Ranking by Difficulty/Grading

College Search & Selection
1

I’m trying to get a feel for how difficult the materials and grading are at some of the elite colleges and universities. I’ve spent quite a bit of time reviewing different threads to try to get some idea, but I don’t think anyone has really made a list like this, at least that I can find. If I am wrong, just point me to the thread. Basically, how difficult is it do do well at these schools? For my purposes, I am thinking for STEM majors if that makes a difference.

This is my impression by tier, from most difficult to least difficult:

JHU
Chicago
Cal Tech
MIT
Columbia (maybe I just have it here because of common core, which I think would be difficult for my kids)

Stanford
Princeton
Cornell
Davidson
Case Western

Penn
Yale
Duke
Northwestern
UVA
Lehigh
Bucknell
Michigan
Washington & Lee
Williams
Wesleyan
St. Olaf

Brown
Harvard
Dartmouth
UNC

I know there are several schools that are academically similar, especially LAC’s, that I didn’t list. These were the ones I was interested in or read enough to make an educated guess. I’m sure I am way off about a few of these, particularly about the LAC’s. Thanks for any opinions and corrections.

2

I have heard that Stanford is known for grade inflation, so they probably belong in the third or fourth tier.

Northwestern, on the other hand, has been said to be fairly rigorous.

And Cornell might belong in that top group.

Not having attended any of these schools, I do not have direct experience with them – i’m basing this comment on what I have read.

3

@dadof4kids Stanford has grade inflation. Should probably be grouped along with Harvard and Brown. Yale also has significant grade inflation, but from what i have heard not as much as Brown, Harvard or Stanford. Also UVA has big grade inflation, i would out it in the last tier.
Northwestern has more deflation than your ranking shows, should prob be put in the second tier. Also Williams is rather deflated and i would put it in the second tier.

4

@Penn95 bro the average GPA at yale is around a 3.49 and the average gpa at uva is 3.29-3.3.

wait my sources are contradicting each other. anyway there both between 3.2-3.3, i don’t think that’s rampant grade inflation.

5

where is Cal at? I would put it in the top or second to top tier

6

I realize that this isn’t an exact science, and probably more of an educated guess. But I think it is more than a blind shot in the dark. Maybe a better way to put the question is if a student studied say 20 hours a week, how would their GPA and class rank look at the different schools.

Cal is off my radar because I’m looking for at least some merit or need based aid and don’t live in CA. So to be honest I just skim over any discussion of Cal because I know for my family it isn’t a realistic possibility.

Based on comments, here is a slightly revised list:

JHU
Chicago
Cal Tech
MIT
Columbia
Cornell

Princeton
Davidson
Case Western
Northwestern
Williams

Penn
Yale
Duke
UVA
Lehigh
Bucknell
Michigan
Washington & Lee
Wesleyan
St. Olaf

Stanford
Brown
Harvard
Dartmouth
UNC

7

@Penn95 yeah i should have pout in a disclaimer, for UVA my sources are purely anecdotal so maybe i am wrong.

I am pretty confident Yale is still more inflated than Penn, Columbia, Princeton and Cornell though. Less inflated than Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth though.
Where are you getting the average numbers. usually the numbers available are not very accurate (either not a large enough sample or are old).

8

In STEM, you can’t correlate hours put in to grade, in fact how and what you study is more important than how many hours. The grading policy of the professor and quality of classmates will determine most of it, given there’s most likely a curve. Of course if you’re taking it at a less rigorous school (insert favorite ivy here) where half the class get’s As, and the other half Bs, you’re ok. I kid. The other aspect will be homework assigned but h/w is rarely checked for accuracy more for completion and is not part of the grade. The schools at the top-tier, which imo are accurate, will have professors handing out a lot or work and problem sets in addition to tougher grading.

9

Depending on the reliability of the survey methodology, these colleges might be among the country’s most academically rigorous:

  1. U.S. Military Academy
  2. Harvey Mudd
  3. Reed
  4. UChicago
  5. Carleton
  6. Grinnell
  7. F. W. Olin
  8. Cooper Union
  9. Hamilton
  10. Carnegie Mellon
  11. Caltech
  12. Webb
  13. Swarthmore
  14. Middlebury
  15. St. John's (NM)
  16. Wooster
  17. U.S. Coast Guard Academy
  18. Brown
  19. Bowdoin
  20. Columbia

https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=students-study-most

Questions regarding grade deflation/inflation may be independent in terms of the above list.

10

@Penn95 Yeah i can’t find agreeing data for Yale, but UVA’s is definitely around 3.3 or a little less.

http://ias.virginia.edu/university-stats-facts/undergraduate-gpa

Sort by overall to see that its around 3.3. They just changed the visualization of that website to Tableau and I’m fairly certain before they updated it, the overall was like a 3.28-9 ish so its prolly rounded up to 3.3.

11

Harvard 3.64 - (mean, Class of 2015)

http://features.thecrimson.com/2015/senior-survey/

12

The premise in it’s conception is bizarre. It’s conflates three things, how easy it is to get good grades, how challenging the academic rigor is, meaning how much general horsepower one would require to keep up, both couched under the concept of “doing well,” which one might justifiably define as obtaining meaningful qualifications to do the job they’re being educated for. They are separable and different things. Any attempt to rank them in some unified way is really not possible.

13

Not to mention that the rankers for the most part have no valid basis for their claims, other than unsubstantiated hearsay or improperly collected stats. Yet have no problem parroting them. Which can cause harm.

The one example I keep hearing, that two particular individuals keep posting repeatedly on CC, is downright wrong based on firsthand reports I have from people who have actually taken courses or taught at that one and some other schools that they report as being “less hard”.

Actually, they have no idea. But keep posting it…

14

There’s a website that has performed these calculations. Based on test scores, avg gpa, and stem.

In order:
Caltech, MIT, Gatech, Princeton, Chicago, Harvey Mudd, Olin, Vanderbilt, RPI, Harvard, Columbia, Rice, WashU, Yale, Cooper, NW, Pomona, Johns Hopkins, Bowdoin, CMU, Duke, Williams, UPenn, Tufts, Dartmouth, Reed, Case Western, Swarthmore, Berkeley, Cornell, Carleton, Stanford, Michigan, Stephens, USC, WPI, Grinnell, ND, NY Poly, UVA, Rochester, Air Force, Colorado Mines, Haverford, Wellesley, Northeastern, Oberlin, MD, UIUC, UCSD, W&M

Are listed as the 50 most difficult colleges.

15

I can see that it is possible to compare gpas between colleges, if you have avg sat scores and average gpas. Assuming normal distributions estimated gpas can be projected between colleges. Lower projected GPA would be a more difficult school.

Harvard has severe grade inflation but high sat scores.
RPI has grade deflation and slightly lower sat scores and a heavy stem course load.

A “B” student at RPI will be an “A” student at Harvard.

16

What do SAT scores have anything to do with how academically rigorous a school is, how hard it is to get good grades or if a student will be ready to join the job force?

17

re #16:
The theory goes:
-Smarter students are capable of doing more intellectually demanding work
-Professors tend to teach to the capability levels of their class.

  • Therefore a class full of smarter students will tend to get more intellectually demanding problems/ assignments
    Not necessarily a one-to-one correlation, but a correlation, at some meaningful level, nonetheless.
    There is another recent thread about this.

It is true that doing more intellectually demanding assignments does not necessarily mean that the volume of work will be higher. Or that the student will be more ready to join the workforce. Not everything that goes on in the workforce benefits from superior intellect… Lots of jobs require more mundane intellect, but the ability to get things done.

It probably would be harder, in such environment, for a dumber student to get good grades. When grades are curved, in a class full of smarter kids.

18

I disagree on that second assumption: I don’t think profs everywhere teach to the capability levels of the class; at some schools, profs teach to the expectations of rigor as ordered by school trustees/officials.

If the faculty at every school taught to the level of their students, there would be much less variance in grad rates, because far fewer kids would flunk out at less selective schools.

19

@monydad, I agree with @prezbucky. This is in large part why state flagship engineering programs have such large attrition.

I also disagree on several fronts that SAT/ACT is a direct measure of intelligence or a predictor of future performance. Most schools know that they aren’t, yet continue to emphasize them in admissions to please rankings methodologies. They are easily gamed by students with money through test prep.

A 2014 study by the National Association of College Admission Counseling found no relationship between standard test scores and collegiate success. They concluded, as had been found previously, that HS GPA is the best predictor of future success.

Taking that one step further, in most years, the SAT two test 99th percentile extends down into the mid 1400s. We seem to think there’s some major qualitative difference between a 1460 and a 1600, but we are talking a tiny handful of questions on a 4 hour test. My son scored a 760 on the math section. How many missed questions would you guess that represented? One.

20

@eyemgh-

Were you intending to mention a “third thing”?