I thought college was much easier than high school because there was just much less work. Less homework, less projects, less busy work that never helped me to learn anything. Most of my classes had their grades entirely based on tests and that was just easier for me. There was just lots of work in high school, and I did much less in college. Learning the material was never the issue–it was staying on top of all the homework and assignments that was difficult. And to be honest, most of my AP teachers in high school seemed to think that making it a “college course” meant assigning more work. I remember having multiple all-nighters in high school and never having one in college.
But that’s not everyone’s experience. I knew a student who was valedictorian in high school but really struggled in college. It just depends.
My school had no AP, well at least I didn’t remember taking any. I had an easy senior year with short hand and typing as one course that was time consuming because of the practice. I also took ROP in banking so maybe that’s why.
Well count me as one of those who found college infinitely harder than high school. Maybe it was my major (Chemistry and English) or maybe it was my college (notorious even then for grade deflation) or maybe it was my compulsion to get A’s on every test/assignment (a very bad compulsion to have. Yes, I was one of those high school valedictorians that baktrax mentioned.)
Whatever the reason - nothing in my high school could match taking P Chem and Shakespeare in the same semester. I still have nightmares in which I have a major lab report and a final paper due on the same day.
Probably cause in high school you have required classes that you have to take. Everyone in my school has to take (2 years of a foreign language, Alg 1, Geometry, Alg 2, Precal, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Eng 1, Eng 2, Eng 3, Eng 4, you get my drift). With all these required classes, you only get to do about 1-2 things that you really want to do. In college you major in one subject that you like. Even though there are required classes, there are very few. I assume that the interest you have in a subject influences how easy you think it is.
Because there’s freedom to take what you want and flexibility in choosing courses in areas that maybe aren’t your cup of tea. And generally speaking, there’s a whole lot less busy work.
I would like to second the comment that college is often more of a meritocracy. Both of my kids halfway through their freshman year of college remarked how ironic it was that suddenly both peers and professors appreciated their work, when often in high school their contributions were not valued. It’s funny when a kid can’t get named a high school “peer leader,” or “gym class captain,” “Best in X Subject,” or editor of the high school newspaper and yet in college manages to compete with a far stronger cohort and yet is still chosen as an RA, Div. 1 team captain, editor of the law journal, or research assistant to a famous professor.
I would never say that college was easier than high school, but I knew various people in college who said things like that – mostly freshman year – and I understood why they said it. Like mathmom, they had generally gone to excellent high schools, places like Stuyvesant, Exeter, Brearley, Princeton High. A lot of their freshman curriculum consisted of things they already knew pretty well – basic sciences, math, and expository writing. The atmosphere was much less competitive than it had been in high school, they were taking many fewer classes and were involved in fewer ECs, and they were more or less able to avoid things they didn’t like.
I had had to challenge myself in high school, a lot, in order to stay interested. After a first college semester of mostly staying in the middle of my comfort zone, I went looking for things that were tougher for me to understand and that required real work, and some risk of failure, from me. I got way in over my head, and in fact my education suffered for that, though you would not have been able to tell from my GPA.
By contrast, my wife had gone to truly terrible middle school and high school. I had written five-page papers every single night, week after week, in fifth and sixth grades, and 30-40 page research-based papers in high school; she had never written anything longer than three pages, handwritten, for school. She felt underprepared for everything in college, and thought she was hanging on by her fingernails, surviving only by dint of working twice as hard as everyone else. She was a double major summa and junior PBK, but never lost that feeling at all.
@proudmomx3, I went to King College (now King University) in Bristol, TN. Yes, 5 hours was probably the average. Sometimes I did more, sometimes less. I wasn’t a 4.0 student, but I was a solid B+ student and was admitted to (but did not attend) grad school at UNC-CH. And no, I’m no genius. I like to think of myself as extremely efficient.
When I was in high school (an all boy Catholic college prep) an A was 93-100, B 86-92, etc. Whether translating Latin, solving math problems, reading etc., there was always something to do at night. In college As were 90+, Bs 80+, etc. And with so much free time during days, nights and weekends tended to be wide open. In addition college profs curved. High school priests who talked about mercy had none when grading and curves or extra credit did not exist. If you had a test with say 40 multiple choice questions each worth 2.5 points, miss 1 or 2 and you had an A, miss 3 and you had a B, no rounding up, no curving, no extra credit, you earned a B on test, period, try harder next time. I actually thought college (public) was quite easy.
I found HS an absolute breeze and never brought homework home (literally, not even 1 time in my entire life). I would do it quickly on the bus, or in lunch, or in class during the 5 minutes before class started. That means that anything short of doing NO work in college would make it harder.
I found college to be feast or famine. There were many courses where I didn’t go to class and didn’t study at all and did very well. Those courses were the same in terms of difficulty (or lack thereof) as the ones in HS, and like @mstomper I am no genius, but I am/was extremely efficient as well as being somewhat intelligent.
On the other hand, I found certain courses very hard. Calc, Physics, Thermo, and a couple of others were courses that were infinitely harder than anything I ever had in HS.
I think it depends on the college and the student. I happen to have found college easier so far despite going to what is generally considered to be an academically rigorous school because I think you just have much more free time in college. You are taking at max 3 or 4 classes a day vs 7 and you basically can choose the classes you take. Additionally, you study the way you want to study and are not overburdened by tons of extra homework assignments which are often time consuming. Professors are generally also more helpful and more flexible in terms of deadlines, in some cases, and really know what they are talking about.
Certain students from prep schools also may have found their school to be more rigorous, but coming from a public high school I found that taking a rigorous schedule in high school prepared me well for college. Also in high school I had experienced failure and learned from it. The unfortunate thing is many students at my college were high achievers in hs and had never experienced failure. Therefore when they experienced college, they found it to be more stressful and it impacted their self esteem. Fortunately, I had experienced failure in high school so by the time college came around I was well prepared, and am actually doing better in college so far.
But in terms of study habits… I am still a terrible procrastinator. Some things never change
College is way easier. High school is all about constant homework, so if you miss an assignment you grade is gone. In college you have just a few assignments plus your tests. All you really have to do for most classes is read and listen to the lectures. It’s just really easy.
I should think that this would depend on the high school, and then the college, and also on the student. Within the college, this would depend on course selection and scheduling, the preparation a student brings to their major(s), how quickly a student reads,memorizes, writes, or solves problems,executive function skills, and the amount of risk a student assumes.
Frazzled kids found college more difficult, even the state school kid, but took “most rigorous schedules” both in high school and college and participated in time-consuming EC’s during college.
If college was easier than high school for you then either you got smarter or you worked harder and if you did neither then maybe the college was sub-par?
Honestly, both high school and college were a breeze for me. Even the required classes for my Masters were a breeze. However, I liked college more as I was able to take courses that were of interest and use to me. In many ways, that made what were harder classes and assignments much easier than if they had been in a less interesting course.
I never heard of college being easier than HS, I only heard the opposite and I heard it from straight A HS and college kids who primarily attended in-state public colleges.
…I do not know hard HS or easy school, but D. and her friends graduated from #2 private HS in our state and attended primarily in-state public colleges (as pre-meds ) and college was much much harder for all with no exceptions.
I don’t know that I’d say college was easier - but it was definitely more enjoyable and interesting work, and for that, I I think it was easier to get through.
High school seemed a lot more tedious and filled with “busy” work.
