Undergraduate education year in school on the grounds of academic giftedness) may enter below this age but large universities are now setting minimum age limits of 16 or 17 after a number of well publicised "child prodigies" were found to be emotionally and mentally unprepared for university life. Applications for undergraduate courses in UK higher education are made through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). For their first degree, most students read for the degree of bachelor, which usually takes three years, however in the sciences and engineering integrated courses covering both undergraduate level and advanced degree level leading to the
The Great Courses was coherent and logical. Analyst Heather Mac Donald, writing in the conservative publication "City Journal", described the courses offered by "The Teaching Company" as more mainstream than what is offered at traditional American liberal arts colleges. She described the course selection as being driven by market forces, with the firm's founder, Tom Rollins, querying customers as to what subjects they wanted to learn about, and using market research techniques to figure out what courses to offer, and even what lectures to include, to satisfy an intensely loyal customer base. As a result, there is less emphasis in the catalog on