not smart enough to survive mit?

[happilywallowing]

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Okay, this is based on my own perception: AP level courses don’t need constant studying for everyone, as far as I’m aware. For the past 2 years, all I’ve done is listen in class, and I’ve gotten good grades, with the occasional lapse here and there because of a lack of any studying. I’m not taking AP courses (they’re not offered) but our program is probably a lot more rigorous. I have 16 subjects/week and no free periods, for example. I still doubt I’d survive MIT without studying.

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<p>MIT courses don’t need constant studying (just a normal amount, enough to help you stay sane). I study just as much as I did in high school, and so do many other people I know. We have free time to enjoy ourselves; we go to the movies, restaurants… Anyways, since you haven’t taken AP classes, I’m not sure how to help you judge MIT other than OCW. If you look at some of the tests on there (try 18.01 or 8.01 or 8.02), you’ll see that they don’t require any mind-blowing, super awesome brain skills.</p>

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AP classes can be poorly taught. It’s pitifully easy to get a 5 on many AP exams, but the classes can be hard, and surely good to prepare one for a rigorous university experience. But they can also be the bare minimum. The former case would be the case when you could say an advanced class is just an extension.

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<p>MIT classes can be poorly taught. In fact, one of my worst instructors was a Nobel laureate (but the math department teaches really well! =D). It can also be ridiculously easy to do well on an MIT test. The linear algebra average for the final was a 96%, and the average for a differential equations test was 91. A large percentage of people (well, okay, my friends and neighbors) study the night before for a test. And if the test is hard? Well, they just curve it, usually centering the average at a B (spring 2010 orgo average was a 55, and 62+ was an A LOL). </p>

<p>I think that if the exam average of an AP class is 4.3+, then it’s a good, rigorous class (about the average of my AP classes). If you take 4 or 5 classes like that in a year and score well on the AP test, then that’s pretty similar to about 4 classes at MIT. </p>

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AP classes can vary quite a bit, even if everyone’s getting 5’s

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<p>I think that if everyone (n~>10) gets a 5 in an AP, then the amount the class can vary is pretty small (the tests aren’t THAT easy). It has to be a good class.</p>

<p>Problem-solving skills help! =P It just means that you can cut your time studying/doing homework down by 30-40% (or more depending on your level). You’ll develop them if you don’t have them coming in, but your life will be a lot easier if you have experience doing competition questions, because it’ll be easier for you to see the patterns and put the pieces together. For example: no experience problem-solving–> maybe you’ll need to go to lecture and read the book and ask people to explain. Some experience–> just go to lecture and read the book. Lots of experience–> Just go to lecture. That’s not a formula, by the way, just a hypothetical example.</p>

<p>Anyways, I think that if you want to improve your problem-solving skills (you don’t lose anything, right?) you should go to [Portal</a> • Art of Problem Solving](<a href=“http://www.mathlinks.ro%5DPortal”>http://www.mathlinks.ro), and they have competition problems almost every year from the AMC and AIME and USAMO. I just hate it when I see people struggling here because they don’t have the problem-solving skills. It’s hard to feel good about yourself when you get bad grades, especially when, almost all your life, you’ve been defined by your intelligence. I think it’s better (but not necessarily easier) to improve problem-solving in high school, just because you don’t risk as much. If you don’t learn them fast enough at MIT, you kind of risk your grades and your self-esteem and your health/stress/sleep.</p>