<p>Big difference that seems to be between European and American universities is the application procedure.</p>
<p>I didn’t have to do anything like SATs, schools didn’t give a damn about my extra curricular activities, letters of reccomendation were unheard of.</p>
<p>Everything was done on your final year exams, where you get points out of 600 overall. It gets mental in Ireland (known as the point’s race) where courses set out how many points they require. Arts (humanities) courses usually require around 350, medicine usually something like 580.
I’d say it’s a bit different in Ireland as pretty much all the universities are state universities, so the courses are pretty much identical no matter where you go. The points value for a course is determined not by the course itself but simply by how many people applied for it the previous year.</p>