<p>My daughter studies way more than I ever did.</p>
<p>Probably, this accounts for her GPA, which is considerably higher than the one I earned (at the same college but in a different major).</p>
<p>I’d like to see a breakout of their statistics on what the study hours for engineering programs is.</p>
<p>My kids spend more time doing ECs in college than I did–and less time studying.</p>
<p>It lost me at the first line:</p>
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<p>Even the best universities in the country will have only a couple dozen such people in each incoming class at the most. (This is, of course, mostly irrelevant to the point, however.)</p>
<p>^^^Personally I’ve found it to be about ~20 hrs out of class per credit hour. However this has been first year classes, prerequisites and the like.</p>
<p>^A week???</p>
<p>^No, 20 hrs/credit hour… Our semesters are 14 weeks long, so it’s about an hour and 25 minutes per credit per week out of class.</p>
<p>The rule of thumb quoted at my engineering school was 1hr/week per “point” (I think including class and of course homework problem sets). So a 4 credit course would need 16hrs/week to get an A (ie 64 hrs/week for 16 credits, 4.0). 12/hrs/week for B etc. </p>
<p>I’m sure it varied widely per student, but many of us spent A LOT of time on school work, 7 days/week. Certainly an A does require lots more effort than a C.</p>
<p>I plan on trying to study 30 hours a week in school. I really want to graduate with latin honors and realize it’s going to take a ridiculous amount of work and giving up on other things. I’m willing to make that trade. My goal is 40 hours a week, but I realize 30 is more reasonable. My job is to study, so I will devote as much time to it as I would to a job</p>
<p>I’ve heard it been said that the hardest thing about going to top colleges, like HYPS, isn’t the daily or weekly grind, but the challenge of getting in. Once in, they’re golden.</p>
<p>i like that general formula: 1 hour per class time = 2 hours of studying per week. </p>
<p>I was surprised students claim they don’t know how to study. Yikes! How did they get through HS without learning that?</p>
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<p>Fill out worksheets and do the assigned reading. Essays don’t require studying, and tests require minimal levels of rote memorization.</p>
<p>I don’t remember doing too much studying in college. I did do my homework in math and foreign language classes and was diligent about doing exercises at the language lab. Most courses had a paper or two, a midterm and a final. I did the reading, reread my notes, but studying? Not really.</p>
<p>My son is taking an intensive Arabic course this summer. It meets four hours a day and has about four hours (or more) of homework a night. In four days they’d covered about four weeks of a normal paced course.</p>
<p>Too many factors in play. But these are great news for individuals that study effectively and learn the material properly.</p>
<p>I didn’t knock myself out studying in college and neither did most of my friends (except the engineering majors). D gets A’s without knocking herself out, but she is very organized and is able to use her time well. Much of her work is writing papers which she loves and is good at.Her pre-med major friends study a lot.</p>
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Yeah, for most highly math based studies (math, engineering, physics, etc) this (solving problems) is generally what constitutes “studying”. Highlighting sections of text or rewriting notes is not particularly useful compared to digging in and slogging through problems.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this is often the part students hate the most. I know I did.</p>
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<p>Well, “golden” in that it’s hard to fail. But my kids tell me that not many As get given out–you really have to work (or be brilliant or both) to get one.</p>
<p>S goes to UChicago and takes 4 classes every quarter which is considered a full load. He goes to class (including one lab) for about 15 hours/wk, compared to about 35 hours/week in high school. Most studying is on your own so he needs to put at least between 5 and 8 hours/day into it, not including Saturdays and Sundays. Some of the math problem sets take up to 10 hours for two good-at-math people to do together. Also, this doesn’t mean that if a paper is due on Monday he won’t work on it through the weekend. Time management is key and he says that the quarter he set up not to have any classes on Thursday was the worst one because it threw off the studying routine altogether. He hasn’t blamed any professor or particular class he hasn’t liked for a grade that was lower than expected, and has said that a little extra work and effort would have made the difference.</p>
<p>D. studiesa lot. Her goal has always been a perfect GPA. Well she got 3 “A-” in singing classes in her Music minor, which lowered GPA to 3.98. But no “B” yet. However, she is very busy with a lot of EC’s, as most pre-meds are and sorority and her Music Minor. Avoided taking summer classes alos. So, I would say that how much one studies depends on a goal. Certainly the one with the goal of 3.5 would study less than the one with the goal of 4.0 and more than the one who is OK with 3.0.</p>
<p>Shared this with my daughter who will be a college junior in the fall. Her reaction was that upperclassmen & adults have told her that her GPA doesn’t matter - the emphasis is on internships and experience over grades. My daughter does study a great deal and often bemoans the fact that the other students around her seem to have more free time than she does. She almost feels like the other students make fun of her for working hard.</p>