<p>I got a 4 on AP Chem (we hadn’t finished the AP chem curriculum) and was able to sleep through Chem 2 every day in class and still managed to get something like a 96% in the class.</p>
<p>A lot of the intro classes are fairly simple since they’re taken by a ton of non-technical people. I think every student at CMU (including art and drama) are required to take the first computer science course, as well as a year of calculus.</p>
<p>I think the reason why CMU lets you skip those classes (at least calc) is because they don’t do a very rigorous treatment of the material; it’s aimed a lot more at engineering students and people who will use the material as a tool and not as something they want to study out of a passion for it. The math class I had to take here at Caltech while a grad was definitely more proof-based than anything I had at CMU, and I really don’t understand how to apply the material nearly as well as I did from my courses at CMU. Also, I’d say CMU’s undergrad differential equations class covered about 80% of the material in my grad ODE class (even used the same textbook).</p>
<p>I don’t really recall any weeder courses that I had to take at CMU, though organic chem was recognized for being a pain (professor would only teach at 8:30 MWF saying if you really wanted to learn the material, you could be at the top of your game no matter what time the class was). I think CMU takes the opinion that if you’re good enough to get in, then you’re good enough to get through their program (though you will have to work your butt off to get through).</p>