Are there less stressful, but still selective schools?

<p>The focus was stress, not rigor. At Brown, you can also take a substantial portion of your classes S/NC. The no grade option obviously reduces stress. Note though that not everyone does well with all the academic freedom Brown offers.</p>

<p>Tufts as another place where the students are more collaborative than cutthroat.</p>

<p>I’d add the ff schools to the list:</p>

<p>U of Miami
Southern Methodist University (SMU)</p>

<p>@Sam Lee No doubt premed is difficult most places, engineering as well! I was trying to list less stressful schools where people seem happy and not too focused on studying over the top. School that should never be mentioned here: UChicago.</p>

<p>In no way are UCLA and UC Berkeley laid back. Maybe in the humanities, but definitely not the STEM majors. The curves there make it very competitive. Pretty much every STEM major I know there (n=15) is very stressed. That’s not to say they are unhappy necessarily, but it’s not a place to go for a less rigorous environment than high school.</p>

<p>I don’t think less stressful = less rigorous. And at every selective school STEM is difficult, that’s a given. And I was mainly thinking of student atmosphere and general feel of being campus. If you went and walked around those campuses you would see happy and relaxed students. Oh and almost no college is going to be easier than high school, I don’t think that is what this thread is about. It’s about finding schools that harbor a less stressful environment but are still selective. I took that as schools where students are happy, not overwhelmed by their studies, have enough time to commit destressing with sports, volunteering, clubs, etc. not schools that have easy courses.</p>

<p>I think that less rigorous —> less stressful.</p>

<p>Obviously if a school is extremely rigorous it will stress people out and deflate the atmosphere of the community.</p>

<p>I live right next to Berkeley. When I walk on the Berkeley campus I don’t see happy and relaxed students.</p>

<p>Then I have wrong impressions of Berkeley students. My sister is friends with a few and they seem very content there, they have fun, do not complain about their studies, and party a lot. I’ll give this one up to you, I do not have personal experience of being on campus, but I would have thought that Berkeley would be a pretty happy place.</p>

<p>Nor did I think Berkeley was extremely rigorous overall. But if a school is extremely rigorous then of course students will be stressed, but there are still rigorous schools where people aren’t overly stressed. Maybe we have different views on rigor too.</p>

<p>Maybe the lower UC’s would be better options then. How about Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara?</p>

<p>OP here…I agree with those who are noting that less stressful does not equal less rigorous. The two can be related, but I am interested in schools that are both academically rigorous, and less stressful. Perhaps schools where the academics come before competition, where there is more of an atmosphere of cooperation and work isn’t assigned for the sake of handing out a lot of work, but where work is assigned because it is relevant, where professors aren’t known for that “no one gets and A in my class” attitude (maybe some professors, but that’s not the norm).</p>

<p>What will your child’s major or career interest be? I think pre-med, engineering, and other STEM classes are stressful at all good schools. I think my pre-med engineering son has been stressed out for his entire time at his state flagship. Fear of not maintaining a high GPA has been stressful. I’m not saying that he hasn’t had time for some fun here and there, but he often only went to half a football game because he had to get back to the library to study.</p>

<p>Depending on the institution, the curve can be very stressful, and by the curve, I mean a set number or percentage of A’s per class. Some colleges foster a more cooperative environment, Pomona among them, certainly. </p>

<p>But I must agree with OsakaDad: Pomona students and Claremont students in general are of a very high caliber. Middle 50 percent SATs for Math plus Verbal at Pomona a couple of years ago were 1390-1560. So, a quarter of the class is, at most, one or two questions off of a perfect score.</p>

<p>At any college, some majors will tend to skew higher with their GPA’s when compared to other majors. Princeton might be the exception here, but their students are pretty unhappy with the grade deflation, I hear. Much higher level of student satisfaction in Claremont!</p>

<p>'The focus was stress, not rigor. At Brown, you can also take a substantial portion of your classes S/NC. The no grade option obviously reduces stress."</p>

<p>I agree. At Brown, D’s and F’s don’t exist, and if you fail a course, it just vanishes from your external transcript. That takes a lot of pressure off.</p>

<p>I didn’t say Berkeley students aren’t happy, but they are stressed. Especially in STEM and business (because you have to apply to Haas after already being there a couple years)</p>

<p>I think the lower UCs are much less stressful in general. I know a lot of students who picked UCD or UCSB over Cal/UCLA, especially premeds.</p>

<p>Hanna,</p>

<p>Where did you hear that a failed course from Brown can somehow get removed from one’s transcript? Or that no one gets a D or an F there?</p>

<p>*In most courses a student may, in consultation with the advisor, elect to be graded on a basis of either Satisfactory/No Credit or A,B,C/No Credit…</p>

<p>No Credit is given when courses are not satisfactorily completed. Neither the notation No Credit nor the description of the course in which it is given are entered on the external transcript.*</p>

<p>At her college, D1 struggled, miserably, through her lab sci requirement. I asked, aren’t you at least glad cores required this academic experience, this otherwise not-gotten knowledge? She harrumphed something about how, if she’d gone to Brown, she wouldn’t have found herself in that pickle, in the first place. Ie, wouldn’t have had to meet that requirement, struggle, and retain the grade. So, which is better?</p>

<p>Oh! I almost forgot… Rice could probably be on the list…
When I visited, it didn’t seem that stressful…</p>

<p>I think it’s not about what we think we see, as visitors or neighbors, but what really happens, as kids go through the semester or year. How much tension here can be around due dates, exam periods, etc. Whether the students can learn or get wrapped up in the fight for grades. </p>

<p>I think OP is looking for that ground-level perspective. Or? If OP tells us more about the son or daughter’s interests, stats and the tier he or she would be aiming for…</p>

<p>OP here again…
I appreciate everyone’s input on this. It is interesting to read the different perspectives. My D’s interest is mainly in the sciences (nothing pinned down yet- likes physics, biology, etc), and I know those can be demanding majors. Demanding is fine, and I don’t think many of us here on CC would want to look for an ‘easy’ school, lol. Actually, my D tends to choose to do things because they are hard lol. But, ideally it would be hard because it is simply a difficult subject or difficult concept, etc…NOT because it is a difficult professor, or a difficult group of students to work with, or because there is busy-work eating up time needed for more productive things…but an easy class or two could be nice. lol</p>