<p>I'm just wondering what makes the ivy league schools like harvard and the university of pennslyvania so much harder than other schools? Is it the amount, the depth or what? Also what is a typical course load like?</p>
<p>The usual workload at Harvard is four courses per semester. That is what is required to graduate, and many people probably never take more than that. </p>
<p>I would say what makes harvard (I can’t really speak on the other Ivies) difficult is the depth and level of competition. I also wouldn’t go so far as to limit this to the Ivies. MIT, Stanford, Caltech, U of C, and a few other schools have similar levels of difficultly.</p>
<p>Example:
One of my friends took MV Calc at GW University during his senior year of high school. When I showed him the homework from the standard non-honors MV Calc class at harvard, he said it was quite a bit harder than what he had had to do. And that class was not curved at all; people were just earning uncurved A’s.</p>
<p>Is harvard’s curve that you are referring to the kind where there are a set number of a’s b’s etc or the kind that adds some points to everyone’s grade?</p>
<p>Oh and also can you also comment on the work outside of the classroom? Thankyou</p>
<p>The people!</p>
<p>The curves are completely dependent on what the teacher feels like doing. A few classes don’t have curves, but many professors curve the grades so that the mean class score converts to a B/B+. </p>
<p>The work outside the classroom? It really depends on the major and on the difficulty of the classes. I’m not really sure what you are asking.</p>
<p>There are many schools just as hard as the Ivies. Harvard, in particular, is well-known for grade inflation, though this may depend on one’s major.</p>
<p>My guess is that because of the demographics of the Harvard student body (call them extra intelligent, motivated, or whatever you’d like), professors expect more and thus the work is “harder.”</p>
<p>Banjo, I am referring to the reading,hw, papers etc.
In case it helps I intend to take the pre med courses w/ a major in bio or chem with a minor in mid east history or anthropology. Something like that but it is viable
to change.</p>
<p>I would have to say honestly that it completely depends on the major. You could be doing hundreds of pages of reading a week, or half a dozen problem sets. </p>
<p>In terms of pre-med, you will of course be doing a lot of science courses. Those classes are known to have slightly lower average grades.</p>
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<p>Good! 10char</p>
<p>10 char isn’t necessary if you included a quote.</p>
<p>^Yes it is. Try it.</p>
<p>One word: competition. </p>
<p>The other answers ("curves, etc.) you are likely to receive don’t address why Ivy League colleges are harder than non-Ivies. The simple answer is that Ivy Leagues are harder because the calibre of student can be incredibly high, and regardless of what you think about the presence of this ghostly “grade inflation” purportedly lifting every grade given in Harvard Yard, when you pack that many brilliant and ambitious people into a class it will be hard. </p>
<p>On a similar note, you can think of why the NFL Combine is so much harder than high school or college football “combines”. The tasks they do are identical, but at the NFL the level of play is just so much higher that it’s either play with the big boys or you might as well not play at all.</p>
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<p>Good analogy, Matrix!</p>
<p>Regarding “grade inflation,” the average Harvard GPA of 3.4 may sound remarkably high. But a 3.4 requires more Bs than As; consider that this is by students who for the most part have never had more than one or two Bs in their life before arriving at Harvard.</p>
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<p>An A at Harvard = a B at MIT :P</p>
<p>I get the sense that MIT and CalTech are far more challenging than Harvard and the other Ivies, because these two schools are not well rounded and are much more focused on hard sciences.</p>
<p>^It’s not a sense - I think it’s the truth. My friend, who will be attending CalTech this fall, will have to take an introductory Computer Science course. When I looked at the placement test for CS, my head began to whirl, despite the fact that I have a background in basic programming, though I will be the first to admit that it is sketchy. Their focus on the sciences means that humanities folk like me would do terribly there. However, since a large portion of their undergraduates do have some interest in the sciences, I should imagine that it is completely manageable for them.</p>
<p>Well, most.</p>