I have taught or TAed at 2 public state schools, 1 Ivy, 1 middle tier (but surprisingly less selective) private school. My courses were in the social sciences. The poster who said that the Prof can move at a faster pace at the schools that are more selective is correct. However, for large intro classes, even at the Ivy, one can’t expect that much of students who are just taking the course to fulfill a core requirement. The idea from a departmental perspective is to make the intro course entertaining in order to draw more students into that major.
As students traverse to upper level classes, the workloads and expectations diverge. At the less selective schools the students need a lot of support, and even with hand-holding they resent being graded down for poor writing or research habits (citing wikipedia, not making a cogent argument, disorganized prose, misinterpreted data.) Students in these schools request study sheets and reviews for exams, and if they don’t get them they complain. The honors students may feel bored at times at the slow pace necessitated by reviewing concepts covered in previous courses. At more selective schools, by the time students are in upper level classes it is allowable by administration to assume they have basic work and organizational habits in place. Hence, more ambitious projects can be assigned and assumptions about cumulative knowledge can be made.
With that said: I attended a public state school for undergraduate and received there a superior education in my chosen field, which allowed me to get into a very selective doctoral program. However, that was in the 1980’s. Back then undergraduates were allowed to enroll in graduate classes at will. I am not sure how common that is these days – at places I have taught it is rare but not impossible.