@TheAtlantic : It is easier if you are STEM. STEM instructors tend to often use course websites or other platforms open to the public. I generally find that most instructors do not change over time, so you can often even rely on older course websites. Like, the guy I posted for ochem at VU has been at about that level for…ever and he ain’t changing for the selectivity. Matthew Shair at Harvard (a well-known organic chemist) and David Evans were not changing for anyone either. The time when it gets tricky is when there is a lot of faculty turn-over, then you have to wait for their materials to start surfacing. But in the case of MIT for example, though Open Courseware materials are old, they are representative.
The social sciences are much harder, but I suspect that unless one is a liberal arts college or have a different program structure, they are very similar within tiers. Political Science is fairly standard for example. I stumbled upon this for example and it was interesting (I noticed that lots of students complain about the workload of a particular instructor at my alma mater so attemped to find her syllabus. I failed, but found something else):
http://jee3.web.rice.edu/teaching.htm
The Rice and Emory syllabi are strikingly similar. However, the two courses (like their numbering) suggest some differences about the departments (I will look into Rice eventually). For Emory, that statistics course is almost foundational/intermediat"ish" and is now even after a a basic stats course required for pols (QTM 100) and numerous other majors as I mentioned earlier. Why? Emory’s Political Science Department has a much heavier research methods emphasis at the UG level and you have quite a few mathematicians teaching. There is a Polsci/Math joint major for example (Courtney Brown, which is “interesting” to say the least, for example, even in a freshman seminar course, includes a differential equations resource in his reading list lol: http://atlas.college.emory.edu/schedules/index.php?select=POLS&view=cse&t=5179&sc=POLS&cn=190&sn=1
I can only wonder if it flops, I do not know how often he offers this seminar, but I imagine it is supposed to be a primer or talent selection site for his upper division course)
The typical school either has a methods class as optional or as a requirement that is independent of other courses. There, many upper division courses (especially the new research requirement) actually require the methods course.
I suspect Rice must be traditional putting that course at such a high number, but they just may use numbering differently.
Idea is that you can learn a lot by looking at this type of stuff when accessible (a departmental website also goes a long way).