<p>Can someone tell me the super hard courses meant to weed students out of major/program? Especially in science and premed. Organic chemistry... but what else?</p>
<p>I don’t think there are ones particularly attempting to do the thing you are describing. Organic chemistry may be considered a “weed out course” only because it is something that students typically have no experience with and is different than courses they have previously taken. It is not because professors want students to fail or to get out of the program, it’s just traditionally more difficult for students at all colleges across the board. At William and Mary, the professors all want to see you succeed, and rarely will “weed” someone out.</p>
<p>Similarly, I would say that after taking some intro courses students may decide that the subject is not for them or found it to be different than they expected, but this is out of self selection not because of a deliberate effort to weed anyone out. A specific example is many students come in wanting to do international relations, however, because W&M has language requirements and wants you to be really proficient at it, many students drop out and become government majors instead.</p>
<p>And as with all colleges, it depends on the professor. If you really are only planning to take a course based off its difficulty, I hear ratemyprofessor is a good resource.</p>
<p>I guess maybe I’m asking the wrong question. I know this is subjective, but what are the hardest science courses a biology major will take early on? I am hopeful that my daughter will not take one of the very hard courses her first semester freshman year. Is this something that her advisor/RA will help with?</p>
<p>Your adviser will consider your student’s experience and ability in HS to judge what is appropriate. My DS preregistered for a 3rd year math course ( due to multiple math AP 5 scores he qualified) When I challenged him about taking a class with a name I did not even understand, he replied “dad, its math…” he does math for fun. </p>
<p>When is counselor challenged him, saying yes he qualified but the adviser said as his first semester in college and first away form home he should defer taking it. So he did, then went on to get a 4.0 first semester, his advisor then said, well I guess you could have taken that math course ( Side note, he took it in the spring with a much more difficult professor that all the other students knew and the half that didn’t the class dropped, he got his first B- ever in math but learned a LOT…)</p>