Hello! I am currently a senior picking between my top three choices. Georgia Tech (accepted), UIUC (hear back next week) and UC Berkeley (March!) for their Computer Science programs. I was wondering what the rigor would look like in comparison to high school. While in high school, this year alone I have took 5 AP classes (including 2 sciences) and 1 UIUC Calc 3 class (m241). I have a lot of difficulty with the calc class and I was wondering if that is what my entire college experience would look like since it is a college class. Also, I am having a lot of trouble with AP Chemistry. So, what would my rigor/stress level look like at these schools in comparison to the load I am taking in high school?
College courses will resemble college courses more than they resemble high school AP courses. So think of having four to six courses like that college math course every semester as a typical college course load. Note: a real college course load will typically be about four courses, maybe five some semesters, but if you take high workload courses like those with labs, computer programming assignments, art studio, or music performance, they may be nearly as much work as two courses each.
Generally, college courses will expect the student to have better self-motivation and time management and give less hand holding. Rather than daily homework and teacher monitoring you to keep you from falling behind, the college instructors will give you weekly or less frequent assignments and perhaps term projects and expect you to start them early enough to finish them on time. They also expect you to read the book(s) as needed before each class session. Since attendance is usually not taken in college courses, many students have poor attendance habits, particularly for 8am class times. This is detrimental to how well they do in the course.
In addition, many high school AP courses cover over a year what a college course covers in a semester. On the bright side, there is less busywork, but it also means that students who fall behind are in deeper trouble in college than in high school.