<p>given the diversity of students at any college (and not just the ivies and other very selective ones) where you have a range of academic abilities attending - how would you design a system that ensure EVERYONE only took challenging courses.</p>
<p>Would you placement test every kid in every field, and insist they take only the most challenging courses in the field they are good at? And what of the need to have courses that differ in difficulty, students special abilities aside?</p>
<p>For example - I know at some Ivies, there are easier courses that students will take while taking some other more difficult course - what the premeds take to balance organic chem, or what kids take to offset a senior thesis. But its not possible that some kid will try in a given semester to take only easy classes, to ease some extra curricular. Its also a fact that a liberal arts course that will challenge some scientists will be easy for someone who can read and write quickly, and that a science or econ class that some LA kids will sweat over, will be easy to someone with the knack. How do you prevent a kid who COULD do more challenging work from taking that?</p>