<p>Not difficult to get in, but stay in. Which schools pile on the homework, leave you studying for hours, the students who usually got As are now struggling to pass, etc.</p>
<p>I've heard that state schools have no problem with failing students, whereas with private (particularly the elite private) schools will rarely fail anyone.</p>
<p>blythe89 ,
What i hear is MIT. I heard this school's workload is huge. Also, I heard Cal tech is the same.</p>
<p>I have heard Swarthmore is intense and hunbling for the all A high schoolers. Also heard that about Rice, mainly from reading guidebooks though</p>
<p>From what I've gathered on these boards, Cornell, U of Chicago, Swarthmore, and Caltech fit your description well.</p>
<p>I would say:
Caltech, MIT, Swathmore, Berkeley (EECS), Cornell, U of Chicago.
Perhaps in that order.</p>
<p>wow, I am surprised with Swathmore, but I guess that just goes to show you that it can be less difficult to get in then it is to GO to that college...</p>
<p>What about Harvard, Yale, Princeton? interesting...</p>
<p>Uhmmm blythe89,</p>
<p>Swarthmore is one of the hardest schools to get into...It's just about as selective as HYP. Its also got around a 95% graduation rate like HYP.</p>
<p>Swarthmore is arguably a lot harder than HYP but nevertheless, the school does not make it unbelieveably hard to stay in school...If it was more people would flunk out.</p>
<p>I've heard that Reed is very rigorous. I don't have any statistics to back that up, though.</p>
<p>Check out graduation rates. That will probably tell you something about the difficulty of the school. </p>
<p>A common saying at Swarthmore, I believe, is "Anywhere else it would have been an A." </p>
<p>For grade inflation, check out <a href="http://www.gradeinflation.org%5B/url%5D">www.gradeinflation.org</a> (oops, I meant <a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com%5B/url%5D">www.gradeinflation.com</a>).</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd is a Caltech-like tech school that prides itself for having no grade inflation. Only one or two students in the entire history of the school have graduated with a 4.0 GPA.</p>
<p>I think William and Mary is pretty intense, too. It is a public school though.</p>
<p>From what I have heard, MIT is brutal.</p>
<p>Workload is heavy at Carnegie Mellon engineering, computer science, architecture.</p>
<p>a lot of science-oriented schools are tough. some top liberal arts colleges are tough too. also note that prestige does not always equal difficulty in staying in. </p>
<p>publics are difficult too. wonder why they always have so many spots for junior college transfers? cuz a lot of people end up dropping out...</p>
<p>MIT and U of Chicago are crazy insane in terms of workload, from what i hear...</p>
<p>are you looking for a difficult school? or trying to avoid them?</p>
<p>If you're looking for an "easy"(i use the term loosely) school, UIUC and ASU are pretty lax, from what i hear.</p>
<p>Definately william and mary..its been called the academic bootcamp of the east coast</p>
<p>I don't think students "struggle to pass" at these difficult schools. "Get a bunch of C's" is probably more accurate.</p>
<p>Well in my book, anything below a C is failing...so "struggling to pass" isn't tooooooooo far from the truth. </p>
<p>azncool...of course swathmore is difficult to get into, but it is just weird that no one has mentioned the 3 most difficult schools to get into: HYP....and Deep Springs</p>
<p>HYP aren't hard. In fact, they're notorious for grade inflation. The workload at HYP is actually far less rigorous than at many lesser-known (but arguably better) colleges.</p>
<p>One to add to the list: Wake Forest, known to students as "Work Forest". :)</p>