<p>CarnegieMellon, MIT, Reed, Swarthmore, UChicago</p>
<p>(one opinion, or a tabulation of opinions)</p>
<p>I will give you that these schools are hard but when you look at MIT Engineering vs any other ABET acredited engineering school you will find that the material required is the same. That said those at MIT generally are the best and the brightest (or near) so if you have group projects and the like others would carry their weight. Imagine going somewhere where you still have to learn the same material but didn’t have the resources that are availible to those at MIT. Now imagine that at the end of 4 years you have to pass the same test they do. That is the story for most Engineering majors. By that logic I would argure that MIT is difficult but by far not the most difficult.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, Swarthmore definitely belongs on this list!</p>
<p>cal tech, harvey mudd</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Let’s clarify. Courses are available on ocw.mit.edu. No secrets there. The textbooks are often the same indeed. Try doing the problem sets for one of the harder courses. Try doing one for which the material is new for you in one week and see how long it takes you. Try doing those sample tests in the allotted time. Look at some of the labs and look at how little background the student has when they have to do them. Now do three technical courses at once on top of a humanities course and your undergraduate research. </p>
<p>It’s not the material, it’s the degree of difficulty of the problems you are expected to be able to do that makes all the difference.</p>
<p>based only on posts I’ve read here over the past three years:</p>
<p>Princeton – for math/science majors only</p>
<p>Pre-med at large CA Flagships:</p>
<ul>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>UCSD</li>
</ul>
<p>It’s been floating around for at least 30 years that Berkeley’s foundational pre-med courses must FAIL (F grade) 33% of the students enrolled in the class, bases on a strict curve.</p>
<p>Sorry, the original reference was removed, but google can find it. ;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m applying to two of these schools and was considering another two of them :D</p>
<p>I’d say St. John’s College has an extremely demanding curriculum, probably more so than even some of the most popular schools on CC.</p>
<p>@ClassicRockerDad- I understand the difficulty of the material and yes I can do the homework sets (about 10 hours a week) the sample tests (in time) and having little/no background before entering a lab is engineering standard. 3 tech classes and 1 humanities check. I don’t claim that the school I go to is as hard as MIT I am just saying that those at MIT have a significant amount of resources availiable to them to help them through. There are many places that do not have the tools that they do and due to that they IMO are much harder for students than MIT. (BTW I will take nothing from MIT for being a great school it is if not the best Engineering/Science school in the world close to the best. IMO it is just not the hardest).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For soft, cream puffs. For true ‘butt-kicking’, I’d start with The Military Academy at West Point, then Naval Academy, Air Force Academy… :D</p>
<p>Caltech would be next in my line.</p>
<p>btw: UChicago’s rep for rigor should be past-tense. It has mean grading policies similar to most other private colleges. Ditto premed at Cal. While the curves are brutal, the fact is that flagships continue to admit sub-standard students, who are those that flunk; thus, for the well-prepared, a B average is attainable. (Sure, a B average won’t get you into med school, but that is no different than anywhere else.)</p>
<p>GaTech of course!!! tough teachers, tough grading, and math and engineering classes with 50-60% test averages…this has to make this lsit</p>
<p>Seconding GTech. Anyone who gets out of there in four years with an intact GPA and one of the more serious degrees - by which I mean, not a marketing or a humanities degree* - deserves some heavy applause.</p>
<p>Also seconding the military academies. ;)</p>
<p>*Does GTech even offer humanities?</p>
<p>Yes GT has a college of Liberal Arts…public policy (a top program), econ, international affairs (a top program), modern languages, history tech & society, and literature communication & culture</p>
<p>I would agree with the service academies. The average load there is 20 semester hours, you have mandatory intramurals and mandatory military formations at noon and on weekends. And the core curriculum includes 30 hours of engineering and hard sciences.</p>
<p>Thanks for the applause neltharion, but I find that the p-sets and tests that my daughter is dealing with as a physics student at Harvard blows away what I recall was my experience (difficult as it was) as a chemical engineering student at GT. Fortunately, she is up to the task.</p>
<p>The service academies are certainly boot camps overall but they hardly kick your butt academically. It is the combination of academics, athletics and military training that makes it hard.</p>
<p>With all due respect, Harvard does not kick anybody’s butt. With rampant grade inflation and over half the class graduating with honors, it is Club Med compared to its neighbor up the street. It is no accident that many MIT premeds take organic chemistry at Harvard in order to pad their GPA. </p>
<p>Most surveys would show a toss-up between Caltech and MIT as to which school will kick your butt the most. At both schools, it is easy to flunk a class. This could of course be said of other tech schools such GTech or Carnegie Mellon. What makes it especially hard at MIT and Caltech is the very high average level of the class. You may have been a star in high school but now you are just average or even below average. Tests are not given to assess mastery of the material: that is what p-sets are for and they are mostly not graded. Tests are designed to stretch the very best students. This makes them nearly impossible to complete in time. Getting a C takes hard work, getting a B outstanding work and to get an A you have to compete with a bunch of IMO, IPhO and Intel finalists! You learn to be humble real fast as there is always a number of people better than you. </p>
<p>I must say I am partial to MIT: not too many schools engrave on their class ring: IHTFP (I hate this f*** place).</p>
<p>With all due respect cellardweller, that is incorrect:</p>
<p><a href=“Committee on the Undergraduate Program (CUP) | MIT Registrar”>Committee on the Undergraduate Program (CUP) | MIT Registrar;
<p>Look at the grade distributions for freshman, soph, junior and senior year (page 35). During junior and senior year half the grades given out are A’s! Only freshman year is grade deflated (which is a very relative term) and interestingly enough that is the P/F year. And that was 10 years ago. With grade inflation on the rise (at every school) no doubt those grades are even higher now. That being said, I’m not sure any top college will kick your butt academically, so MIT is not alone in this regard.</p>
<p>Actually, if you look at Table II-3 in your own document you will see that the average GPA rises from a 2.8 freshman year to a 3.1 sophomore year, 3.2 junior year and 3.3 senior year. The average GPA in the science classes is actually lower. Hardly a case for grade inflation especially considering the level of the entering class. If anything things have gotten tougher not easier in the past few years. P/F is only first semester freshman year, second semester is A/B/C/NR.</p>
<p>do you have stats to support your comments about Harvard?</p>