The US has a wide diversity of college and university types and systems, much wider than anywhere else in the world. Prospective students need to work through this diversity to find the best option for their particular needs – and pockets!
This diversity can be summarised as follows: National Comprehensive private: National Comprehensive public; Liberal Arts colleges; Women’s Colleges; Technical universities.
Ivy League
The best known national comprehensive private universities are of course the Ivy League schools: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, UPenn, Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth. If you add to this traditional list Stanford and Chicago then you end up with a list of the most competitive universities in the world, that regularly top any ranking of global universities. All of these universities have single figure acceptance rates.
Public Universities
There are a wide range of excellent public universities in the US that can compete with the Ivy League schools for reputation and academic excellence. Examples of high ranking state schools would include Michigan, Penn State, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia. California has its own public university system (see below). The main difference between state and public universities is that most students at a public university will be in-state and that fees will be demonstrably lower in many cases.
University of California
The UC system is completely separate from the rest of the US university system: it has its own application procedure and deadlines. It is composed of 10 different campuses: UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside, UC Merced and UC San Francisco.
Liberal Arts Colleges
The Liberal Arts tradition is the basis of the US Higher Education system and there is a wide range of undergraduate Liberal Arts colleges that prioritise teaching quality over research. They provide the perfect education for intellectually curious and open minded students who need time to explore options before deciding on the academic route to take. Well known examples would include Williams, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Bowdoin and Amherst in the northeast and the Claremont colleges on the west coast.
Women’s Colleges
The US is unique in providing a range of well known and respected women’s colleges. Most are of the small Liberal Arts type and many are linked to a wider consortium: examples would include Barnard College which is linked to Columbia in New York and Smith College which is part of the 5 colleges consortium in Massachusetts. The best known women’s colleges are historically the “7 Sisters” group: Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, Wellesley and Radcliffe (now part of Harvard).
Technical Universities
The US contains a large number of globally respected technical universities that offer a rather more specialised education compared to the Liberal Arts tradition. The best known representatives would be MIT and CalTech but you can also find excellent public institutions such as Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech as well as a host of small private tech schools.