Hi all,
I have been admitted to Cal Poly SLO, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Davis for Biological Sciences. I am just wondering how hard the classes are. I have heard many things, ranging from they are easier than high school to drastically harder than high school. Thanks
You will have rigorous classes at each of those colleges. What’s your question? If you want the easy school, none of those are good choices, tbh.
Regardless of where you wind up, go in with the assumption that college classes are harder than high school and that you will need to devote more time/adjust how you study. Too many kids start college just doing what they did in high school to do homework and prepare for tests and are shocked at the poor results.
If you are trying to select between schools, I’d look more at campus culture, opportunities for undergraduate research, and stuff like that. One friend’s daughter is at Davis for Biological Sciences - she is doing well now, but she got some poor advice and loaded up way too much in her freshman year and her GPA suffered for it.
College courses are commonly seen as harder because:
- Faster pace.
- More advanced material.
- Higher assumed level of student ability.
- Less supervision, so students need to self motivate and do their own time management.
- More in depth assignments and projects.
- Grading spreads students who had 3.6 to 4.0 high school GPA over the 2.0 to 4.0 GPA range in college.
But there may be some easier aspects:
- Less busy work.
- More choices in courses to choose those of most interest to the student.
My question is how much harder are college classes than high school classes. I’m not picking based on class difficulty, I named those colleges because they are my top 3 and every college is different in rigor of courses
All the schools are on the quarter system, so you need to hit the ground running so to speak, be very organized and have good time management skills. Quarter classes are around 10 weeks so assume within 3 weeks of starting the class, you will have one midterm exam, followed by another at around 6 weeks followed by a final. Many class grades will be based on only 2-3 exams only, so doing poorly on one could impact your final grade.
As a Biology major, you will have labs along with your lectures. Labs can just be as time consuming as your lecture classes, so make sure do not overload your first few quarters. At Freshman orientation, most academic advisors recommend taking a lighter than normal course load Fall quarter to acclimate to the quarter system.
Also be aware of the so called “weed out” classes such as General Chemistry/Organic Chemistry and Basic Biology. Many professors make these courses rigorous to weed out the academically weak.
When we attended the Parent Orientation at UCD several years, the speaker warned the parents to expect your student to call home upset they received their first C grade or even worse D or F, all part of going to college where your peers are equally competitive academically.
All the schools will have rigorous courses and I would say one is not more rigorous than the others. Biology is not an easy major but rely on your strengths and interests to help you succeed. Make sure you take advantage of all the resources available to you if you find that you are having difficulty in your classes: tutoring, group study groups, professor office hours.
None of these schools would have accepted you if they felt you could not handle the workload. Best of luck.
A college like CPSLO, UCSB, and UCD takes students with 3.6-4.0 high school GPAs and redistributes them across the range of 2.0-4.0 college GPAs. Also, biology major courses tend to have a high level of grade competition from pre-meds for whom the only acceptable grades are A grades.
No one can answer your question because none of us know how rigorous your HS was, how well prepared you are and organized, and how committed you are to do well. I will say that none of those schools will accept students that they do not think can do the work. They accepted you because you have a history that indicates you can do the work.
Agree with @mamom. Everyone has a different experience with the transition from high school to college classes. You’ve gotten into excellent schools, so I would guess you went to a good high school and have gotten good grades and test scores. If that’s the case, you’ll be fine. It’ll be a transition, but you’ll be fine.