College acceptance for intl students

burninghearts

I'm not certain this is the right forum, but it seemed closest for my question.

I'm American, and hoping to eventually study archaeology in Ireland. Due to various circumstances, I ended up dropping out of high school, getting my GED, and taking classes to get my associates degree (haven't finished yet), after which I would transfer to a university. From what I understand, acceptance into universities is based on leaving certificate results, which I assume is about the equivalent of a high school diploma. What I'd like to know is, is there any equivalent to the GED/community college classes? I'll finish the course here and transfer if I must, but if possible I'd prefer to finish the same classes there. Hope I haven't confused anyone too badly:o

Tom Dunne

burninghearts wrote:

getting my GED, and taking classes to get my associates degree (haven't finished yet), after which I would transfer to a university.

What's a GED? If you are working on an associates degree, from what I recall, that is roughly the same as our diploma, then you should be able to transfer on the basis of this to any third level college here. Leaving cert results may not be required.

burninghearts wrote:

From what I understand, acceptance into universities is based on leaving certificate results, which I assume is about the equivalent of a high school diploma. What I'd like to know is, is there any equivalent to the GED/community college classes?

What is a community college? Does it offer third level qualifications? If it does, it may be comparable to our Institutes of Technology. Check out www.hetac.ie for a full list of IT's in the country.

burninghearts wrote:

I'll finish the course here and transfer if I must, but if possible I'd prefer to finish the same classes there. Hope I haven't confused anyone too badly:o

Ireland has reached the stage where there are now more classes than students, so each college, whether private or publicly funded, must fight for students. So I would be very surprised if you had trouble getting into a college/university here.

The private colleges would seem to be more welcoming of your money than public colleges. Though as a non-EU citizen, I would imagine no matter where you go, you would still have to pay full fees.

burninghearts

A GED is supposed to be a high school equivalency certificate that you get after passing a test (often taken by kids who are under 18 and want to leave school for whatever reason, or by adults who need it in order to find a decent job). However, it's not quite the same as a diploma in that no university is going to accept you with that alone. Community colleges on the other hand allow you to complete the first two years of classes that you'd complete in a university (math, english, and so on), then transfer to one for the remaining two years to receive your degree. This is usually done by people who have have gotten their GED and want to continue their education, those who didn't receive high enough grades to get into a university or simply because it's a far cheaper alternative.

The IT thing may well be what I was looking for. Looking into that right now. Thanks.

mdebets

OP, if you are over 23, than you can apply as a Mature student, which means you don't need the leaving certificate or high school diploma, you just have to convince them that you want to do the course ant that you are not going to drop out (that's more or less the requirements they were looking for, when I applied)