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One of the admitted students sat in my econometrics class on Monday, and I was hella sure that he absolutely had no clue what was going on; the class itself is a 400-level course. So my suggestion is to sit in 100- or 200-level classes if you're looking into math/science.
The comment above reminded me of my son’s experience at DOTL last year, when he sat in on two classes.
When we bumped into him after the first class (Math 122 we presumed) he was white as a sheet and very subdued. I asked him how it went and he said “Okay” but nothing more. He then headed off to the Chem Building for Biology 202.
When he returned from Biol 202 he was much more upbeat; he said the class was pretty much what he had expected, and he understood some of the lecture material.
To make a long story short, we later learned that the first class he had attended was Math 331, not Math 122. When my son realized what had transpired, he was much less intimidated about his ability to handle UVa’s academics.
Moral of the story: sometimes stuff happens at DOTL and you just have to roll with the punches.
For the record, my son isn’t planning to take Math 331.
Math 331 is Basic Real Analysis, which is a pretty tough class. Another note is never to take the words "introductory", "elementary" or "basic" in course titles too literally. These classes are NOT by any means basic or easy.
I ended up sitting in an Evolution and Ecology class and I fell asleep during the first 10 minutes. I took the class b/c I had a test on it the next day and I thought I could review for it lol. The material wasn't very interesting and the TA just presented notes provided by the textbook. If you know students who go to UVa, ask them if you could tag along to one of their classes. I ended up doing this later in the day and went with a friend of mine to a 700 level neuro (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) class; I asked the prof if it was okay and he said it was fine. If you have friends that are willing to let you follow them around, then go for it.
We had a girl sit in on our 12 person (well, 25 but no one shows up, ever) history class, wasn't a big deal. Again, Google UVA COD, find a class you might want to sit in on, and email the professor. Frankly, you could just show up that day, but you might risk being turned down when you could be in another class. If it's anymore than 40-50 people though, just show up and if there's room, no one will notice.
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