<p>I'm been busy researching colleges (researching these forums, etc) and so far MIT/Caltech are my first choices and Rose-Hulman is a safety. One of the most brought up topics I've heard concerning these schools is the incredible difficulty of their courses ("doing well at MIT is like trying to drink from a fire hose" comes to mind). How much harder are they really when compared to good state schools or Rose-Hulman for example? And if you could, please provide reasons.</p>
<p>Thanks, Thad</p>
<p>Well, obviously it's difficult to assign some sort of absolute difficulty differential. (I mean, I've never taken a class at a state school.) So just a few things --</p>
<p>Vanishingly few classes at MIT evaluate students using multiple choice tests. MIT tests will generally outline a problem and ask you to solve it using the tools you've gained during class -- for example, in biology, we would often be asked to design an experiment that would provide a certain result. Those kinds of problems are very open-ended, and they are very difficult to BS through.</p>
<p>This probably varies somewhat by department, but in the sciences, upper-level classes are often not assigned textbooks -- assigned readings are from the primary literature. The primary literature is a lot more detailed than a textbook, and is more conceptually challenging. Courses which assign textbooks often use graduate-level books.</p>
<p>I think the difficulty lies mostly in the competition. I went to a pretty good high school, with a number of bright other students, and I didn't work all that hard there. Despite that lack of honest effort, I did quite well, and was easily in the top chunk of the student body.</p>
<p>I got to MIT, and everyone there was very smart. A very large percentage were valdictorians or salutatorians of their high school classes, and you needed to work quite hard to reach the middle of the class. At the same time, almost all classroom discussions, or even silly sessions over pizza just sparked, partially because everyone there was very very bright.</p>
<p>There is a virtuous circle, the best students attract the best faculty who attract the best students and so on. </p>
<p>But my perception of the difficultly really came from knowing that if you reached the median grade, that was in itself a decent accomplishment, and most of us were not really satisfied with that alone.</p>
<p>It's not just a matter of difficulty. molliebatmit's answer describes some of the differences. Multiple choice exams seem to be used a lot in state schools. I took several undergraduate-level courses after graduating from MIT, and the local state school was the most affordable and convenient place to take them. Multiple choice exams in every class I took. I find them more difficult in many ways since they are so tedious. I much preferred the open-ended type of questions typical of MIT exams. In a way it is more "difficult" in that it is more challenging to have exams like that, but the classes prepare you for the exams and it's just a lot more rewarding.</p>