In other thread:
From the above:
For the purpose of this thread, consider mainly non-specialty colleges with respect to students who will find their desired majors and subjects in sufficient breadth and depth at those colleges across the range of admission selectivity.
In my anecdotal experience, students aiming for the top ranked private elite schools do believe the academics will be a lot harder: but they also believe they are up to the task.
On the other hand, students headed to honors colleges at top ranked public schools often seem to underestimate the academic rigor and strength of cohort.
In my experience with my kids, which is obviously a small sample size, selectivity and rigor do go hand in hand. My kids have attended Northern Arizona, Cal Poly slo, and UC Berkeley. Unsurprisingly to me, the kid who attended NAU found his professors to be lacking, his fellow students to be unserious, and the quality of his education to be sub par. My CP kid got her ass handed to her and had to work extremely hard to do well. She left college feeling like she was well prepared for the workforce and she had been educated well alongside similarly high achieving peers. Berkeley kid starts in August, and while he’s brilliant, diligent, and driven, we similarly expect him to have his metaphorical ass handed to him.
There are a few colleges that are known to be easy at least according to gossip- NAU and Drexel come to mind (not in all majors, but most). I don’t think it’s enough of a quorum from which to draw broad conclusions.
Same major or different majors?
It is possible, and rather likely, that variation in rigor level can be greater in some majors than it can be in others. Also, different majors at the same college may have different levels of rigor (although the rigor ranking of majors may differ from one college to another).
Different majors. NAU kid was kinesiology. I think kinesiology at NAU, CP, or Berkeley would have vastly different rigor. I do know kids who’ve done kinesiology at CP and it’s hard core.
Love your honest comments about your kids 
…
But what you just said here goes to the heart of not all schools same majors are the same. The “culture” and expectations of each school can drive the individual rigor at each school.
I commonly tell parents /students that those first few weeks will set the course for learning. It will be and most often is much harder then whatever high school their coming from. But there are always outliers.
Since it sounds like there are colleges that are “known to be easy” (or at least rumored to be), I wonder if there are schools rumored to be hard/rigorous despite not being highly rejective.
In other words:
What schools are rumored to be more rigorous than their admission selectivity would predict?
What schools are rumored to be easier than their admission selectivity would predict?
Reminds me of this (deeply problematic) “Dear Therapist” letter, which appeared in The Atlantic a few years ago. The writer was a mom of a kid CC would probably label “average excellent,” who was convinced that her son would (due to his lack of a demographic hook) end up at a “lesser” college than the one he supposedly deserved, where he would be “overqualified.” There’s a lot going on in this letter, but one facet is that the mom is making a clear connection between less-than-elite selectivity and overall academic rigor.
This person is creating a false dilema though that there are no excellent, rigorous schools outside of the Ivy League, forgetting about the grievance politics…
Absolutely. I was really impressed that Lori Gottlieb was able to write a more or less compassionate response while only implying – never stating directly – that the author was an entitled racist likely to raise absolute monsters if she didn’t cut it out.
There’s certainly some positive correlation, but there’re other factors as well (e.g. degree of applicant’s self-selection, school’s varying degree of emphasis on academics in admissions). Harvey Mudd, for example, is comparatively less selective by a significant margin than most better-known elite privates, but is more rigorous than most of them.
Harvey Mudd has a 10% acceptance rate?
To some extent, there are some hints to both questions.
DS (CS/Math) is a rising third year at GT and says he feels this year will be his first real year of college. To date, the rigor has been lacking. A couple of his courses have been a bit challenging but grades are VERY inflated.
My D had to work her tail off for her grades at Purdue and COE is not close to as selective as other engineering schools that are similarly ranked.
UCB does not have kinesiology as a major. The closest thing would be to major in integrative biology, including choosing the physical education academic courses INTEGBI 123AL, C125L, 128, C129L and (as additional electives) PHYS ED 121, 130, 177.
UCB used to have a physical education major, but it was combined into integrative biology with a large number of other specialized biology majors (e.g. botany, paleontology, zoology).
But you get my point. Kinesiology at Cal Poly is a rigorous major.
Other things that may affect rigor or perception of rigor in one’s first year:
I would not be surprised if kinesiology has more room for rigor variation than physics.