country and don’t come from an anglophone family.

Ivy League: a group of eight universities, all located in the northeastern U.S., typically considered to be among the most prestigious in the country. Originating as the name of the schools’ athletic league, the term is now used as a shorthand for elite higher education (similar to “Oxbridge” in the U.K). The eight Ivy League schools include Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, The University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.

J.D.: Juris Doctorate, a professional degree that prepares students for the practice of law in the U.S. J.D. programs are typically three years, after which graduates independently prepare for the bar exam (the legal certification exam required of all future lawyers). Note that in the United States the study of law does not exist at the undergraduate level (see below); a bachelor’s degree (see above) is required to enter any J.D. program. 

Liberal Arts College: schools that focus exclusively on the “liberal arts”; i.e., the traditional building blocks of Western scholarship. In contemporary terms these include languages and literature, philosophy, history and the social sciences, mathematics, the arts and all forms of physical science. “Newer” subjects such as engineering, computer science, and communications are not included in a liberal arts curriculum, and so are not available at most liberal arts colleges. These kinds of schools also do not typically include graduate programs, and are associated with a more student-centric experience: smaller class sizes, more individual attention from faculty, etc. 

M.B.A: Master of Business Administration, the postgraduate professional degree conferred for business studies in the U.S. An M.B.A. is a two-year degree that allows students to specialize in a variety of areas related to business administration—finance, marketing, human resources, etc. Unlike law and medicine (see above and below), business is available at some universities as an undergraduate concentration.

M.D.: Doctor of Medicine, the postgraduate professional degree obtained by future medical doctors. Like law, medicine is studied in America exclusively at the graduate level; students will need to have completed undergraduate “pre-med” studies (often consisting of biology, chemistry, or a related subject) in order to enter an M.D. program. Once admitted students face a long road consisting of pre- and post-clinical coursework, internships, and hospital residencies.

Major: a student’s concentration, or “major” area of study. American university education is much more generalized than other counties’, meaning that while students focus on one particular subject, this is not all that they study in college. An Art History major, for example, will take most of their classes in Art History, but also be required to fulfill a set of “general studies” courses (languages, math, science, etc), and also have the option of selecting a minor concentration (see below). You will have to give some give some indication of your prospective major when applying to American universities; however, you also have the option of changing your mind once accepted. Most universities give students two years before they are required to definitively declare a major. 

Minor: a secondary, or “minor” area of study. A minor will make up a lesser portion of a student’s overall coursework than a major (see above), but still enough to provide a working familiarity with the subject at hand. Minors are not required, but are often recommended to round out a student’s overall knowledge base. A philosophy major, for example, might pick up a minor in Ancient Greek or German in order to read certain philosophical texts in their original language. Students are not required to indicate a minor when applying to college.

Personal Statement/ Personal Essay: the main piece of writing students are asked to produce as part of the application process. The personal statement fulfills a variety of purposes: to highlight accomplishments, discuss struggles, indicate goals and plans, etc. If that sounds like a lot for one 650-word document- it is! The good news is that you only need to write one. A single personal statement is required when applying to schools via the Common App, though many schools also require shorter and more specific supplemental essays. (Schools not on the Common App, of course, have their own individual writing requirements.)

PhD: Doctor of Philosophy, or doctorate; the highest American postgraduate degree. In America, most doctoral programs consist of several years of high-level, specialized coursework, followed by exams in the candidate’s field of specialization and culminating in the completion of a doctoral dissertation (think somewhere between a term paper and a book). A standard doctoral program is designed to be completed in five years, but often takes candidates one to two years longer.

Regular Decision: the standard timeline for applying to university in America. Unlike Early Decision or Early Action (see above), Regular Decision applications go into each university’s general application pool, with no ranking of school choice on the part of the applicant. On a practical level you simply submit your applications and see where you are accepted. Regular Decision is the final application deadline for American schools, usually somewhere between December 31st and January 15th depending on the school. Applicants are then notified of each university’s decision at some point between March and April.

Rolling Admission: a way of accepting and evaluating applications on an as-received basis. Schools with rolling admissions policies have no hard deadlines; they read applications as they are submitted, accept the ones they like, and repeat this process until their incoming class is full. If you’re applying to a school with rolling admissions, it’s therefore in your best interest to apply as early as possible, when admissions committees are looking at the maximum number of available slots.

SAT: Scholastic Aptitude Test. Like the ACT (above), the SAT is one of the primary exams taking by prospective American college applicants. The SAT has two main sections—Reading, Writing & Language, and Math. Each section has a possible score of 200 to 800, for a combined total scale of 400 to 1600. Note: as of 2024, the SAT is offered entirely by computer; paper tests are no longer available.

Student-faculty ratio: the number of students enrolled at a university relative to the number of full-time faculty it employs.  For example, a school with an 11: 1 student-faculty ratio will have one faculty member for every 11 students. In general, a lower student-faculty ratio is associated with smaller class sizes and more individualized attention from professors. The lowest student-faculty ratios are typically seen at liberal arts colleges (see above), where the overall student body is smaller. 

Undergraduate: studies undertaken just after obtaining a high school diploma, usually in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree (see above). This word is used to distinguish between more advanced “graduate-level” studies such as those that would lead to a master’s or Phd (see above).

 Waitlist/ Waitlisted: one possible outcome of an American university application—somewhere   between an acceptance and a rejection. Schools will put students on a “wait list” if they meet all of their admissions criteria but are not quite desirable enough to be included in the first round of acceptances. Once all accepted students have notified the university of their own decisions—i.e., whether they plan to attend the school or not—the admissions committee will begin to look to its wait list to fill any newly-available slots. This usually happens sometime after May 1st. It is extremely difficult to know a waitlisted student’s chances of being accepted. Like the entirety of the admissions process it depends on an enormous variety of factors, many of which shift from year to year.

Still confused, or don’t see the term you needed defined? Book an appointment with Elizabeth for a one-on-one lesson in the language of college admissions