When does the undergraduate university year normally start in the US? I assumed that it starts in fall, so around now?

Is there any chance that there are courses (first degree ones) which start in December?

Waaah, where are you Olivia?

The courses usually start in the fall, yes, but because the US is mostly on a semester system, it might be possible to start a first year degree course in the second semester, which would start in most places in early to mid January. The US first degree courses are much different than the UK in some respects.

First of all, you do not have to specify a subject when you start. You just start. You have to meet whatever the admissions criteria are for that university ( "college" is used in the US to refer to universities, it means the same thing as "university," and in fact is more commonly used than "university"). Then you can decide to do whatever subjects you want, within some restrictions. You decide you whether to pursue a Bachelor of Arts, or a Bachelor of Science, ( BA or BS), and there is a set of core subjects you have to do for that BA or BS. Then in about your third year, you have to decare a "major". This is your major subject, and to get a degree in that subject, you have to take whatever the requisite courses are for that. Remember a US bachelors degree ( first degree) is a four year one, not a three year one, and you receive grades ( marks) for each course ( class) that you take.

If you are checking with US universities ( colleges) their Admissions Office would be able to give you the specifics on starting..and when. Students for instance can transfer universities between semesters, so I would guess that its not that hard to start in the second ( spring) semester. In the US, also, the term " first degree" is not likely to be understood, talk about your " bachelor's degree" or "undergrad" and that will be understood. Also "graduate" means the same as " post graduate", if you talk about " post graduate" in the US its likely to be understood as " post-doctoral".

I hope that is of help. If you have any specific universities in mind, best thing would be to place a call ( I mean ring, now you have my brain working in American and not British English!) to the admissions office and they should be able to help you. There is no such thing as the placement via exam results and clearing that the British university system has. Or if ringing is not an option, I would guess most of the Admissions offices have email contacts you could find on the university webpage.

Anyway hope that helps, I will try to check back to see if it did and if you have any other questions I could try to answer.

Thanks Olivia, that helps a lot, you're a star! (up)

De nada, H, hope there was something helpful for you there. Good luck with it!

Oh, this may not be relevant, or you may already know, but fees for tuition are not uniform in the US for first degrees. A lot can depend if you are going to a public ( ie state) versus privately run university. State run universities have different tiers of tuition, based on whether or not you are a resident of that state ( something similiar to the Home/EU fee structure in the UK?). Tuition is usually charged per credit hour, and I think 15 credit hours ( ie 15 hours worth of class) is considered a full time academic load for under grads.

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