Does one get Graduate Diploma by special entry without having bachelor's degree In USA?

Answer 1

The US tends not to have "graduate diplomas by special entry." In the US, graduate work may typically not be begun until and unless all requisite undergraduate work is completed... and that usually means a bachelors degree.

And so, then, in the US, one may not, for example, typically, enter a graduate either certificate (typically 12 to 18 semester credit hours in length), or masters degree (typically 32 to 48 semester credit hours in length) program until and unless one has completed one's undergraduate bachelors degree.

But you mention a "graduate diploma," and the US tends not to have such things. But the UK has, at least in the past. In the UK, though, the whole certificate, then diploma, then degree thing is very different than it is in the US. For the benefit of those in the US who read this...

...a bachelors degree in the UK is typically only three years long (as opposed to the US's typical four-year-long Bachelors Degrees). And though this is an oversimplification, the reason is because the "lower division general education" (LDGE) that is typically found in the first year to year-and-a-half of a typical four-year US bachelors degree is covered in the UK by a thing called "GCE" or "GCSE" or "A-levels" or "O-levels," which are all courses which students take during or after high school, but before college. And so by the time the student enters a bachelors program in the UK, s/he has obtained the LDGE coursework that we, in the US, put into the first of the four years of the bachelors.

The UK's system is kinda' better, in some ways, though, because even though the bachelors degree in the UK is only three years long, nearly every minute of it involves courses in whatever is the degree's major. A typical US four-year bachelors includes not only the LDGE, but also general electives, in addition to courses in the major. And if the US bachelors degree holder further dilutes the coursework in the major by adding coursework in a minor, then the US bachelors degree holder ends-up with actually less coursework in the major than do bachelors degree holders in the UK. And so it's fair to say that a UK three-year bachelors degree holder might (and I stress that word, because it all just depends on a lot of factors) be more learned in whatever is the UK degree's major than is the typical US four-year bachelors degree holder learned in whatever is his/her US bachelors degree's major.

In any case, a person who enters a UK bachelors program, but who leaves it after completing only one year, gets a "certificate" in whatever is the UK bachelors degree's major. And if they leave the three-year bachelors program after only two years, then they get a "diploma" in it. Only if they stay all three years do they get the full bachelors degree in whatever is the major.

Much the same thing is often true in the UK about its two-year masters programs. If they leave it after only a year, they get a "diploma" in whatever is the masters degree's major; and if they stay for the entire two years, then they get the actual masters degree. There are even some three-year masters in the UK which use the same "certificate" or "diploma" or "degree" plan as the UK bachelors degrees.

We, in the US, have no equivalent to any of that. In the US, we have two-year associates degrees, four-year bachelors degrees (toward which the two-year associates can count for half), and two- or three-year (sometimes longer) masters degrees (and then, after that, doctoral-level graduate degrees). We also have both pre- and post-baccalaureate certificate programs, and graduate certificate programs. That's it. No diplomas. In the US, one's "diploma" is that which s/he got from his/her high school. My having written that, though, I'm sure someone will be able to think of a US school that offers "diplomas," but, seriously, those are rare. And they don't mean the same thing as what a "diploma" means in the US, in any case.

The UK does, indeed, have "special entry" provisions for some of its educational credentials that could allow a person to obtain a graduate credential without having first gotten an undergradate one; however, that sort of thing varies greatly from school to school; and the QAA (the UK's educational quality assurance agency) is stronglly discouraging it except for a few special circumstances wherein a well-known graduate credential has always, by design, and from its outset, been available to even those with no undergraduate credentials... such as Heriot-Watt University's MBA, for example, just to name one.

In the US, though, getting graduate-level credit or any kind before one has fully completed one's undergraduate work (in other words, before one has completely one's bachelors degree) is just so, so, so uncommon. It would have to be a very special circumstance, indeed! Most self-respecting graduate schools wouldn't even consider it.

Someone reading this may be able to think of some exceptional school somewhere that allows it.