<p>The SAT subject tests were made to compare to the high school equivalents and the first year level of colleges classes can be judged to some extent from the IB / AP counterparts. I don't know what universities you have been admitted so i can't tell you exactly how hard the first year courses are but the material is generally standardized. If you got into a university like MIT , there is much more demanding and rigorous work in the first year courses than compared to other universities. For most universities here , single variable calculus makes up the 1st year math and I know mechanics and electricity(maybe optics and other things as well) (calculus based) makes up the 1st year physics. I think you should check the websites of the universities you got admitted to and see what they require for the engineering degree you want to do.</p>
<p>You can look at physics, chem and math exams from prior years at MIT via their open courseware site.</p>
<p>thanks a lot for the info...but can you please give a sample standard high school problem/question..anything phy,chem,math..so that I can understand the level..actually i think the course over there is quite easy compared to what we do here...n if thats a misconception of mine i want to clear it..
Over here we do Physics mostly calculus based..electromagnetism n all that, plus differential calculus and all that in math..</p>
<p>Most highschoolers here do precal / trig or below. Some do ap calc ab (differential calc) , ap calc bc (integral calc) , the IB calc which I don't know much about besides that it includes some statistics and the stuff from integral calc. Some of us do courses in HS with the college like multivariable/vector calc , 1st course in differential equations ,etc.</p>
<p>The phy is highschool normally basic stuff. I recommend you look through the SAT subject book for physics , it covers a general overview of optics , mechanics , electricity. The problems are highschool level so you aren't expected to use or know calculus. In AP/IB (compares to 1st year college) you would learn the derivations that would require integration or differentiation. </p>
<p>If you know how to graph like 4 sin 2x and trig identities among factoring expressions and all the stuff you would do in a regular algebra course I would guess you would be fine on the SAT math subject tests because the highest SAT math subject test only covers precal and trig (NO calculus). </p>
<p>There is a range here but the standard isn't that high for math or science in a lot highschools or the SAT subject tests. Like here if you take differential calculus or integral calculus in 12th grade you are considered to be ahead of most students , but you can still do more through a special program some of us highschool students take advantage of which lets us take courses at a university/college as a highschool student.</p>
<p>I think the 1st year electromagnetism class here normally doesn't expect you to know stoke's / divergence / curl / green's</p>
<p>@sakky:</p>
<p>I read your post about Stanford being a more lenient engineering school (compared to MIT, Berkeley, Caltech, etc...), and I was wondering if there were other schools that:</p>
<p>a) teach extremely well,
b) are viewed respectably, and
c) don't over-stress their engineering students</p>
<p>While you are on the topic of Stanford , MIT , Berkeley , Caltech , etc.
How hard would it be to get into one of those schools for a graduate EE degree?
@ razpra , what about GAtech?</p>
<p>well the ones I applied for Electrical Engineering are:</p>
<p>UIUC (accepted), Cal Poly SLO (accepted), UCSD (accepted), UCI (accepted), UC Davis (accepted), UCSB (most likely accepted, will find out tomorrow), UCLA (most likely accepted, got a likely letter), and UC Berkeley (EECS is notorious, perhaps the most demanding major at UCB)</p>
<p>I can afford all these schools btw. with my SAT scores and EC's, I'd probably be rejected from MIT, Stanford, and Caltech, so I didn't bother apply =/. So at the moment, I'm leaning towards UIUC. how is that compared to Stanford?</p>
Well Biology is not easy either. You would be surprised by how hardcore it can get!!! All you have to do is memorize? Well maybe, but i studied from early morn to about 1AM >: ) ~
Sakky may be right about the theoretical aspects of engineering. Selfishly speaking, I’ve been reluctant to come to that conclusion because those weeders help me - they significantly decrease the number of competitors I have to worry about. But I’m not sure if you really need to be a master of solving partial differential equations to do 95% of engineering jobs.
Let me give my input:
While engineering is quite hard, there’s a lot of complaining about its difficulty. Because it’s a lucrative field, a lot of students get in for the stable job + money. Especially in recent years with the tech boom. Many of them have no math/physics affinity, and combine that with a rigorous curriculum and you get a lot of complaining.
I majored in physics and electrical, and always found my physics coursework to be much more challenging. The main difference was that because most physics students come-in without an assumption about the golden pot at the end, the student pool was more self-selected.
THIS. Omg.
Taking a weeder right now and my first exam scored a 70 but that was 40 points above the average. And still worried about failing. Harsh curves (my instructor right now insists there wont be one - if so, half the class wont pass. This is in addition to the 80% who already dropped. Yes - 80%!) and never being able to completely know everything.