Rank the academic rigor at these top schools

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I know it is impossible for any one person to really be qualified to do this ranking, or maybe not…but everyone can provide their own perspectives and reasoning, whether it is based on personal experience or word-of-mouth. The ranking is from 1 to 11, with 1 being the hardest and 11 being the easiest. I’ll start things off:</p>

<li>MIT</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Upenn</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Brown</li>
</ol>

<p>once again, I don’t really have a basis for my rankings besides word-of-mouth and widely held perceptions, but I’m sure a lot of you do have personal experiences that you would like to share.</p>

2

<ol>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>U Penn</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
</ol>

3

<p>It's interesting that you have Harvard and Yale at the bottom and Dartmouth at the top. Any particular reasons for this?</p>

4

<p>I guess the only correct way is to base it on grade deflation (at the top) vs grade inflation at the bottom (at the bottom). For this reason, Harvard is at the bottom.</p>

<p>For Penn, the College is as grade-inflated as H and Y, but the SEAS and Wharton are rather grade deflated.</p>

5

<p>I don't understand then if grades aren't a concern at schools such as harvard and yale, why do they have the reputation of having the most academically competitive student bodies. I hear that there isn't much of a social scene at harvard and yale outside of academics.</p>

6

<p>Maybe he hates those 2 schools?? lol.</p>

7

<p>Dartmouth is reallly rigorous b/c of the quarters, i have friends there...and every other week they have a midterm or some type of test. It is insane.</p>

8

<p>That's interesting; I had never heard that Dartmouth's curriculum is so rigorous.</p>

9

<p>Dartmouth? I don't know about that. It's not really about how many exams you got, I think it has more to do with what the grading schemes are. In theory, a school can have a test every day, but if everybody gets an A anyway, then I would not say that that school is rigorous. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everybody at Dartmouth always gets A's (because they don't), I'm just showing the importance of the grading standards.</p>

<p>Take a gander at Dartmouth's grading standards. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/dartmouth.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.gradeinflation.com/dartmouth.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
I guess the only correct way is to base it on grade deflation (at the top) vs grade inflation at the bottom (at the bottom). For this reason, Harvard is at the bottom.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm sorry, I do not agree. I don't believe that Harvard is easier than Stanford or Brown. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/brown.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.gradeinflation.com/brown.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/stanford.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.gradeinflation.com/stanford.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/harvard.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.gradeinflation.com/harvard.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>