<p>Depends on what GPA you’re trying for. As a math major at Chicago, I would say that most people I know who have at least 3.3 GPA work at least 25 hours a week, and most people who have at least a 3.7 GPA work 50 hours/week.</p>
<p>It also depends on what classes you’re taking, of course. I busted my ass getting a A in honors analysis at Chicago and probably spent a good 30 hours/week on that one class, whereas there are people who spend maybe 15 hours/week getting an A in regular analysis.</p>
<p>I concur with elsijfdl. I’m in Northwestern’s engineering, and after the first two weeks of a quarter, you’re bombarded with tests every week through finals.</p>
<p>And at Georgetown today and in the SFS in particular, there is also a lot pressure when your professor is a former head of state, or cabinet officer or Ambassador. A student doesn’t really want to look bad for the Prime Minister of Spain or the former CIA Director, or the former Secretary of State, or the former Head of AID and the like, when these people can write you a life changing recommendation for grad school or a job or set you up on a research project with one of their contacts. Where there is that kind of opportunity there is a commensurate level of pressure and effort that students are going to make.</p>
<p>King Abdullah of Jordan is the head of one of the world’s largest Star Tek Fan groups and is an alumnus of the Georgetown Foreign Service School. His influence would undoubtebly be high at the Starfleet Academy, which is another reason to work really hard at Georgetown SFS.</p>
<p>Sam Lee-there are many great parties at Georgetown as well,and a lot of prominent researchers and scholars are pretty good drinkers as well. Some have developed amazing recipes for special drinks. One guy had an apple tinged martini that was incredible. I think he worked really hard to develop it.</p>
<p>Of course, I could agree with those of you who say caltech. In fact, I would agree with you. Without the slightest bit of hesitation.</p>
<p>If Deep Springs College did not exist, that is.</p>
<p>The classes–such as quantum mechanics as a normal course for a college freshman?!–are ridiculously difficult, they read roughly a few hundred pages of really difficult humanities texts every week, they have to meet regularly to govern not only themselves but the school at large (including the school’s incoming applications, their isolation policy, etc), and they also–and this is the REAL killer–have to run a self sustaining ranch completely on their own during their stay. Their stay includes staying on campus during the summer with a summer break between years that consists of (June 30-July 3, haha). These kids are so academic that 70% go off to earn a PhD, and after their two year stay they are basically guaranteed admission into other schools, such as Harvard or UChicago or, if they wished, I suppose CalTech, where they probably find the overall college experience to be a piece of cake. Probably–I’m not an alum.</p>
<p>U-Chicago (reputation for eating your soul but the devil is worth it)
Carnegie Mellon (work, work, work but the Nerds don’t know that it’s work not play - Nerds will rule the world!!!)
MIT (same as Carnegie Mellon)
Cornell (reputation for being harder than people expect, but I don’t know why students wouldn’t expect it to be hard).</p>
<p>UChicago: “Where the fun comes to die”
Cornell: “The easiest Ivy to get into, the hardest to get out of” - I think most people think it’s not difficult because (according to admissions statistics, anyway) IS the easiest to get into. I think most people kind of overlook the fact that it’s an Ivy.</p>
<p>I do think the “techy” schools (UChicago, CalTech, CMU, Harvey Mudd) have the reputation for being the “hardest”, but then again, you have to remember that most of these schools’ claim to fame is their math/hard sciences/engineering. And by and large, anywhere you go, those will almost always be the hardest majors.</p>
<p>Also, Northwestern - I’ve heard anecdotes of people taking Organic Chem to fullfill their pre-med requirements at Harvard over the summer simply because it was so much easier than at Northwestern. Fun little fact, I guess.</p>
<p>“King Abdullah of Jordan is the head of one of the world’s largest Star Tek Fan groups and is an alumnus of the Georgetown Foreign Service School. His influence would undoubtebly be high at the Starfleet Academy, which is another reason to work really hard at Georgetown SFS.”</p>
<p>That’s funny because my work owns the original Enterprise models (the undamaged and damaged versions)…</p>
<p>“caltech > all
someone please correct if im wrong but 8 sems of physics (required) sounds pretty intense.”</p>
<p>i seriously doubt that everyone has to take 8 semesters of physics for graduation requirements. i worked in the graduate labs there for 5 months and have numerous friends and coworkers at caltech… not to mention i was obsessed with the school until my senior year of hs.</p>
<p>now, for physics majors, yes. for engineering majors, if you count engineering classes as physics then yes. else, no.</p>
<p>we talked about this on a caltech/hmc thread awhile back. hmc’s graduation requirements (in terms of hours) are equal for technical classes and slightly more for humanities. hmc requires one takes 13% more credit hours than caltech (by 2008 numbers) after the conversion between semester and quarters is made.</p>
<p>Lizzardfire and I laid out all the graduation requirements for HMC and Caltech several months ago. It was found that HMC requires 18.5% more requirements than Caltech (by the numbers). This does not take into account course difficulty but should be noted that the technical requirements were almost exactly the same.</p>
<p>Caltech requires 5 semesters of physics for everyone.</p>