<p>How do you think the top 15 would rank in order of the difficulty of their courseload? Here is my estimation:</p>
<p>Caltech
MIT
UChicago
Columbia/Princeton
Harvard
Yale/Stanford/UPenn
Johns Hopkins/Cornell
Dartmouth/Duke/Brown
Northwestern</p>
<p>Nobody can know for sure since nobody has attended all these fine universities. Having said that, I’d put Princeton higher (harder) than Columbia and UChicago. I’d put Harvard way lower. And I’d put Brown as the absolute lowest since they basically have no requirements to graduate and you can take anything you want pass/fail. Northwestern is not the easiest as they have quarters so you have exams like every other week.</p>
<p>So, in my random estimation/guessing based on anecdotes and certainly not scientifically valid logic, here it is, hardest to easiest:</p>
<p>Caltech
MIT/Princeton</p>
<p>Big group that I can’t differentiate:
Johns Hopkins/Cornell/Dartmouth/Duke/Northwestern/UPenn/UChicago/Columbia</p>
<p>Yale/Stanford
Harvard
Brown</p>
<p>It really depends on the courses you take and your major though. You can have an easy time by taking courses at any of the above universities, and you can take incredibly difficult courses that require a great deal of time. That’s more relevant than the school itself.</p>
<p>is there really a major difference? I’m pretty sure there is no way to objectively rank this and coursework at any top school is tough.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You probably should have stopped at that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Probably, I agree. I rescind my post. ;)</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/2118856-post14.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/2118856-post14.html</a></p>
<p>04-06-2006, 05:26 PM #14<br>
anothercollegemom
Junior Member</p>
<p>Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 169 Here is the info from the posting. Sorry, but there was no link.
In 1997 UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law
did a ranking of the toughest schools to get an “A”.</p>
<p>Are they still ranking the schools accordingly?</p>
<p>The L.A. Times ran an article 7/16/97 "Grading the Grades:
All A’s Are Not Created Equal "on how the admissions dept.
from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall re-formulated the law school’s
applicant’s G.P.A. The formula ranked each college
according to how its students perform on the standardized
law board exam, the LSAT, and how common a certain
G.P.A. is at that school.</p>
<p>The following is UC Berkeley’s rankings of toughest schools
to get an “A”</p>
<p>Swarthmore 89.5
Williams 89.0
Duke 88.5
Carleton 88.0
Colgate 88.0
J. Hopkins 87.5
Chicago 87.0
Dartmouth 87.0
Wesleyan 87.0
Cornell 86.5
Harvard 86.5
Middlebury 86.0
Princeton 86.0
Bates 85.5
MIT 85.5
Haverford 85.0
Pomona 85.0
Virginia 85.0
Amherst 84.5
Reed 84.5
Vanderbilt 84.5
Wm & Mary 84.5
Bowdoin 83.5
Tufts 83.5
Vassar 83.5
Bryn Mawr 83.0
Hamilton 83.0
Oberlin 83.0
Rice 83.0
U. Pennsylvania 83.0
Clrmt. McK. 82.5
Yale 82.5
Brandeis 82.0
Northwestern 82.0
Colby 81.5
Michigan 81.5
Notre Dame 81.5
Wash. U. 81.0
Barnard 80.5
Columbia 80.5
Stanford 80.5
Brown 80.0
Georgetown 80.0
Smith 80.0
Wellesley 80.0
Emory 79.5
U. North Carolina 79.5
Whitman C. 79.5
Rochester 79.0
UC Berkeley 78.5
UC San Diego 78.5
Illinois 78.0
SUNY Bing 78.0
Texas 78.0
Trinity U. 77.5
Boston College 77.0
UC S. Barbara 77.0
Wisconsin 77.0
Florida 76.5
U. Washington 76.5
Santa Clara 76.0
Geo. Wash. 75.5
UC Davis 75.5
UCLA 75.5
Colorado 75.0
Michigan State 75.0
Boston University 74.5
Cal Poly SLO 74.5
Massachusetts 74.0
Penn State 74.0
Iowa 73.5
Purdue 73.5
SMU 73.5
SUNY Albany 73.5
BYU 73.0
Minnesota 73.0
Ohio State 73.0
Oregon 73.0
UC Irvine 73.0
Indiana 72.5
NYU 72.0
SUNY Buff 72.0
SUNY Stony 72.0
Mills 71.5
American 71.0
Arizona 71.0
Loyola Mary. 71.0
Maryland 71.0
Fordham 70.5
Kansas 70.0
Syracuse 70.0
USC 70.0
Arizona St. 69.5
CS San Diego 69.5
Catholic U. 69.5
Oklahoma 69.5
Pacific 69.5
Hofstra 69.0
UC Riverside 68.5
Utah 68.5
CS Chico 68.5
Miami 68.0
New Mexico 68.0
San Diego 68.0
CS Northridge 67.0
Pepperdine 67.0
CS San Fran. 66.0
CS Sacramento 65.0
Hawaii 64.5
Denver 63.5
CS Fullerton 63.0
CS Hayward 63.0
CS Long Beach 63.0
CS San Jose 63.0
CS Fresno 62.5
St. Mary’s 61.5
CCNY 59.0
CS LA 58.5
Howard 57.5
San Francisco 57.5</p>
<p>wow. I didn’t think stuff like this exists!!! Thanks so much, JohnAdams12</p>
<p>i wonder where Clemson would be on that list, I’d like to believe I worked really hard this year (and I did)</p>
<p>remember that the list was tabulated before Princeton’s “grade deflation” initiative, so that as of today, Princeton would probably be up there with Swarthmore and Williams</p>
<p>here is another list:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/886930-best-premed-schools-higher-acceptance-rates-med-schools-name-top-5-a-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/886930-best-premed-schools-higher-acceptance-rates-med-schools-name-top-5-a-2.html</a></p>
<p>^^hmm. Off topic, but is there something like that for prelaw?</p>