Again there is a lot of variation. Some classes involve a good amount of group projects or studying in groups. Other classes are largely individual efforts, without a lot of non-grade feedback about how the student compares to peers in the class.
It sounds like my experiences differ from some in this thread. I attended a HYPSM college known for collaborative assignments. For the most part, classes did not seem extraordinarily difficult or challenging compared to classes I have taken at other colleges. The class pace was often faster, which may have related to the quarter system vs semester system. The norm was for the vast majority of students within classes to understand the material and receive A grades. Classes were rarely structured to focus on or identify a small number of exceptional students. Classes were more commonly structured such that the expectation was for the overwhelming majority of students to learn the material and be successful, without an abnormally large time commitment. It was not a competitive atmosphere, with a large portion of students focused on who is stronger/weaker in the class.
In this type of environment, it was rare for me to have a good sense of how I compared to others in a particular class beyond grade feedback from the professor, which was usually most student get A’s and extremely few get C’s. However, I did have a general sense of my stronger/weaker areas. For example, a weaker area for me was subjective papers and a stronger area was objective, numerical/analytical problem solving. While classes with subjective papers were a generally weaker area for me, I didn’t have a good sense of whether I required more time to keep up than others in the class, and I rarely compared my papers with others in the class or had a sense of who was stronger/weaker when completing a group paper/presentation. There was often one student within the group who took on more of leadership/dominant role and other students who chose to put less time/effort in to the group assignment, but I didn’t associate that varying degree of effort in to the assignment, with students being generally stronger/weaker in the class, so it did not provide a good feedback about where I ranked within the class.