<p>It's obviously harder to get straight A's at Cornell or Vanderbilt than some place like U of Minnesota or Wisconsin. I'd like to get a picture of how much harder it is. How much harder is it to get an A at a prestigious school?</p>
<p>Is it obviously harder? For instance at some schools the drop date is much later in the quarter/semester, so if the class isn’t what you expect you’re less likely to be completely screwed.</p>
<p>that’s not my point. How much harder are the courses?</p>
<p>And by harder, I mean the content that is included. And ONLY the content, nothing else.</p>
<p>I understand that there are a lot more factors like how late you can drop or how much your professor sucks. But erase those factors from the equation.</p>
<p>No one can give you a definitive answer since no one has taken the same courses at two different schools…</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if classes at a ‘top’ college (Like an Ivy) would be easier then at the local state school. They have more leeway in giving more A’s and B’s. Plus, they have a reputation to uphold and are therefore more likely to give out the higher grade.</p>
<p>Big schools are more likely to have bell curves, which can be (but aren’t always) ruthless.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m trying to figure this out myself by locating the schools that use textbooks noted for their difficulty.</p>
<p>I can tell you that math courses at the University of Pennsylvania are (on average) harder than the corresponding courses at Haverford, which are (a lot) harder than the corresponding courses at Bryn Mawr. But all of them are private schools, so never mind.</p>
<p>Here I measured difficulty both in terms of the material covered and the difficulty of the assignments and tests. Content alone is a bad measure of the difficulty of a course. For example, many upper-level math classes at Bryn Mawr will test students on definitions and examples they saw in class. That’s about as easy as a math exam could possibly get - you can memorize the definitions and examples with no idea what they mean. HW assignments at Bryn Mawr rarely require proofs longer than 3-4 lines. HW problems at Haverford and Penn tend to be much more involved (occasionally there’s a solution that takes 2-3 pages to write up). When you put those factors together, courses at Haverford and Penn are much more intense than the corresponding courses at Bryn Mawr, even in the (rare) event that they use the same textbook and formally cover the same body of material.</p>
<p>noimagination, I found that textbooks are a poor indicator for the difficulty of a class because college professors don’t follow the books as closely as teachers did in high school (at least in math, anyway). For example, one of my easiest undergraduate classes (an intermediate-level computer science class) used a graduate-level text. The catch: we only covered the first 2 out of 11 chapters. On the other hand, one of my hardest classes yet used a not very sophisticated textbook. The professor liked it as a references because of the pictures and intuitive explanations, but the tone of the class was very different from the tone of the book.</p>
<p>There are schools, such as Princeton and Wellesley, which grade on a curve to combat grade inflation. Thus, your final grade is partially determined by how well your class mates do. </p>
<p>Also, it’s hard to quantify difficulty with in schools because some professors are harder than others even when they are teaching the same course. It’s also hard to quantify difficulty when there can be so much variability within departments. (For example, at some schools the engineering or science departments are much more difficult than the other majors.) </p>
<p>Finally what is difficult? More work? Higher expectations? Less partying? Taking notes when there aren’t enough seats? Incompetent professors? Some students find it harder to be an active participant in class, while others find it harder to ask for help during office hours of professor who teaches a lecture class.</p>
<p>I have a 3.3 GPA at an ivy, and my friend who goes to a small Christian school in California has a 4.0. Maybe there is a correspondence. Just an anecdote of mine that might shed some light.</p>
<p>My brother goes to Princeton and I go to NYU. We compared schedules and he has 12 hours of class/week this semester and I have 20. I have more work than him this year and spend more time in class, because I’m a sci major and have multiple labs whereas he’s an econ major so no labs, plus his major has fewer requirements so more easy electives to choose from. His major is considered easier than mine but he goes to an elite college and I don’t so i guess it balances out - we both have around 3.6ish GPA’s. </p>
<p>so I think a lot depends on major as well as college - Engineering at a State U is probably more difficult than “easy majors” at more elite schools. Many Ivies have grade inflation too. But at Top 10 schools you’re competing against very bright, hard working people too.</p>
<p>This was some time ago, but bf was at state flagship (one of the top 10 or so in the country) while I was at a top 20 private university. I had about 4 hrs of homework/night, he had about 4 hrs/wk. We compared textbooks. What we covered in one quarter was far far more than what he covered in a semester. (In our huge suburban hs he was in top 1%, I was a few % down, so it wasn’t like he was in remedial classes or anything in college.)</p>
<p>
I actually had a math class that was curved in such a way that 15% were GUARANTEED to fail. Curves suck (My 98 was curved down to an A-, not quite failing but still annoying.)</p>
<p>^Same here, my Chem class is curved so that 6% will fail regardless. 4% Ds 2% Fs.</p>
<p>
Many courses have class schedules that show how deeply a text is used.</p>