Bryn Mawr is the only college on the list that I would consider to be an intense workload kind of place- but it is such a fabulous institution that rejecting it out of hand seems counter-productive. Of the colleges on her list it strikes me as the only one that attracts the Swarthmore-type studious scholar… and with careful planning she could likely major in anything there and still have time for a life.
And I agree with the comments above that college (certainly the colleges on her list) are devoid of busywork. I know a fair number of recent Conn College grads for example- they would describe the intellectual environment as challenging but supportive of outside interests, intense EC’s, etc. Professors spell out the expectations on Day 1- nobody is giving pop quizzes or “oh by the way, here’s a paper you didn’t know about and it is due on Monday” kind of HS BS.
You have some fantastic schools on this list by the way… and agree with DFB not to get hung up on “writing intensive”. Unless it’s a standalone program like Yale’s “Directed Studies” which the students call “Directed Suicide”, it describes a pedagogical approach, not a workload. Your D may find a writing intensive course in an area that interests her a breeze- a few short essays and a longer paper- but no midterm and no final- which for an athlete may be a perfect fit. My college suitemates who were athletes tried very hard to get into those types of classes- better able to schedule your own peaks and valleys with a paper than with a final. And unlike a course with a final, where you need to take an incomplete (and then work out the makeup schedule with the professor) if you have a conflict, with a paper it’s a breeze- hand it in two days early if you have a conflict- problem solved.
I also have to comment on Bryn Mawr. It is a fabulous place. My D (coming from the same type of public school system you describe) thrived there. The work load was heavy, but not the stupid, pile on busy work of high school. Don’t discount it for the heavy workload alone. It is a very nurturing and supportive place.
Thanks for all the comments, and please keep them coming! Well, you guessed it. Bryn Mawr was the college that kept saying over and over that they were writing intensive. As for support, they also made it clear that they have a writing lab, but it assumed a strong command of fundamentals. While you’d expect students admitted to a school at that level to have the fundamentals down, it was the only school that added a caveat to any discussion of academic support, which seemed designed to intimidate. Also, I asked about general tutoring services and did not get an answer.
A “credit hour” is supposed to represent three hours of work per week total, including in-class and out-of-class time spent. So a 15-16 credit schedule (as needed to graduate in 8 semesters) is supposed to represent 45-48 hours of work per week total (including about 15-16 hours in-class, though courses with lab/art-studio/music-performance can have more in-class time), while a light full time 12 credit schedule (which will graduate in 10 semesters) is supposed to represent 36 hours of work per week total. But actual workloads have been declining over the decades, at least partly due to technology (for example, it is a lot easier to find out what books may contain the references you need with a web search than to go to the library, look in the card catalog, then go through the possible books).
Read Fiske very carefully – they always have a comment about workload in the write-ups. I feel like they are pretty spot on. Here are a few examples that I think are quite accurate:
Swarthmore - “While the academic climate at Swarthmore is intense…” and “Courses are significantly harder than at other schools…”
Harvey Mudd - “Students report that classes are challenging, and the heavy workload is a common complaint” and “The classes are extraordinarily demanding…”
Dickinson - “Academics are demanding, but not cut-throat”
Macalester - “The classes here are challenging and require a lot of action… but the course load doesn’t exceed what is manageable.”
In theory, one can look for course web pages on college web sites and compare the assignments, reading, tests, etc. across colleges to see what kind of workload different colleges have for similar courses (note that the college workload ranking may differ from one course to another).
In practice, comparing may be more difficult for courses that are less standardized (e.g. calculus, general chemistry, introductory economics, introductory psychology, where it can be relatively easy to tell if a given course goes beyond the usual level in workload or difficulty of material, assignments, tests), and may in any case require assistance of someone who is knowledgeable about the course subjects being compared across colleges. Also, not all colleges, departments, or instructors tend to have course web pages.
@TheGFG I did not mean to scare you off about LACs. My D is at a LAC (Lafayette) and she absolutely loves it. She thrives on the smaller classes, getting to know her professors, doing research etc. and consider that to be a real joy, not a burden. I never asked how it compares to her very intense HS but she seems to be managing just fine, doing well. She also has time for a ton of EC activities that she really enjoys. I think that Lafayette has found the secret sauce of being able to provide excellent/challenging academics but leaving students with time to also get very involved in campus activities (virtually all of her friends are involved in one thing or another) – I"m sure that is the case for many other wonderful LACs too.
One other thing you might look at is whether the school is on semesters or trimesters/quarters. Ds1 really loved his trimester schedule. While the pace is quick, he only had to juggle three classes at a time. That may factor into the reviews of a school being more “intense.”
GFG, my daughter went to a similar high school. She found that many of the kids in the lower half of her high school class were still incredibly prepared for college. In many cases, her friends at lower ranked colleges had few peers in classes. They found that the kids from less competitive high schools were not all so engaged even at the college level. Many reported getting very high grades. This is just an anecdotal report. My point is, your daughter is probably very well prepped for college. After the top 20 universities and 15 or so colleges and LACs that are super intense, she should be fine. Just my thoughts.
At least at a trimester school you take fewer classes. There are a few schools (like Mudd) that squish courses into a shorter timeframe, but leave the same content as a semester long course.
And i think what Bryn Mawr considers to be the “fundamentals” are things your D learned in 4th grade- what is a verb; what is a topic sentence. In my observation- a college at the level of Bryn Mawr cannot possibly position itself as providing remedial education. It’s not their mission, and they don’t pretend it is.
But a kid who has never written a research paper with proper citations- that’s what the writing center can teach. A kid who ONLY has written research papers so does not know how to structure an expository piece, or structure a piece of fiction, or something like an OP-Ed in the New York Times- that’s what they can teach.
But a kid writing at a third grade level- obvious grammatical errors, poor syntax, no sense of structure- that they don’t pretend to fix.
IMHO this is not a reason to knock out Bryn Mawr (or any of the schools on your list). Unless your D is such a perfectionist that she’s got to have mostly A’s- she will get a better education at one of the colleges on her list than at a place that doesn’t emphasize writing and is mostly “chalk and talk” instruction (professor at the blackboard, kids memorizing what’s in the reading).
Just re-read the whole thread – probably every college on her list has a Writing Lab or Writing Center. My D1 worked in the Writing Lab at Dickinson as one of the tutors. Even D2’s STEM school has a writing lab now (wish I could get her to go - argh). Point is, pretty much EVERY college has one these days – it is kind of a “best practice”, especially among LACs – maybe Bryn Mawr talked theirs up more, but it is no indication of an intensity expectation. She is probably going to be fine an any of them, honestly. Every LAC tends to be writing intensive, IMHO – one reason is because with smaller class sizes, it is easier for profs to grade writing assignments and papers than in a larger university setting. But I would not be scared off by that use of “intensive” – I think it means more writing assignments, but not necessarily harder grading. LACs tend toward more assignments during the semester and grading that is often less heavily weighted to the midterm and final – my kids find this relieves some of the pressure, doesn’t add to it.
Some quarter system schools have “normal size” courses. I.e. instead of a year long calculus course being divided into two 15-week semesters, it is divided into three 10-week quarters (total 30 weeks of instruction in each case).
Packing more than the usual amount of material into courses can be done on either semester or quarter system. For example, Harvey Mudd (semester) and Caltech (quarter) both do that with some/many courses.
Mudd has a lot of what I guess you would call “half semester” courses (you might take Calculus as the first half a semester, and Probability & Statistics the other half of a semester – so by winter break of freshman year, you have taken two courses that normally would have been a full semester each at other colleges). But I know the OP is not looking at those types of schools.
I agree with naviance in post no. 28. I love when my kids’ friends who were middle-of-the-pack kids at their competitive magnet HS come back from college and talk about how they feel like superstars at their schools. The rigorous HS curriculum really prepares them, even those in the bottom half of the class. They are light years ahead of kids who coasted in HS. I bet the same is true for your dd, OP.
My kid’s school doesn’t do credit hours this way. I did an informal poll of a dozen or so friends and none of their schools do them either. I get the feeling most LACs don’t.
A class is a class, with or without additional lab, discussions, whatever extra. You take 4 of them a semester and if you get special permission, you can do 5 but it’s discouraged. D’s college expects 32 classes to graduate but allows 31 if a frosh drop was necessary.
This looks like each course would be equivalent to a 4 credit course at a semester system school using the credit hour system, where 120-128 credits are needed to graduate. This could be relevant if there is any transfer credit (either in or out).
You should know that both of my daughters found their difficult colleges much easier than their pressure cooker of a HS.
This was not true for many of their college peers who went to less rigorous high schools. As I said in another thread, my D1 was a very intellectual academic kid so the HS rigor was good for her. She’s currently heading off to grad school in the fall to become a professor. My D2 was miserable with the HS workload and she felt like a slacker. Nonetheless she chose a very difficult engineering major and is doing great at an excellent though not elite college that she fell in love with and applied ED because it seemed to filter out the super competitive students like her sister. She no longer feels like a slacker.
She says that the work was harder, but they don’t waste so much time in classes and doing busy work and thus she has time for a life.
Similar to what ClassicRockerDad wrote, my 2 college student kids - one at a very popular, challenging to get into LAC and one at a LAC that was less competitive though still selective to get into - have both pointed out how much more enjoyable their college courses during class time are compared to high school, which was one of the very competitive public ones. My D explained that students smile and laugh more than in HS and are just more relaxed. My son thinks its because the students are now IN college and aren’t competing against each other in the same way as they did in HS, especially in AP and Honors courses. I will add that neither have taken pre-med courses, so I don’t know how those are. But I’m adding this to the conversation because I think that a question about classroom “climate” is an important one to ask students when touring colleges and might give you and your D a better idea - or at least another measurement - of her concerns than workload only.
I think that course unit schools (my D went to an LAC and took 4 courses a semester) definitely might be more manageable than credit schools (my S went to a University requiring 120 credits and usually took 5 courses a semester.) I think both got great educations, but D’s type of school might be better for the goal you are looking for.
Another thing to look at is gen ed requirements. D’s school had almost none, which meant she was either taking major courses, or other courses she chose for her own reasons. S’s school had a Core Curriculum–he loved it, but for someone else, it could be intensive work that feels unnecessary.
And other schools have just lots of gen ed requirements–not necessarily “a core” but a lot of things to check off.
Overall–D worked extremely hard at the four courses a semester she took, but because she was intrinsically interested, and because there were only four, it was a different kind of work than it might be at another school.
