<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>Compare Caltech's core curriculum to other schools. Even MIT doesn't require as much as physics and math as what is required at Caltech.</p>
<p><a href="http://admissions.caltech.edu/learning/core%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.caltech.edu/learning/core</a></p>
<p>Caltech also does not accept AP credits.</p>
<p>In addition, Caltech doesn't accept credit for courses taken at other universities. At MIT its possible to request credit for courses taken at other universities. S took Multivariable Calc, Linear Algebra & Differential Equations at UC Berkeley as a high school senior. He had A's in all courses at UCB. Students at Caltech are given the option of testing out of courses - S did not test out of any courses in spite of having covered the material at UC Berkeley. I believe some of the difference was Caltech courses require proofs, at UCB few, if any, proofs were required. Once he was at Caltech, I thought he'd breeze through the courses since he'd already covered the material at UCB but instead he found the Caltech courses challenging. S had lots of experience with proofs thru math olympiads and summer programs so it wasn't just a matter of not knowing how to write a proof. Math courses at Caltech cover material in much more depth than the courses at UCB. (Though this has been argued elsewhere on CC, I'm sure you'll find people who will tell you its the same material at UCB or Caltech - but my son found Caltech much more challenging than UCB).</p>
<p>My only personal example: In high school I took honors differential equations at my local college (Colorado State University - so a decent state school as state schools go). I was one of two people out of roughly thirty to get an A. I also took partial differential equations from CSU with the same result.</p>
<p>After all that, I was not able to test out of the required diff eq class (Ma 2a), and it wasn't because I forgot the material I had learned.</p>