<p>^ I think the title of this thread conflates “prestige” with the selectivity and academic ranking of a college. In many cases, prestige does coincide with its academic standing. However, there are many other meanings of prestige. Academic standing is only one, but a college can have prestige due to its social eliteness, academic/economic/political influence, or its public recognition. In the context of this thread, I think we’re referring to the academic quality of a college and its students.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, when the term prestige is mentioned in a CC thread, all too often, posters argue without first agreeing on the definition of the term. In this thread, the original question had to do with the difficulty of the coursework. While this may have something to do with the grading system at a particular school or in a particular major, I see the overall difficulty of coursework itself as a somewhat separate issue from how exams and assignments are graded. Even were the thread limited to coursework difficulty, different posters define this in different ways: the amount/rapidity of the coverage of a topic in class; the conceptual level at which the material is explained; the materials used (primary sources vs. textbooks); the amount of reading or number of papers; the degree to which exams ask for explanation and application of concepts vs. memorized facts, etc.</p>