How different is college/university from high school?

[Danoff]

What? College and university are different.

A 'college' is undergraduate education. I attend Emory College, which is a part of Emory University. 'University' refers to all the schools at Emory - which include a graduate-level medical school, a graduate-level business school, a graduate-level law school, and others. Schools that are universities - like, the University of Alabama for instance - traditionally have numerous graduate and undergraduate colleges within them. Meanwhile schools that are colleges - like, Williams College - typically have just an undergraduate program. There are exceptions to that last bit, but typically only for colleges which are very old and don't want to change their name - like the College of William and Mary, or Dartmouth College.

Agreed. And I attended a college while I was at university as well. But generally people in America do refer to college and university as the same thing.

For example:

"Where did you go to college?"
"Emory University"

If I asked you what college you attended, would you tell me "The college of engineering at Emory University", or would you tell me "Emory University"?

 

[Kylehnat]

It's not uncommon to see C students in highschool become A students in university, and vice-versa.

Well, there are really two kinds of C students in high school. The first gets C's because they are horribly disinterested in what they're being forced to learn. My dad was a lousy student in high school, because he just wasn't interested in anything there; he wanted to work on cars. In college, he did well, because he was finally able to learn about his interests, turning that into a mechanical engineering degree. The second type of C student is the one who doesn't do all of the work, doesn't pay attention in class, and doesn't care to ask for help. He becomes an F student in college.