Any ex-O Levels students continuing education in US/Canada?

b_r_um
Sun, 09 Aug 2015 20:08:34 +0000

If you were 18, some community colleges would accept you with O-levels. However, since you are still a minor, you should strongly consider continuing high school in the US.

Education works a bit differently in the US than it does in many other countries - in the US, your degree reflects how long you have attended school, rather than the attainment of a certain amount of knowledge. Some American high school graduates know about the amount of material required for O-levels. Some would be A-level candidates. Yet others are taking university courses for high school credit (high school student would literally go to a nearby university and take courses there).

Universities know that not all high school graduates are created equal, and that’s why they take a very close look at each applicant’s transcript. O-levels (or the equivalent high school courses) would suffice for admission to some local universities, but not the selective ones. If you want to attend a selective college, you’d want the equivalent of A-level credentials. If you want to be a competitive candidate for some of the top universities (Harvard, etc), you’d want to take university courses in high school.

That same pattern continues at the university-level, by the way. You pick up with your coursework at whatever level you left off in high school. Once you got all of the “core” undergraduate courses covered, you have the option to take graduate courses for undergraduate credit. And taking graduate courses in college would in turn help your application for admission to graduate school, if you were so inclined.

Long story short: if you are ambitious, you should very strongly consider staying in high school. However, if all you want is a technical credential so you can work (e.g. as a car mechanic), then it might be worth to get in touch with public and private technical schools in your area and ask if they’d consider you for admission at your current age and with the credentials you currently have.