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Comment by tanderson92 | Hacker News Reader

Not so; medical schools are somewhat unique in only requiring certain college coursework. One can complete a medical degree whilst never finishing a bachelors degree. The most prominent example of this is the Kentucky Senator Dr. Paul who graduated from Duke with an M.D. and has no bachelors degree.

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That's not very common-its very much a corner case.

Sons and daughters of political figures tend to be the ONLY ones to be afforded that. Every few years I hear of a senator's kid getting in w/o MCAT scores or some other requirements skirting.

Does "going to college" exclusively mean getting an undergraduate degree in the US? "Graduating from Duke" and "completing a medical degree" both sound inherently going-to-college to me.

Here in Australia we'd sub in "uni" for "college", but it just sounds weird to "complete a degree" without "going to [tertiary education]".

Without thinking about it too much, I think I'd say "going to college" for undergrad (even at a university), "going to grad school" for a graduate degree, and "going to med school" for a medical degree. (For reference, I'm from Michigan.)

In the US a significant proportion of every undergraduate degree is "general education", ie what in Australia would be an Arts degree. AFAIK, specialized degrees like law and medicine are exclusively post-graduate degrees.

Well I use the term "going to college" loosely, it can be applied to getting any kind of degree (whether it's an MD or a bachelors) vs. self-learning, which is not pursuing a degree at all.

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