for most rigorous college in 2014. Also placed first in 2013.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2013/10/16/20-most-rigorous-colleges-photos.html
No Caltech, Mudd, US{M,N,AF,CG,MM}A?
Harvey Mudd is #8 most vigorous in the gallery. No Caltech on the list is a surprise.
I’m a bit surprised that Johns Hopkins isn’t lower than #25. Was also surprised that workload manageability didn’t seem to factor into the overall score very much. For some of these schools, I flat-out don’t believe their manageability score. Middlebury having a significantly less manageable workload than Cornell or MIT? Not to say that Middlebury is not a great school, because it is…but I highly doubt that it’s workload is that much more intense than the other schools I mentioned.
the idea that Middlebury is harder that Harvey Mudd is sort of ridiculous…
Looks like this ranking is a composite of “hardest to get in” (50% based on admission selectivity), “highest workload” (30% from student surveys), and “amount of time with best instructors” (20%, however that is assessed).
That may be why the list looks different from one that might result purely based on difficulty and workload of the school’s academics. Such a ranking would probably include schools with heavy breadth or core requirements that do not allow “for jocks” type of courses (i.e. students cannot avoid studying subjects that are more difficult for them), and schools with heavy representation in majors with high difficulty and workload. So such a list might have some of the same schools (e.g. Mudd, MIT, Columbia, Chicago for the breadth or core requirements, Cooper Union because it has just engineering, architecture, and art majors), some of the rest of the list would be different (e.g. students at Amherst could easily avoid subjects that are difficult for them, due to lack of breadth requirements).
Columbia is very rigorous with super genius, motivated students. They do not have massive grad inflation like Princeton and Harvard. That is why Columbia students do well for grad school admissions.
@ricck1 “They do not have massive grad inflation like Princeton”
I don’t even know where to start…
Princeton went from 80% A’s to 50% A’s. This is still no where near the grading curve of other ivies. But they have since removed the “grade deflation” back to the original stats.