@KLSD " Classes are more theoretical based, for example chem 1 is very mathematical based."
That is the case at almost every school. The struggle comes based upon what types of problems professors put on examinations. I find that most schools (some “top” and some not) with challenging general chemistry courses tend to have a good share of professors that use tons of multi-concept problems on the exams so if you can’t link equations between different concepts you are messed up. In addition, harder general chemistry courses tend to add more quantum and structural concepts than does AP chemistry, even those exposed to the material tend to struggle as one could sort of get away with math/plug and chug logic in AP. Students really struggle when professors start asking more conceptual questions in college because the students are expecting to just plug and chug. In organic chemistry, the more the section deviates from: “label this, draw the product of this reaction, and draw out a mechanism we already showed you in class”, the more students struggle and start to complain. It is a real pain when instructors expect students to do high level applications, even if given 2-3 hours per exam. HS in the US often doesn’t ready students for that level of STEM learning, especially not as early as sophomore year and top privates and publics are more likely to expect that level of learning early on.
@gallentjill “Does she want to be one of the A grades at a less selective college or fight the curve at a more prestigious one” .
I wouldn’t say it is as simple: You wanna make sure that the less selective college is actually strong in STEM education such that she doesn’t end up with some high GPA and then it does not translate to MCAT. In addition, I would not conflate “more prestigious” with “better and more rigorous STEM education”. The fact is, when you even look among top schools, the amount of effort invested into UG STEM education and level of rigor varies. Some will actually surprise you, especially when you compare between them. Some will be less rigorous for some pre-med cores, and then extremely rigorous for others simply because some of the STEM departments have a bigger focus on undergraduate education and some do not. Departments that have a focus on undergraduate education tend to have better instruction AND more of the good type (not memorizing, regurgitating, and plug and chugging…STEM education is ideally supposed to move beyond that and at a school with good students, having a foundation in that stuff should be a given) challenge in the classroom, which would translate to even B students in those initial pre-health cores doing very well on the MCAT because the MCAT is more about doing analytical thinking (albeit in MC format) and dealing with scenarios students have likely not been directly exposed to. Most students, if they get B grades (or in a case or 2 worse) in those cores in a challenging environment, can use relevant upper division STEM courses to raise the STEM GPA as many of them are more lenient grading than others (in terms of where the curve’s mean/median is set if there is to be a curve). Being more challenged could be beneficial if one can eventually adjust. In addition, it is possible that the student is ready for it/will embrace it and do well from the get go.
Also, do not write off the idea that the less selective place may have worked harder on its STEM education than the most selective. There are several publics that are not considered super prestigious, that have more rigorous life sciences than some of the top privates and publics because they specifically invested in UG life sciences education. The University of Maryland comes to mind, as well as several less prestigious LACs. I think the relationship between rank/prestige and rigor in STEM is much more grey than what people think, mainly because a lot of schools outside of the elites have been quicker to reform in ways that infuse their courses with the “good” kind of rigor.