Does any know of any highly ranked colleges that have light workloads? I had always heard that Harvard was easy once you got in.
Interesting question, OP. My daughter goes to a quite selective LAC, the most selective school she got into with an acceptance rate of about 23%. She has so far found it to be much more manageable than high school. Her college does have a good reputation for academics, so it’s not that kids and profs are slackers. She just thinks that living on campus and not being in school 6.5 hours a day gives her a lot more time to get work done. Plus, she likes her school and is in the top 25th percentile.
She made the Dean’s List in her first semester. She likes that she is with motivated, smart students. Her friends however, did not make the DL. They also are studying “harder” subjects. I have to wonder what her situation might have been if she had attended her original first choice college, which was marginally less selective, but her stats put her closer to the 60th percentile. I am actually glad she is at this college, because I think it will allow her to rise to her potential. There are so many factors at work with your question.
But that applies to everyone there, not just him. He was saying that you have to take measures atypical of Yale students to get the C, such as not turning in assignments, and doing miserably on tests.
In contrast, almost nobody says places like MIT, UChicago, Columbia, or Princeton are easy.
Difficulty can differ so much by major (and prof).
@citymama9: Harvard is known for grade inflation, but not for lack of rigor or light workloads. I believe @bernie12 had their chemistry in the top tier.
Workload may differ a fair bit by major, but I can’t think of any Ivy/equivalent with a reputation for light workloads.
With Harvard, it’s harder to get in than for a student already in to flunk out, but that’s because their non-hooked admits are already at an extremely high scholastic level. Students who have scored a bunch of 5’s on AP tests aren’t uncommon.
I didn’t read the whole thread but wanted to say, great question.
In my experience with several schools, I would say coursework is sometimes much harder. At the Iviies I am familiar with, classwork had more reading and denser reading, for instance, and of course very able peers. (Some say the real skill learned is how much reading to skip.)
I think more people should consider this in their college choices, personally. Getting in isn’t the point: the real point is where you thrive once on campus.
ps Harvard addressed grade inflation issues some time ago, I believe
Not clear what the comparison is here. An Ivy to a directional state U? Likely the Ivy is more difficult. An Ivy compared to a Slightly less selective school, not so much. Even Harvard has large impersonal classes where the professor is not going to come up to every student who did poorly on the first chem 101 test and tell them to find a tutor. Students are expected to seek out help if they need it, even at top schools.
There’s a saying (and who knows if it’s true) that the hardest thing about Harvard undergrad is getting in. I.e., that despite being very selective, it is not the most or even close to the most academically difficult college.
I attended Harvard a million years ago. It wasn’t easy to get A’s, but you had to be pretty lazy to get C’s. I thought the biggest reason though that it seemed easier than high school was because most of my schedule was stuff I wanted to take not stuff I had to take.
I went to a non-selective all female lac for undergrad (stem field) and a selective university for grad school. I took a couple of undergrad courses (400 level) in grad school. The work at the selective university was much harder than what I had experienced in undergrad. They might use the same text book, but go faster, cover more chapters, and assign more and more difficult problems from the same book.
http://www.gradeinflation.com/Harvard.html indicates that Harvard’s average GPA in 2015 was 3.65, referenced from http://features.thecrimson.com/2016/senior-survey/academics-narrative/
@ucbalumnus : Apparently addressing grade inflation now means “not having a 4.0 graduating average”. I think there was a small period where GPAs at H dropped some but it bounced back.
Also, as far as this conversation goes. Remember that I do not equate all “high workload” courses to high quality courses. Some courses with high workload can be giving busywork (and when you talk intro. language courses, especially at selective schools, this is a necessity due to nature of the content and the fact that learning a new language requires a lot of “drill”) much like many more rigorous HS courses. Some courses may give a lower graded workload but make it more challenging and useful. Some, as is common in STEM, may give “optional but recommended” problem sets that are at a high level. The professor will have higher level items on exams so those who refuse to do or refuse to seriously engage and understand the problem sets cannot expect to do better than the mean for the course. Some STEM courses may have more grades but items in assignments are much lower level. So in the latter case, the greater “time on task” is really just helping students maybe nail 1-2 on level stuff on Bloom’s Taxonomy. This is common in like general chemistry courses which may have online problems (ARES, webassign, ALEKS) and maybe some assigned book problems. For general chemistry courses where the instructor wants to put some “weeder” problems (like 3 or 4 but mainly 3) on exams, optional worksheets (maybe recitation or SI) may be used but unfortunately often all the other work at lower levels is a big distraction. From what I have seen, physics classes at selective schools are much more effective in that their systems (often webassign) often include at least higher level problems.
@ucbalumnus : Were’nt you engineering? How did those two courses compare. Gen. chem and physics for scientists or engineers.
It depends on major and it depends a lot on the student’s attitude. If a student at an Ivy or other top elite college wants to slack off, they can figure out a path to do so pretty easily. Probably not in a STEM major… math & science don’t’ leave a lot of wiggle room. But they can choose an easier major and also pick and choose which courses, taught by which profs, to enroll in. Word gets around pretty quickly about which profs are more or less demanding.
When I was taking grad classes at Columbia, I was astounded at how many Columbia grad students, especially SIPA students were complaining about 200 page/week reading loads per class. Most realized they really should stop their whining when I mentioned ONE of the graduate classes I was taking for advanced grad students(8000 level) had a peak reading load of 2000 pages/week. And despite the exceedingly heavy reading load, it was one of the most enjoyable courses I’ve taken in my life so far.
200 pages of reading/week per class was about par for the course or slightly higher than what was expected in most of my first year survey humanities/social science courses. And the reading loads increased once one moved into the intermediate/advanced colloquium/seminar classes(Had peak reading loads of 800-1000 pages/week for one of the 2 seminar/colloquium classes I took along with Chinese and another course with another 200 pages of reading/week or equivalent for one semester…and I did that while working a part-time job).
Even then, I still feel undergrad/grad was much more manageable/easier than the 4 years of HS at my public magnet.
It was a difference between humming along nicely on a well-maintained seaworthy ship vs barely keeping my head above academic water while treading as furiously as I can to avoid sinking beneath the waves.
Several HS classmates and friends who attended HYP joked that one would literally have to not only kick the Prof in the pants, but also set them on fire to get a C at their respective institutions*.
- With the possible exception of engineering students at Princeton though all of the ones I knew/worked with excelled there. One later earned his MS/PhD in EE at MIT.
What is the correlation, if any, between graduation rate and rigor?
Here’s where I’m going:
Yes, there are many reasons why a kid might flunk out: not disciplined/motivated, not getting the help he or she needs, not the sharpest tool in the shed, long or chronic illnesses, etc.
But let’s take a flagship where the average ACT is 28. I think most would agree that a kid with a 28 ACT ought to be able to graduate if he or she tries and avoids common behavioral or health pitfalls. Heck, 24-25 could get a degree. My sister had a 23 (terrible test-taker…) and graduated with a higher GPA than
I did, and I am a good test-taker.
My point is, if, say, 90% of admitted students have the ability to graduate, but only 65% do, can we say that maybe rigor and tough grading had something to do with it? Not everything, obviously, but something?
If so, what can we say about schools where 100% of the kids have the brains, and 95% of them graduate?
If 72% of qualified students graduate from School A while 95% of students graduate from School B, which school is harder? Again – many possible reasons for failing to graduate. But flunking out requires very bad grades. We can probably at least say that the most selective schools aren’t the only ones that can be rigorous.
It is pretty easy to skate by at selective institutions by being strategic about the classes you choose and the major you select. Stanford athletics had a whole list of ‘gut classes’ that they ‘encouraged’ athletes to take.That said, the general introductory classes for certain - things like multivariable calculus, introductory microeconomics or organic chemistry are fairly rigorous.
Where the selective schools shine is the other end - you will be hard pressed to find courses like Harvard’s Math 55, Yale’s Physics 260 or Directed Studies at less selective schools, and harder still to find a bunch of peers motivated to take them with you.
@reuynshard : Actually I would say some selective, especially in that tier you mentioned, even shine at intro. STEM courses (those 3 in particular, often have completely different curricula for things like “biology” for example. Harvard’s Life Sciences 1a is an example, and the Princeton and Yale intro. sequences are much more experimental biology oriented and I know Princeton’s even has a lot biophysics/quantitative content and these courses for “the masses”, like pre-healths or those without AP for course. Only a few schools outside of that tier have remotely comparable intro. courses and most that do are other selective institutions within the top 20/25). And yes they do tend to go much higher (as in you see bigger differences between that tier of schools and others, even many other selective schools) on the other end (honors courses) because they can pull students with that level of experience from HS to the point that those courses at least have some demand regardless of the intensity. There are now many schools pulling students with similar scores as HYPMCalC, but they do not necessarily draw anywhere near the amount of students who are freshmen wanting to or are willing to consider taking an honors course. , GPA management schemes are much more prevalent at other selectives. For example:http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/9/4/College-introduces-LS50-course/
I love citing this example because I do not know too many other selective schools, minus MIT or Caltech, where there are 100 and something applicants for a course like that. Mind you this is the course and it is for freshmen:
https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/3013/assignments
Students at HYPMCalC love having high GPAs like all students at other institutions, but it seems like those schools always recruit more of the types that are willing and are excited to take academic risks, especially earlier in their career and the faculty seem well aware of it and take advantage of it to push the level of certain courses (including intro) MUCH higher (and with more modern/innovative content) than the equivalents elsewhere. As far as grade inflation, outside of say, humanities, looks like many have a “you will work and think very hard before we give you your inflated grade in this course”. Selectivity doesn’t mean much beyond a certain threshold (maybe 1300something SAT average), institutional culture and the mindset of students toward learning and academics seems to determine “rigor” much more, even among selective institutions. If you split the top 20-30 schools into tiers, it is hard to predict which would have the most rigor (in departments known to be rigorous across schools) by looking at admit rate or SAT/GPA because certain norms existed before they even became as selective as they are today and unless there has been lots of faculty turnover since increases in selectivity, the instructors are unlikely to be responsive to changes in student body preparation unless there is administrative or departmental pressure to do so. Even with turnover, faculty’s first priority at most institutions is not teaching, so they may not choose to run a very rigorous course even if the students are strong statistically. I suspect that at some of the super elite schools, there is much more oversight over the content and intensity in certain departments. And some of this may come from wanting to stay on the leading edge of undergraduate training in their fields. They basically want to maintain a reason that their graduates are preferred by not only their own but other elite graduate and professional programs. Other selectives may have faculty that live in a bubble unaware of what courses look like at those super elite “peers” or may just concede to the fact that they are not yet working with the types of students that would tolerate those types of courses as well even if the SAT/GPAs say they should be able to.
Thanks everyone for all the thoughtful responses. Very helpful. I expected the feedback would vary, but I’m at least getting a general vibe that confirms my initial position that in many (most?) cases more selective also means more challenging once you enroll.
So what are the implications to college choice?
Here are the first two thoughts that come to my mind.
- Does the HS student achieve current academic outcomes easily and with little work or is she already operating at 'full capacity?' The former would be a good candidate to attend the 'reachiest' school to which she is admitted. The latter might be overwhelmed there since she has already worked so hard just to scrape admission.
- Does the HS student prefer to be stretched, challenged, to 'compete' academically, to be among people as bright or brighter than her OR does she prefer to be one of the smartest people in the room? Again, the former might thrive at a more rigorous school while the latter might look down her list to colleges where she will be towards the top of the admitted class.
Agree? Other thoughts? Thanks again.
OP, my D2 was your former type in 1 & 2. Her goal in the college search was to find the smartest people and the most rigorous environment possible. Not every student wants that. And it does vary among schools. Her final choices included UChicago, Harvey Mudd, and Swarthmore. The only reason she didn’t apply to Columbia is because she doesn’t like NYC.
Saint- a lot depends on the kids level of prep, and the type of major.
I was a Classics major-- from a run of the mill public HS. I studied French. I showed up in my “Intro to Antiquity” type class and discovered that prep school kids typically had four years of Latin (and maybe one year of Greek) or vice versa. The class nearly killed me. These students weren’t “brighter” than I was- they were just better prepared. Even though the intro language classes were filled with students like me who had never studied the language before, the history and art and philosophy classes were stuffed with kids who were reading Homer in the original while the newbies were doing basic first year grammar.
The gap is likely even more pronounced in the sciences. A really smart kid who comes from a random, average HS is not going to have the same kind of math background as a kid from a science magnet HS.
Interesting thoughts. When I was in high school, I was dying to get out of my small town/small high school and go challenge myself. High school was easy, the SAT was easy (with no prep in the old days). The highly selective college was initially hard. More reading and deeper thinking required, and my peers were all so smart! But it was what I expected and what I wanted and I adapted. My dad grew up in the same small town and went to the same high school and is a genius (really). But he chose to go to junior college near his hometown, then transfer to Big State U, both of which were easy for him. He has a different temperament and personality than I do. He likes to be the smartest guy in the room and is averse to change. When I was choosing a college, we fought over my choice because he couldn’t understand why I would want to make it so hard. (Heck, we still fight over my life choices because I crave challenge and novelty and he doesn’t.)
As I mentioned, I am taking some courses now at a local U. I do enjoy it. But my younger self would have been frustrated because she wouldn’t have felt pushed enough.