<p>While I found Smith slightly less rigorous than my high school, hazmat, even when taking several upper-level courses as a freshman, quoting their acceptance rate and US News ranking really proves nothing.</p>
<p>I found Williams a heckuva lot easier than my high school (though that was years ago), and it didn't change when I got to be a junior or senior.</p>
<p>When we visited, we did find Reed more obsessive about academic work (and to the detriment of everything else) than anywhere else. We visited during finals weeks, and they had a student-run stimulants table set up in the library.</p>
<p>You found Smith LESS rigorous than high school? THE Smith College? I find that very hard to believe! I know many students at Smith and they are very intelligent and working their butts off just to stay on top of things.</p>
<p>and WILLIAMS less rigorous than high school? Now I must admit I'm really stumped by those comments. How can that possibly be?</p>
<p>mini is an older alumn--Williams has changed a fair amount since she attended. Needless to say, I would be surprised if many alumns of her day would agree that Williams was less rigorous than their high schools.</p>
<p>Williams is certainly NOT less rigorous than my high school was, and I've never heard a current student claim otherwise.</p>
<p>When you hear and read of the academic reputations of these schools, one would not expect someone to say that they are less rigorous than high school. That comment blows my mind! I know for a fact that the sciences at Smith are extremely challenging, and many students are involved in some pretty serious research. I know less of Williams, but I would expect more of the same.</p>
<p>In my case, I went to a specialized science high school in New York (Stuyvesant) that was extremely competitive (I was around 115th in my class, whereas I was top 10 at college), and either the demands were greater, or I was simply particularly well-prepared (and I would note that I got in off the waiting list). College was a heckuva lot more laid back, and I was a pretty driven student and, unfortunately, back in those days the advising/mentoring system was sorely lacking and I didn't know how to find more challenge. However, I would note that I received a great education anyway. I have no idea whether W. has changed much or not in that regard - there is clearly a higher percentage of athletes now than there were then, but I bet most are awfully smart athletes. </p>
<p>I have since learned that, for the most part, rigor is self-imposed, or is essentially meaningless.</p>
<p>Class of 2002's combined mean SAT of 1374 was 200 points higher than the combined Illinois college bound senior mean of 1174
Class of 2002's composite ACT mean at 30.1 was 10 points higher than the Illinois College bound Senior mean at 20.1; ranking IMSA in the top 1%</p>
<p>Class of 2003 has 38 National Merit finalists, four finalists for National Achievement Scholarships for Black American Students and two Scholars in the National Hispanic Recognition Program</p>
<hr>
<p>To the OP: Your original question regarded who would be put on a list of the top 5 or 10....I answered. </p>
<p>Are you the ONLY student at SMITH from your HS in the last 5 years?? Did your HS advise you that SMITH would not be challenging enough for your academic prowess??? I hope you have corrected their advising to girls coming behind you.....</p>
<p>Go to first new post college grades kill transfer possibilities?
gibson99</p>
<p>a neurologist that we know has said that Reed was more difficult than medical school :eek:</p>
<p>hazmat, I think I told you the problem was that I had mono for 1.5 months in the second semester. I feel if I went back to Smith I could take 5 classes, make 3.7 GPA or so, and transfer somewhere as a junior.</p>
<p>THE FIVE COLLEGES</p>
<p>Did you know that, thanks to a unique interchange between five esteemed educational institutions, Smith students get five colleges for the price of one? It's true. In fact, approximately 5,000 undergraduates every year cross-register for courses at one or more of the five campuses. All you need to do the same is good academic standing and an institutional ID.</p>
<pre><code> Learn more about the Five Colleges >
</code></pre>
<p>Incorporated in 1965, Five Colleges, Inc. is one of the oldest and most highly regarded consortiums in American higher education. Its members are four private colleges (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith) and the public University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass). Cooperative arrangements give faculty and students access to resources, facilities and courses for credit on all five campuses. Fare-free Five College buses provide transportation day and night, including service until 2 a.m. on weekends.</p>
<p>SMITH SCHOLARS</p>
<p>The Smith Scholars Program is designed for highly motivated and talented students who want to spend one or two years working on projects of their own devising, freed (in varying degrees) from normal college requirements. A student may apply at any time after the first semester of her sophomore year and must submit a detailed statement of her program, an evaluation of her proposal and her capacity to complete it from those faculty who will advise her and two supporting recommendations from instructors who have taught her in class. The deadlines for submission of proposals for the Smith Scholars Program are November 30 and April 30 of the students junior year. The proportion of work to be done in normal courses will be decided jointly by the student, her adviser(s) and the Committee on Academic Priorities. Work done in the program may result in a thesis, a group of related papers, an original piece of work, such as a play, or some combination of these.</p>
<p>A Smith Scholar may or may not complete a regular departmental major. Further details, guidelines and applications are available from department chairs, honors directors, the class deans and the director of the Ada Comstock Scholars Program.</p>
<p>I would say Reed, Swarthmore(Hnrs Program- Grad School), and University of Chicago(it's a research univer. but it's classes are like LACs. the Ivies, stanford, duke, amherst, and williams cant touch them IMO</p>
<p>Financeman:</p>
<p>I basically agree; however, it is important to point out that when we talk about particularly difficult schools, it is because they are difficult "on average" for a large cross-section of students. There are most certainly subsets of the student bodies at all of the other schools you mention that work every bit as hard and are every bit as academically engaged. </p>
<p>For example, there are some serious genius wonks at Harvard who get all they can handle and then some. It's just that, on average, the focus for the entire student body is probably more on a high degree of involvement in ECs than classroom work. Likewise, you have a very high percentage of students at Williams who are heavily involved in varsity athletics.</p>
<p>It's also important to point out that there is significant ability to tailor an academic load that is easier or harder. The differences between loads among students at the same school is probably as large or larger than average differences between different schools.</p>
<p>Nicely parsed. I have taken greater numbers of courses every semester excluding my first. While I do know students who also do this it is not 90% of them I can assure you. It is also not 90% of the students who submatriculate or do dual degrees. Many students work hard, enjoy other activities and don't feel compelled to stress themselves but rather comfortably challenged.</p>
<p>Interesteddad: you said you agreed Reed, Swarthmore, and the UChicago were the most challenging colleges for the "averge" student there. What do you know about Reed? Do you really think it is as good/challenging as Swarthmore or UChicago for the student who puts effort in? I've had a really hard time figuring Reed out, but it's definitely something I've thought about.</p>
<p>I'd say that those three schools are certainly among the most academically-oriented schools in the country. I think saying "the three most" is bit too categorical.</p>
<p>I honestly don't know a lot about Reed. But, every indicator (average GPA, very high PhD production rates, and descriptive accounts) indicates a school with a very heavy academic orientation. These indicators are very consistent for schools known to be academically-oriented.</p>
<p>I don't really think Reed and Swarthmore are all that similar culturally. There seems to be a strong "counter-culture" or "alternative" quality to Reed that really isn't the case at Swarthmore, at least these days. Swarthmore is quirky and liberal and diverse, but basically more "straight-arrow" or "geeky" in orientation than "edgy", if that makes any sense. I actually think that Swarthmore could be better compared culturally to some of the tech schools, except with much heavier focus on social sciences. </p>
<p>I think, for example, that the geekier students at Williams would be indistinguishable from Swatties. The current Williams student from my daughter's high school class is more nose-to-the-grindstone academically and less "social" than my daughter and would certainly fit at Swarthmore. The only difference is that the geekier students at Williams are a significant minority, whereas they are a majority at Swarthmore, with jocks being the signficant minority. That's why I think it's a mistake to allow broad descriptions to suggest that any of these schools have a homogeneous student body and it's important to qualify descriptions as being "on average". That's why I'm uncomfortable with statements that UChicago or Swarthmore are more academically rigorous than the Ivy league schools because the Ivy League schools certainly have sizeable cohorts of extremely brilliant academic minded students. For example, Chief Justice Roberts apparently sailed through Harvard in three years so focussed on academics that they can't find any students from his era who even remember meeting him.</p>
<p>I agree. My real problems with Smith (which I now recall I did not state very well last spring) were mostly academic. Chemistry at Smith was great -very rigorous, Amherst students take Chem at Smith, so no complaints there.</p>
<p>But, in my other classes, the MAJORITY of students didn't do all the reading and weren't necessarily very engaged in class. Many of my professors did not seem overly enthusiastic. Classes did not seem like a "dialogue" between students and professors where they met each others needs, as it seems to me college should ideally be. My statistics professor was just plain lousy -we solved a lot of problems on the computer without really knowing what was going on. I was looking for a college that required more reading and writing, and provided even more interactive classrooms.</p>
<p>In addition to my discomfort at UChicago (didn't like living in the city, found
just enough antisocial semi-competitive people to affect the tone on campus -not something I'd expected at all. Clearly I should have sat in on classes at schools before I applied to them -excruciatingly stupid, but in the past.) I realized UChicago's requirements for Bio majors are so unusually heavy that I wouldn't be able to complete a double-major in social science as I'd hoped to do.</p>
<p>I don't think taking a semester or even a year off to explore a little is a completely bad thing for me -I think I was a little too intense these past couple of years for my own good. That being said, I'm somewhat in a bind about what to do. If I went back to Smith for a year, I would be in a comfortable environment where I could make a very good GPA and finish basic bio requirements, after which I could likely transfer (somewhere) as a junior. However, I'm not sure if this is the wisest move -I love the idea of getting into Swarthmore and getting to try their honors' seminars in public policy and biology for instance, but I certainly don't want to go back to Smith expecting to be able to do that. A school like Bowdoin sounds nice and possible for junior transfer, but I'm unsure how the academics would compare to Smith. I feel like most students would just bear out UChicago, since it's the "best" school I know I can get into.</p>
<p>I could take the year off and try applying to a few carefully-selective schools at the end of the year, maybe producing some artwork to include or something as a "hook" in hopes of offsetting my less-than-perfect spring GPA, but I really have no clue how that would work out. I really want to end up at a school where I feel other students are more on my level.</p>
<p>And I suppose if anyone with significantly more life experience than me in the academic world wants to comment on my dillema, that would be fine...</p>
<p>as in have someone summon Carolyn.....have you looked at the transfer schools thread that has been going today???</p>