@ucbalumnus : Doesn’t Chicago also have quite a bit of “fire” in those intro. calculus classes (workshop/proof based?) as well or is that just in applied courses like econ. that use calculus there?
Michigan appears to have an instructor or dept that went the opposite direction with calc. 1 and 2 and instead pivoted toward very rigorous application based courses.
I noticed that the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem appears early on, in the Caltech Math 1a textbook linked by ucbalumnus. At my large, public research university, that is a topic in a junior-level math course, in the normal sequence. (A few freshmen do start at that level, but it’s rare.) On behalf of a student who was not very mathematically oriented, I once tried to persuade an associate dean that it was an “error in registration” for the student to sign up for the course that included the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem. 
IMO, there are three major factors: the other students, the subject matter and the professors. If you attend classes with world class students who have been selected from an international pool, you must meet the high standard set by them( not only in their writing but in their discussions). Likewise, material gets into greater depth and analysis in more competitive institutions. While there is always the “special”/excellent enlightened professor in every department, the norm will be based on the first two factors. The best universities are able to offer higher salaried and perks that state institutions cannot. So the best professors at State Universities follow the money (often, not always) I have been at multiple universities ( some average and some Ivy) and I cannot say they are equal. The more “competitive” institutions when I was a student also had better libraries but these days that is mitigated by world wide access to the internet ( for the most part). As an Undergrad and Grad, I took a few classed outside my specialization and found that I was outclassed. By a lot. While I could be amongst the best and the brightest in some subjects, that did not translate into all subjects. Folks sometimes use math science as a comparison of difficulty but there are many mathematicians who cannot learn a foreign language and many liberals arts folks who cannot program. We need to realize that there are some very intelligent people at good universities but gone are the days when the best universities were filled with legacy candidates. Today the competition for the competitive Universities is fierce and people use the university as their golden ticket. As others have mentioned, the firms paying mega salaries are filled with students from a handful of universities. I think it’s best to know where you fit and then get there. But to tell yourself that they are equal isn’t based on reality.
FWIW: Someplace on CC there is a post by a university Professor who had taught at both schools known for high academics and his curent school, which wasn’t. He posted to the effect that if he gave the same course he taught at the prior school to the students at his current school they would all fail.
I don’t know how to search for it because I can’t recall specifics that would help. But it is here someplace.
No, not necessarily. How you do in any college probably has more to do with your time management and study habits than anything else. And prevailing campus culture may impact the experience more than difficulty of admission to the school does.
Example: family friend is freshman at Brown, and is finding his workload very relaxed and manageable and the pace of everything very mellow compared to the pressures of his public high school in Connecticut.
I would think that the relationship between academic rigor and selectivity is somewhat linear, biggest reason being that the most influential variable, in my opinion, would be the students themselves. Students with and average ACT of 33 probably would set a different pace and “culture” than students with an average ACT of 27. The professors would be forced to teach to the center, regardless of the school’s policies on curving etc.
But it is important to look at variables other than selectivity when trying to determine this potential rigor. For example, there are schools that might have a lower acceptance rate but also a lower average ACT score. I personally would advise that both factors be assessed as the overall indicator.
As for Brown @TheGreyKing they are known for being more laid back and having grade inflation. I think I read they center around an A- which would definitely make for a less stressful environment. They may be on to something…because you have to have insane stats to get in to Brown, so maybe they figure if you made it there to begin with, why stress you out once you are there??
But I wonder if a student with a 27 ACT and mediocre GPA would be as relaxed at Brown as his/her overachieving peers?? My hunch is probably not.
@bernie12 I asked a student of mine (in a non academic art form) his experience as a prof in a local university. He told me that grades are curved for the first three years but not the fourth. The university apparently has three different business programs. The top one is recognized as one of the best outside the US by BusinessWeek. Then there are two in the second tier, and one more at the bottom tier. In short, the school is trying to catch as many students as they can, from the very strong to the weak. Money is money, I guess.
In our universities, grading is as you predicted, so “ that average is usually C+, B- or B”. In our high schools, I do not see any type of curve being applied. My brother was in a class where the number of Ontario Scholars are much larger than the years before and after.
I know those grades are true. Out of a class of 30 odd, there are 6 doctors, 3 dentists, one psychologist, and too many engineers to count. My brother suspect that was probably the finest class in the whole city that year, and I can not disagree with him.
I find the 100 point system much better at picking out the truly outstanding students than GPA can. At my time in my high school, there were usually 6 to 7 students out of a class of 30 something making first class (75). Those making averages of 80 are considered to be impressive. There was one kid who was making 90s all the way through. As early as grade 9, he was recognized as one of the best students in the history of the school. Upon graduation, he attended U of Toronto where he graduated top of his engineering class. After working a few years designing chemical plants, he left for the US and earned his engineering doctorate at Georgia Tech. Once again, those high school grades were accurate and true.
@collegemomjam: “But it is important to look at variables other than selectivity when trying to determine this potential rigor. For example, there are schools that might have a lower acceptance rate but also a lower average ACT score.”
Indeed. Your given hypothetical is unlikely, though. Schools with low acceptance rates don’t aim for low test score kids. The opposite (high acceptance rate with high test scores) is more likely and in fact can be found in engineering at some publics which may be easy to enter but end up with mostly high-stats kids in engineering because those who are not at a high level academically don’t progress forward in engineering).
@PurpleTitan I agree but I didn’t say “low acceptance rate” I said “lower”…for example, comparing stats of Boston College to Boston University. BC’s acceptance rate was 32% this year and BU’s was closer to 25%. Yet the average ACT scores for BC were 30-33 and BU’s were 27-31. So, to your engineering point, different schools attract different applicants. So in order to really predict the “caliber” (for lack of a better term) of the student body, scores and maybe some other variables also need to be looked at other than selectivity. In fact, I think average scores (25-75%) is probably the most objective and therefore most meaningful measure to use, especially with all of the games being played right now with EA/REA/ED I/ED II/RD. The stats are becoming skewed (there are other threads on this) so beware.
@collegemomjam : But then there are cases where you compare a school with say a 30-31 average to a 32-34 average. This becomes the grey area because the latter school may have gotten 33 average relatively recently. Academics likely will not have changed. There have to be brackets and thresholds, especially when you talk non-STEM schools. My alma mater has had high but flat SAT/ACTs for a while but its students were already good. Some schools who used to have the same scores passed ours. Do you seriously think these already good schools with good students suddenly got harder to deal with the more elite than before student body. I can literally demonstrate that they didn’t and can even demonstrate that their average grades in certain STEM sections (taught by same instructor) did not change. When an already elite student body becomes more elite rather suddenly, those are often marketing tactics at play, not changing academic quality (instead marketing changes the perception or is very aggressive). If you compare between two different ranges like 33 and 27, maybe? But then what about APs, EC experiences, etc especially for schools with elite ranges.
Also, at a good school. When you look at disciplines that tend to crowd the high scorers like STEM, you will start to see a lot of overlap in student quality even in schools with different ranges like BU and BC. STEM instructors at either can do whatever because they will have more students from the top end which I would consider very good and fairly similar. In fact, BU is known to be that way.
Also, Chicago’s scores have shot up since it was ranked 15 (now ranked like 3 or 4) in 2006, yet I don’t hear people over there saying that it has become substantially more rigorous because of it. It already was despite scores being below current peers. It is hard to compare schools with already good students by how good the students are on an SAT/ACT.
@Bernie12 I think you make a lot of good points, but I think we are having two different conversations.
My initial point was that the relationship between rigor and selectivity and scores is “somewhat” linear…I’m sure if we dissect the schools’ stats school by school, variable by variable, the graph would be all over the place when examined at very low levels…but pull up to 10,000 feet and I would still guess that “rigor” if it is something that can actually be measured, would track somewhat proportionally with selectivity and scores. So I agree the schools with closer average scores will have more gray areas between them.
I’m not sure I understand your point about the average grades in certain STEM sections that did not change…that kind of supports the point of the professor teaching to a new center, no?? And the shift in “center” might be so subtle that even the professors don’t realize it?
I just think overall the student community is going to drive rigor the most. So the best way to OVERALL determine how rigorous a school may be, IMO, is to try to get a feel for the types of students attending. Without first hand information, scores and to a certain extent, selectivity, might be the best way to determine that. It’s certainly the most, if not only, objective one.
You also raise the point of “academic quality” which is not necessarily the same as “rigor”. This is one of those gray areas, as in the example of Brown being less stressful. But that doesn’t mean a student at the low end of the applicant pool is going to have an easier time at Brown than say, Bucknell, where they would have been at the high end of the applicant pool.
As for Chicago, I have heard that they are doing what they can to drop the “Where the fun goes to die” reputation, so I’m not surprised that it hasn’t gotten more “rigorous” since it’s gone up in the rankings. But it already was rigorous. Their dean’s list is a 3.2. That’s a lot lower than some other schools.
I also think scores are going up across the board, especially at the top schools as applicants realize the bar keeps getting higher and higher and as their parents are more and more willing to pay for the tutoring they need to hit their scores.
It’s all such a game and we are searching for answers that may not exist. The best thing to do is to apply to a wide range of schools so that after April 1st you can go to the campuses and talk with students and professors, try to get a feel for the rigor, and find the best match for you.
Using grades of college students as a proxy for rigor is a poor tool IMHO.
Students getting a string of C’s in Classics at Brown are going to be advised to find another subject to love. Not so in Applied Math. Does that mean that Classics is a weak department and Applied Math is strong? No. They are both considered very strong and since one doesn’t declare a major at Brown until sophomore year, and the university does not admit by department, the pool of students comparable.
While that may be the case as a general trend, individual schools, or specific majors or courses at individual schools, may not be reliably predictable for rigor level on this basis.
@collegemomjam and @ucbalumnus : Yeah, this assumes you have instructors who care about the level of the students and know what real rigor is. I think on a professor by professor basis, it can have to do with a mixture of time commitment needed to run a course with the right kind of intensity (time putting material in lectures, p-sets, exams, and other activities together) as well as sometimes the school in which they TAed at as a PhD student. The standards can carry over whether low or high. Also I know my school had the common self-selection bias where weaker or lazier/don’t have time for course tend to go with newer instructors. In ochem there, there was a new instructor that likely used the exams at the level of the less selective school from which he came (maybe a little harder). He saw poor performance so there was no need to increase his low rigor. (basically he didn’t know any better. Students were playing him. He taught the second semester so many students from weaker first semester sections were absorbed by him. These are students that had poor background or no desire to basically do even an average level of work so they had low averages and many from harder sections cruised with much less effort). The other sections with far more difficult exams had higher averages (most of these professors came from more selective institutions and pretty much wrote equal or more difficult exams than seen there and the students that selected those instructors were a higher caliber or felt like putting in more effort. Fortunately these comprise a solid majority, but this may also be because the seats given to medium and high rigor instructors is also like 65-35 meaning other than summer, students have limited choice to dodge an intense instructor).
But in general I think we agree. But teaching quality and the level seems to depend on a variety of local and personal factors when comparing similar level schools.
The “higher averages” rule again- may work in certain STEM disciplines but not across the board.
My Classics professors had no problem giving every student in a 12 person seminar an A. The final papers were all on different topics, there was no “you got the answer right, you got it wrong”, and as long as each paper independently researched, explored, and proved a different aspect of something- a work of art, the remains of an ancient building, a play, an epic poem, a historical event viewed through primary sources- each could be well deserving of an A. There is no curve- 12 research papers on different topics. Maybe one is below the bar for scholarship- so not an A.
It is fuzzy thinking to assume that the final assessment (whether an exam, paper, or something else) is going to tell you how rigorous the course is.
I think I’ve been living this conversation for the past year! Our D1 has just come to a decision for her freshman year, but arriving at this particular place has been extremely difficult. That being said, I would like to add a couple of observations …
We visited the campus of a large state flagship university last week. During our visit, I noticed the university was hosting an ‘Undergraduate Research Conference’. Attendees seemed to come from all over the state, not just the state flagship. I did notice that some attendees were representing Community Colleges, which I found very interesting. I can’t comment on research topics, but I think the idea that undergrad research is so widespread suggests that it is possible for all types of students to find rigor in less obvious places.
My next point - I remember when I was an undergraduate, I was elected to and served as a student advisor to the college faculty / administration board. I would assume that those pathways still exist? If so, this means that students themselves have some structural input into curriculum and, potentially, the rigor of the coursework.
And lastly, engagement is really vital. A motivated student can make any school more rigorous by spending more time with professors, taking the toughest classes they can and getting involved in research. I think it’s important to emphasize that rigor probably shouldn’t be viewed as a ‘gift’ to receive - each student has to actively engage in order to get the most out of any institution, including (and especially) top-tier ones.
I also want to thank everyone on CC for all the fantastic advice! This is such a terrific resource for those of us struggling to find our paths~
@ktmarketeer : Thank you for bringing up (as I always do) that it is up to the student to engage the rigor when available. Even at top tiers, many students will try almost too carefully to control the amount and type of rigor they are exposed to. Again, I kind of do not blame them, but there is no doubt that there is often “I can only be exposed to the type of rigor that I can still easily manage an A in”. This can limit the teaching styles and different learning environments students are exposed to and create missed opportunities in some senses (that professor outside of your comfort zone may challenge you to think differently, write you a rec. letter, hook you up with research in the area whether you scored super high in the class or not. Often these instructors are really just trying to make sure that students at all passing grade brackets learn a great deal in the course).
At Emory, where I went, there is an undergraduate research week. There is one or two very large research symposium and then there are departmental ones (Neuroscience, biology, and chemistry). For the first time, I think it tried to market it (tours go through new chemistry building and biology decided to hold its symposium there as well as chemistry the next day whose symposium is pretty elaborate).
What you see with “outsiders” at the state flagship to me, may demonstrate the influence of it on the local community and area. As in students at other universities and colleges are very likely to be engaged with the university in that capacity. I have always liked this aspect of many flagships and honestly think that many can serve the very top students as well more prestigious places.
My experience as a student, parent, and a college professor who has taught at a variety of schools is yes and no. Generally, yes, the quality of both the teacher and peers will usually create a more rigorous experience at a more competitive school, however, there are some small schools that just have some amazing faculty that will provide a better personal experience and therefore create better learning and often more rigor. My undergrad was an example of that. Our math major requirements equaled what most bachelors and masters degrees required so I was over prepared for grad school, which was nice, but I was at a small no name state school. My husband went there too and now works for Google. However, other small schools I have taught at have had no math requirements for graduation or minimum knowledge (I was a math professor) and little rigor expected and it was disappointing to me.
@parentofastudent: So what hidden gems do you have in mind?
It doesn’t help to keep those places secret.
With my anecdotal experience, my answer to this is absolutely!
I teach the first level of financial accounting at a state school. D1 took Acct 100 at her Ivy. The difference in difficulty was astounding. Her course was much more like my first ACCT graduate course.
My S was a physics major at a top LA university. He had to take a semester off at his school and went to our state school for s semester. He took some of our most rigorous courses,including upper division physics, math, philosophy and economics as well as a computer science programming class. He easily got a 4.00 and said the classes were much easier and also much less work.
I advise many students as part of my job. Besides teaching, I am an an Academic Advisement Coordinator for the school in which I teach. I advise all of the transfer students in our major. I constantly hear about the different rigor at different schools, especially between the 2 and 4 year schools.
Finally, I know my experience at a selective LA school was so much more rigorous than many of my friends experiences at other schools. And that was nancy years ago.