<p>@Quantmechanic; sure the OP is at caltech. But I don’t see why her case is so special. Sure shes at one of the most difficult schools in the nation. But since she is good enough to get in, the courseload and material shouldn’t be way over her head. For example, her calculus class uses Apostol, which is a fairly difficult into to analysis book. But it should be up to her level because she should have mastered basic calculus just to get in. Other universites uses stewert. Its all computation and no thinking. Yet its used at most univerities. If the OP had gotten into any one of these universities, she probably would have earned straight A’s. Be the fact is, her level as a student is beyond these universities. She would be better served if she took a course more commensurate to her abilities. But its not like other students from else where don’t face as much stress. They to have to take courses(yes the easier no thinking based calc) that are commensurate to their abilities. So there shouldn’t be a huge deviation in the amount of time spent on homework. Basically other universities are easier, but the students are less intelligent( in the academic sense) so they should have to spend around the same amount of time to earn similar grades.</p>