American Education system (abridged)

Simply put, the American education system is a convoluted mess, but I will try my best to give a brief overview of the entire system and then talk a bit about Knox, the college I go to.

Okay, kids start going to school at ages three to five. Three and four year olds go to pre-school and five year olds go to kindergarten. Many kids only go to one year of pre-school; you don't have to go until you are four. Kindergarten is mostly for learning to read and write.

Elementary school varies from place to place. My school system has 1st-3rd graders in the elementary school and 4th-6th graders in a different school, the upper elementary school. Then Middle school is 7th and 8th grade and high school is 9th-12th grades. Wide numbers of subjects are covered in these years, but in general it's all to teach kids how to pass tests by memorization rather than actually live in the real world. That's a major generalization that obviously has many examples to the contrary, but tests are used as a check to make sure you have learned something instead of applying it to a real world practical situation usually. This depends on the school and teachers though. Other than that, kids take numerous standized tests, some of which do nothing, others determine how much funding your school gets with higher scores on average gives higher funding from the government, and others determine the kids' entire future like the SAT and ACT which are taken in the spring of junior year and can be taken again in the fall of senior year (11th and 12 grades). If you don't score well on those, then you likely won't get into a good college or won't get into one at all, your grades matter too, but for some reason a ton of schools put a TON of importance on these two tests.

Now here's where it gets a bit messy. We have several kinds of schools here. There's public schools, which most kids go to, that are funded by the states. Then there's private schools which are for profit corporations basically and like colleges they have tuition fees (and can be very, very expensive), room and board fees, and the like. They often have the stereotype of being for snobby, rich kids types, but that's not necessarily true. You can get into one, and you normally have to apply to get in, based on merit. Then there are religious schools, mostly Catholic schools which are like private schools in that they aren't run by the government. They are run by the Catholic church and the religious leaders of that specific area. They teach a much more religiously integrated curriculum, which is supposed to be illegal for public schools, separation of church and state, but that doesn't always stop religious politicians from claiming that since evolution is a "theory" that creationism should be considered a scientific theory and taught in public schools, but I digress.

Colleges, lots of fun stuff here. They come in all varieties and price levels. They go from the two year community colleges that are local and relatively inexpensive that are good from lower income families and are a pathway to getting into a four year college or university (there's a difference between them, confusing, I know but I will get back to them in a second), but they are often looked down upon as not as good education wise. Again depends on the school. Colleges and universities, the difference between them is universities have graduate programs for getting your Masters in a certain subject and colleges don't. They only have an undergraduate program, like my school, Knox College. Colleges and universities can be either public or private. Public schools are typically cheaper than private schools, which are run like a corporation. Private schools can get extremely expensive. According to the Huffington Post, the most expensive private university in the US is Columbia University at $45,290 per year for four years not including if you stay for their graduate program! Yikes!

Colleges typically are known as having excellent specific departments. For example, Harvard Law. Knox is a liberal arts school, meaning that it has strong art, English, humanities, philosophy and social science programs. I actually chose Knox because of its creative writing program. I took some creative writing classes and ended up changing to philosophy. You have to meet certain requirements to finish your major and minor (the areas you took the majority of your class). You also have to meet other requirements depending on the school such as Knox has an experiential learning requirement and a diversity requirement on top of the general minimum credits you have to take in math and science and other basic subjects. I took astronomy, which knocked out two birds with one stone and gave me a math and science credit, so I haven’t had to take another math or science again, and won’t need to.

After I graduate I could enter the job market, or I could go on and go to another school to get my Masters and even try to get a PhD and become a doctor.

I think that’s the basics. I probably left out a ton of important information, so if you have questions ask and I will try my best to answer them.

Edit: After Sarah's questions about the difference between colleges and universities, I thought I would edit in my answer to her questions in, just in case.

You get a Bachelor's degree in the subject you majored and minored in when you graduate from a college, same with graduating from a university. The Bachelor's degree comes from graduating an undergraduate program (the first four years at a college or university).

You don't need to go to college first to go to a university. They both have four year undergraduate programs. A university is a college in the same way that a young adult book is a book, all young adult books are books, but not all books are in the young adult genre. All universities are colleges, but not all colleges are universities. If you go to a college for the first four years you can apply to a university to go an additional two years to get your Master's degree on top of your Bachelor's degree, but you can choose to go to a university for the first four years instead.