If you are going to be attending college make sure you know the college vocabulary.

Accreditation: Recognition by an accrediting organisation or agency that a college meets certain acceptable standards in its education programmes, service and facilities.

Regional accreditation applies to a college as a whole and not to any particular programmes or courses of study.

Academic programmes preparing students for a specific professional field may qualify for accreditation from the appropriate professional association.

ACT: Standardised test battery for secondary school students administered by the American College Testing Programme and similar to the College Boards' (CEEB) SAT.

Advanced Placement: Admission or assignment of a freshman to an advance course in a certain subject on the basis of evidence that the student has already completed the equivalent of the college's freshman course in that subject.

Deferred Admission: A practise of allowing an accepted candidate to postpone enrolment in a college, generally for a period of an academic term or year.

Application deadline: The last date on which a college will accept applications for admission to the coming term.

Associate Degree: A degree granted by a college or university usually after the satisfactory completion of a two-year, full time programme of study, or its part time equivalent.

Bachelor's Degree: A degree received after the satisfactory completion of a four-year, full time programme of study.

Class Rank: The relative position of a student in his or her graduation class, calculated according to grade average.

Consortium: An arrangement between colleges for the sharing of faculties, programmes and facilities.

Co-operative Education: A programme in which a student alternates terms of academic study with terms of employment, often in a job related to the student's major field.

Grade Point Average (GPA): An indicator of the student's overall scholastic performance. The GPA is computed by totalling the number of grade points earned in each course (generally, A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, E=O) and then dividing the sum by the total number of courses carried.

Honours Programme: An enriched academic programme for student of high ability and motivation, often leading to a degree granted with honours.

Major: The subject of study in which the student chooses to specialise; a series of related coursed taken primarily in the junior or senior years.

Minor: The subjects that make up a secondary concentration of college study.

Open Admissions: An admission policy-granting acceptance to all high school graduates without regard to additional qualification.

Semester: A period of about 17 or 18 weeks which makes up half of the usual academic year in colleges using this kind of calendar.

Transcript: An official record of high school or college courses and grades, general required as part of the college application.

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All of these terms and more are defined in the Bank of Bermuda's College Search brochure available from their Hamilton, Compass Point Branch, third floor.