<p>The title pretty much sums it up. I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but just want confirmation. Would achieving all A's at a place like Stanford be harder than at a place like U of Missouri? I'm not speaking in specifics of these two uni's, but in general of places like them.</p>
<p>Yes, it is harder (unless you are the curve setter no matter where you are) because the competition is smarter and pretty much all schools grade on a curve. I have been in classes at both types of places and there is a dramatic difference.</p>
<p>At the very least, there would be a harder curve with having smarter students.</p>
<p>I mean the quick answer is yes, especially when the two colleges are that drastically different, but it kind of depends on the situation. For instance a school like NYU is technically not in the top 25 USN rankings, but that doesn’t mean NYU is “easy”. It also depends on the classes you’re taking. Someone at a school that’s not necessarily in the top 25 (whatever that really means) but is taking a massive load of courses and is majoring in a rigorous area of study and is doing outside research and all of that fun stuff is probably gonna have to work harder than someone who got recruited to a top 25 school for football and is taking as few difficult courses as possible.</p>
<p>In general though the answer is yes, schools that are harder to get into will be harder, for the reasons that the other posters pointed out.</p>
<p>If you’re teaching a class, you have to teach to the median level of the students in the class. Stanford students should be able to read more, process more, discuss with greater engagement, and move faster than students at average colleges. Accordingly, instructors will move at that pace and expect the greater output. If they did that at the average school, they’d lose the majority of the class.</p>