US opens gates for 3-yr degrees

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New Delhi: Nikhil Madan is serious about his GMAT exam next month.

This is his second attempt at realising his dream of going to the United States. But this BCom graduate has also enrolled himself for a one-year correspondence diploma course.

"I'm doing a diploma in statistics from Panjab University. But I'm doing it just for the heck of completing my 16th year," Nikhil says.

Many American universities require students to finish 16 years of education before they can apply for a graduate programme there. So, students like Nikhil, who have completed three-year BA, BSc or BCom courses, have to go through a year of enforced education before they can head West.

But things are changing slowly. A study conducted by the Council of Graduate Schools, which is a graduate research organisation in the US, says 56 per cent of the graduate schools surveyed felt that the three-year degree was not an issue. And the percentage of schools which said they would not accept three-year degrees has fallen from 29 per cent last year to 18 per cent this year.

"It's not that this is happening overnight. It's been happening for the past few years. Every year, more and more schools are accepting three-year graduate degrees," Vineet Gupta, Director of Jamboree India, says.

Indian graduate students have welcomed the development. They don't have to waste a year now. Instead, they can start their life faster. It will definitely encourage more people.

Admission policies in the US vary widely among the universities. But there's a cloud to this silver lining. A majority of US universities still don't accept students with three-year graduate degrees if they have got those degrees outside Europe. This just goes to show that where you study is still just as important as how much you study.

Interestingly, however, institutions which are open to considering students with three-year graduate degrees include top universities like Harvard, Georgetown, the Wharton School and Carnegie Mellon.