hardest school in the country

[Haddon1267]

<p>Per allwords.com</p>

<p>

Cornellian<br>
adjective </p>

<ol>
<li>of and or pertaining to w:Cornell University, Cornell University</li>
<li>extremely difficult to accomplish or understand; extraordinarily demanding or challenging; highly rigorous

</li>
</ol>

<p>If it’s already in the definition, you have to accept it.</p>

[Marian]

<p>

Marian, was that always the case? My friend, who was a Comm. major in the 70’s complained all the time about her core requirements being the same as the pre-med students.

</p>

<p>I was a biology major at Cornell in the 1970s but I was not premed. I did not know anyone well who was in the communications major, so I don’t know what the exact graduation requirements for that major were at the time. However, I was aware that there were multiple introductory biology, chemistry, physics, and math sequences, and that people in different majors (or with different career goals) took different sequences. I don’t know which sequences were required or recommended for communications majors, but it seems unlikely that they were the same sequences recommended for premeds. There were definitely introductory biology and chemistry sequences available that were less rigorous than those taken by the premeds and biology majors. I was under the impression that these courses were intended for people in majors like communications, but I don’t have any old catalogs or other data that would confirm my impression.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>Is life a contest, such that it’s important to stamp “went to the hardest college in the country” on your forehead?</p>

[Sam_Lee]

<p>But according to this:
<a href=“http://blog.american.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/cornell1.jpg[/url]”>http://blog.american.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/cornell1.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In econ:
13.6% had a median grade of A
18.2% had a median grade of A-
50% had a median grade fo B+</p>

<p>In math:
3.2% had a median grade of A+
12.9% had a median grade of A
16.1% had a meidan grade of A-
41.9% had a median grade of B+</p>

<p>In education:
77.8% had a median grade of A
22.2% had a median grade of A-</p>

<p>And according to [Grade</a> Inflation Cornell Insider](<a href=“http://cornellinsider.com/2010/06/22/grade-inflation/]Grade”>http://cornellinsider.com/2010/06/22/grade-inflation/)
The % A’s awarded (relative to all letter grades awarded) as a function of school were as follows:
All Undergrads 48
Ag School 50
Arch School 49
Arts & Sciences 48
Engineering 45
Human Ecology 60
Hotel 31
Labor 50</p>

<p>Only cry babies would say Cornell is the hardest. ;)</p>

[turntabler]

<p>I’ve always heard Reed is up there…</p>

[starbright]

<p>How do you define this? In some absolute sense or for the students attending? And harder in what sense? Amount of work required? Difficulty of material taught? Difficulty in getting an “A” on average?</p>

<p>How about looking at average graduating GPA: gradeinflation.com </p>

<p>If you use average GPA, Cornell looks just fine with a current average graduating GPA of 3.36. In contrast, Appalachian State, has an average graduating GPA of only 2.93. </p>

<p>A case might be made that Appalachian State would be considered more difficult for its students than would be Cornell for its students.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>From what I’ve heard, Cornell has one of the more rigorous curriculums regardless of major in the country and even among elite colleges. Others provide fine educations; however, many of the elites have the attitude that the expectations are that the students will spend a large amount of their time doing extracurriculars, not necessarily developing their intelligence further during college. That is, the ivy league kids have already proved they are smart, and while certainly they will take good classes, the primary purpose is for them to expand their horizons through ECs. (BTW, I took some good classes at Harvard, so this is not a slam of the ivies.)</p>

<p>As for the hardest university, in my mind, there is little doubt that Caltech is the most difficult college/university in the country. MIT would be a close second. Whether this difficulty is beneficial is a matter of debate. Of liberal arts universities, if I had to pick one, it would probably be University of Chicago. And as I suggested, I think this can be attributed to a difference in philosophy.</p>

[epiphany]

<p>

many of the elites have the attitude that the expectations are that the students will spend a large amount of their time doing extracurriculars, not necessarily developing their intelligence further during college. That is, the ivy league kids have already proved they are smart, and while certainly they will take good classes, the primary purpose is for them to expand their horizons through ECs.

</p>

<p>There is not a single ivy that has as an institutional purpose the development of undergraduate extracurricular activities as the primary reason for admission & matriculation.</p>

<p>Absurd.</p>

<p>And the fact that pre-college extracurriculars are heavily considered in the admission process is not related – except in the case of athletic recruiting or an exceptional talent in one of the arts (such as a celebrity talent who will clearly use that on campus)-- to an expectation of how the student will spend time once enrolled.</p>

<p>Accomplishments in extracurriculars prior to matriculation are valuable as indicators to academic accomplishment after matriculation and after college graduation, and the elites can point to evidence of that, which is why consideration of these is so important. There is a secondary benefit to the University to have students with a variety of interests who are likely to participate to some degree in campus activities, but that benefit is by no means “primary.”</p>

[QuantMech]

<p>Caltech
University of Chicago
I’d add Swarthmore to collegealum314’s post.
At MIT, I think the level of difficulty depends a lot on the choice of courses–as would be the case at most schools. In my opinion, there are some routes through MIT that are not noticeably more difficult than the typical route through Princeton, say.</p>

[menloparkmom]

<p>“Caltech, University of Chicago.”
If not the hardest, then they are certainly among the top 5, along with Swarthmore and Reed.</p>

[momsquad]

<p>Caltech</p>

<p>The logic being, “hard” as measured in the difficulty of excelling academically relative to your peers/competitors. Caltech is the only elite, as far as I know, that represents a pure meritocracy without legacy admits diluting the pool:</p>

<p>

The children of alumni generally make up 10 to 25 percent of the student body at selective institutions. The proportion varies little from year to year, suggesting “an informal quota system,” says the former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Golden. By contrast, at the California Institute of Technology, which does not use legacy preferences, only 1.5 percent of students are children of alumni.

</p>

<p>[10</a> Myths About Legacy Preferences in College Admissions - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/10-Myths-About-Legacy/124561/]10”>http://chronicle.com/article/10-Myths-About-Legacy/124561/)</p>

[starbright]

<p>

The logic being, “hard” as measured in the difficulty of excelling academically relative to your peers/competitors.

</p>

<p>I have absolutely no idea what this means. Peers at the same institution? So then difficulty for whom at a given institution? </p>

<p>With this logic, the ‘hardest’ school then would be one where the students are of the same ability not necessarily high ability (e.g. limited variation in test scores for example).</p>

<p>As an aside, the whole concept of referring to peers as ‘competitors’ is rather repugnant (especially by parents).</p>

[motherbear332]

<p>^^ I don’t think the comparison using Caltech is appropriate. An English major kid of a HYP science major is a potential legacy–but not if the parent went to Caltech.</p>

[momsquad]

<p>

the whole concept of referring to peers as ‘competitors’ is rather repugnant (especially by parents).

</p>

<p>Do you think the almighty class rank is a cooperative effort to propel the brightest student to the number 1 spot? Does anyone talk about college entrance and college success without taking in to account the competition? My favorite courses in college were ones in which a few truly exceptional students set the standard for the class. They raised the level of discussion and all of us competed to outdo them on tests, usually without success. It was healthy competition and inspired those of us lacking brilliance to work harder. I see the same dynamic in my D’s hs experience. The top students are all in the same AP classes, and they routinely compare and discuss their performance on tests and assignments. They compete, but also provide support and inspiration to each other. </p>

<p>My point in the previous post was to suggest that Caltech has a higher percentage of the truly exceptional because they admit students almost solely on talent, not genetics.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@motherbear332

I don’t think the comparison using Caltech is appropriate. An English major kid of a HYP science major is a potential legacy–but not if the parent went to Caltech.

</p>

<p>Why not? One can major in English at Caltech:
[Caltech:</a> Humanities and Social Sciences](<a href=“http://www.hss.caltech.edu/humanities/undergrad]Caltech:”>http://www.hss.caltech.edu/humanities/undergrad)</p>

[Erin_s_Dad]

<p>I’m not sure how accurate that article on legacy is. The Caltech CDS states alumni relations will be considered. <a href=“http://finance.caltech.edu/documents/9-cds2011_final_4_28_11.pdf[/url]”>http://finance.caltech.edu/documents/9-cds2011_final_4_28_11.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[SlitheyTove]

<p>Erin’s Dad, that is really odd about the Caltech CDS stating that legacy is considered. I dug back through several years of Caltech CDS’s, and there’s a switch from “not considered” in 2004-05 to “considered” in 05-06, when the format of the CDS changed slightly. Friends who are alums tell me that the school prides itself on not considering legacy. Strange.</p>

[mazewanderer]

<p>[Why</a> Caltech Is in a Class by Itself](<a href=“http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/12/why_caltech_is_in_a_class_by_i.html]Why”>http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/12/why_caltech_is_in_a_class_by_i.html)</p>

<p>quote from the article</p>

<p>

Toward a Pure Meritocracy</p>

<p>Of the top two dozen or so elite universities in America only one has managed both to avoid the craziness of the post-60s intellectual fads, and to establish something pretty close to a pure meritocracy – California Institute of Technology, which has not received the general recognition among academics that it clearly deserves.</p>

<p>The statistics on Caltech’s students and faculty are simply spellbinding. An entering Caltech freshman last year who received a 770 on the math SAT would be exceeded in this area by three-quarters of his fellow entering freshmen. Many Caltech freshmen got a perfect 800 on their math SAT, while a near-perfect 1560 combination score placed an incoming freshmen at only the 75th percentile of his entering classmates. A combined SAT score of 1470 (the 99th percentile by national standards) placed an entering Caltech freshman at only the 25th percentile among his fellow students. (At Harvard and Princeton, by contrast, the 25th percentile is reached by a score of only 1380). All recent Caltech undergraduates have scored 700 or above on the math SAT, and far from being a bunch of inarticulate science and math geeks, the vast majority have scored over 700 on the English verbal SAT as well. Most Caltech matriculants have also taken numerous Advanced Placement courses in high school, and attained perfect scores on their AP exams. In short, Caltech is interested in enrolling only the academically most accomplished and advanced students, who have a genuine passion for the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), and virtually all of its entering students have achieved at the 98th or 99th percentile in terms of their scores on competitive national exams.</p>

<p>What this means is that at Caltech, there are no dumb jocks, dumb legacies, or dumb affirmative action students. It is clear from its published statistics that the non-academic criteria that preoccupy admissions committees at all other elite universities count for little at this beacon of pure meritocracy. Perhaps the most striking difference from all other elite universities – including institutions like MIT and the University of Chicago which forgo athletic recruitment – is Caltech’s complete indifference to racial balancing. In a state and a region of the country with the largest Hispanic population, Caltech’s entering freshmen class in 2008 was less than 6 percent Hispanic (13 out of 236). The unwillingness to lower standards for a larger black representation is even more striking – less than 1 percent (2/236) of Caltech’s 2008 entering freshmen were listed as “non-Hispanic black”. This “underrepresentation” of blacks and Hispanics, of course, was more than made up for by the huge “overrepresentation” of Asians. Only 4 percent of the U.S. population, Asians made up a whopping 40 percent of the incoming freshmen class in 2008, a slightly larger proportion than the 39 percent figure for whites. Applicants to Caltech are clearly seen as representing only themselves and their own individual merit and achievement, not their race or their ethnic group. As a professor at Caltech who has taught there for many years explained to me in an email, “We try, like our competitors, very, very hard to find, recruit, and nurture underrepresented minorities but we won’t bend our standards.”</p>

<p>

</p>

[QuantMech]

<p>Interesting point about the Caltech legacy issue. I am not sure exactly when the book “I, Woz” came out. Steve Wozniak’s father went to Caltech, but they didn’t take Steve. It would be amusing if “I, Woz” is copyrighted 2005.</p>

[vonlost]

<p>Caltech at least considers non-numeric indicators like talent/ECs/race/first gen/legacy when evaluating applicants, presumably as tipping factors among the similarly qualified.</p>

<p><a href=“http://finance.caltech.edu/documents/9-cds2011_final_4_28_11.pdf[/url]”>http://finance.caltech.edu/documents/9-cds2011_final_4_28_11.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;