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The standard undergraduate BA/BSc degree in the Maritimes is still, I believe, a "three-year" one after entrance from Grade Twelve, that is, one that requires fifteen units or credits (two semester courses with two-three contact hours per week, excluding labs, for twelve or thirteen weeks per semester). Professional degrees (at least at my university) are twenty-units (Business admin, Human Ecology, public relations, tourism and hospitality management, child and youth study) Still on the books is a twenty-unit BA/BSc for students entering after Grade eleven (junior matriculation). Almost no one comes straight to university from grade eleven any more, though there are some (the only one I recall in recent years was a very bright army brat who'd moved around a great deal, didn't want to try a new high school for one year, and came here instead, to start a BA. We also now have twenty-unit BA/BSc degrees after grade twelve, on the principle that fifteen units isn't enough scope really to learn electives). There is some talk of universities going to twenty-unit degrees only (Acadia, perhaps?): it's a way of holding onto enrolment, I suppose. I'm not quite sure why students would take a twenty-unit "ordinary" degree rather than a twenty-unit "honours" degree, except that it allows them to broaden as well and deepen their knowledge. For example, students are beginning to take the 20-unit degree before getting into the BEd programme (now a two-year post baccalaureate degree). Aviva's right: there's considerable variation! Susan Drain, Ph.D. 902 457 6220 Chair, English Department [log in to unmask] Mount Saint Vincent University Halifax, NS Canada B3M 2J6