Hardest Working Schools

College Search & Selection
1

<p>What would people say are the hardest working schools (as a whole or broken down by major) and how many hours per weeks do the students work?</p>

2

<p>Chicago
Johns Hopkins
Cornell
Swarthmore
Grinnell
Carleton
Reed</p>

<p>Thats all i can think off the top of my head, but is just a very few of many</p>

3

<p>^ I second UofC. It also heavily depends on the prospective major. For instance, I’ll be a freshman at Duke in the fall, and as a humanities guy in the CAS, I’ll only be taking 12 hours of class a week. Many of my pre-med, BME major friends have 20+ hours of class, including labs and stuff. I imagine JHU is similar in that respect (crazy, workaholic, BME pre-meds and comparatively laidback humanities majors).</p>

4

<p>Holy Cross is in the top 20 of the Princeton Review ranking for “Students Study the Most”</p>

5

<p>Davidson is up there for sure (#10 Students study the most according to Princeton Review, has been as high as #1 in past years)</p>

6

<p>All the Service Academies should be in there.</p>

7

<p>GA Tech Engineering Dept.</p>

8

<p>GA Tech Engineering</p>

9

<p>

</p>

<p>This is so true. The intro WUSTL chemistry course is 9 hours a week. :(</p>

<p>I remember the admissions rep. at MIT stressing the difficulty of the work and the fact that most problem sets would require a group effort to complete. I don’t know if that would extend to all similar schools, but it would make sense, I guess.</p>

10

<p>

Deep Springs, far and above the other colleges so far mentioned. </p>

<p>It’s a “work college” for a reason. Where else do you have to run a ranch on top of academics? :cool:</p>

11

<p>I’m surprised that no one mentioned Stanford.</p>

12

<p>^ bahahahaha I literally just LOL’ed. For real.</p>

<p>Stanford?! Please. Again, maybe the pre-meds/hard science majors. My AP English lit teacher got her B.A. at Columbia and her M.A. at Stanford, and she said the latter was a joke. She always saw undergrads just lying around, tanning, playing shirtless ultimate, and frolicking in the fountains. Now, don’t take that the wrong way. To me, that’s a PLUS. I’m going to Duke BECAUSE it combines good academics with a relaxed atmosphere, but if you’re looking for a traditionally hardworking school, Stanford is probably not it.<br>
<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR3dTn9rE64[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR3dTn9rE64&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

13

<p>William & Mary makes you earn the grades. High achievers like to be challenged. This is what prepares you for the real world.</p>

14

<p>Georgetown has 40 classes, five per term, each requiring mid term, final and research paper. Of the elite college cohort, this is the highest workload. Most top schools only require 4 classes per term. Next in line is Yale with 36 classes.</p>

15

<p>

Oh, there’s probably others. I know UNC requires 40 courses (120 hours), and Chicago requires 42 quarter courses (faster paced and more work-intensive than semester courses).</p>

<p>It should also be noted that Georgetown doesn’t cap AP credit. This is much different from, say, Duke, where only 2 AP courses are allowed to be used toward the required total.</p>

16

<p>To keep this discussion meaningful I don’t think schools whose median SATS are below 1350 should be included.</p>

<p>Also, the AP cap is only meaningful to the extent that AP respecting insitutions pilfer POTs (persons of talent) from AP disrespecting institutions like, apparently, from your post, Duke. While logically any of the AP respecting institutions are boosted by this, there is no way to meaningfully measure the boost in terms of more talented students making the AP respecting institutions more difficult. But, since with AP credit, the POTs are taking more advanced classses (and usually en masse) from the start of their college careers and not repeating work already completed these schools would be likely stronger from the cohort of students who become high level and attempt more advanced work sooner</p>

17

<p>You assume this discussion has the potential to be meaningful (I don’t think it does).</p>

18

<p>Northwestern requires 45 classes in Arts and Sciences, with the standard load at 4 courses a quarter (over three quarters a year). Many, many students double and triple major, leading them to allow double minoring but capping overall majors/minors at 3 per person (not including certificates).</p>

<p>Anecdotally, I had a Kellogg grad student in my Japanese class. One day as we were leaving, he started to complain that “You guys (NU students) work too much!”. I figured, he’s in Kellogg, he must have gone to a good school, so I asked him where he went.</p>

<p>“Harvard”</p>

<p>And that’s just for the CAS. Don’t get me started on the Engineers…</p>

19

<p>Using the AF Academy as an example (I think they all have similar requirements), 44 classes, everyone takes 30 hours of math/science/engineering as part of the core curriculum, mandatory intramurals unless you are on an intercollegiate athletic team, mandatory monthly inspections on Saturdays. All students finish in 4 years.</p>

20

<p>Okay, in response to hookem’s comment about Stanford: I’ve heard the paddling duck analogy more than a couple times in regards to Stanford. It may not be the “traditional” working hard type school, but its students know how to balance their ECs and their work, and during Dead Week you’ll see as many frazzled students running around frantically trying to get their work done as students from any other school (heard from numerous current/past S students about this). The quarter system moves fast and midterms can hit you as soon as three weeks into a course. </p>

<p>to the OP: I think it matters more that you learn how to budget your time wisely and work at a pace that suits YOU. it’s all about time management.</p>