I took a Psych freshman year and got a C, only if I had read the book I would have done much better. Guessing multiple choices without reading the textbook did me in.
Yeah- no matter what course learning the assigned material makes a difference. I’ll bet you would have gotten the same grade as a senior, unless of course by then you had learned to read the book…
The RMP reviews I saw reported the courses were hard but manageable if you study hard. Sounds like…school. 
I suggested my daughter not take Psych 101 her first semester. At her midsized school, I knew it would be a big lecture class with a smaller discussion class, and just wouldn’t have the personalized attention some other courses would. She has taken two large history classes with the ‘2 lectures and 1 discussion’ format, and did pretty good in those, but still I thought psych should be put off. Also, another class she had in her major ended only 10 minutes before psych started, and it would have required a dash across campus (probably 1/2 mile) and she would have arrived late and panting to this large lecture every day. I just thought it was better to put it off. Now, I doubt she’ll take it at all since she’s changed majors and has a lot of core classes to take.
Op,
At most colleges, psych 101 is a fairly easy class, is generally an interesting class, and also fulfills GE requirements. So a ton of kids take it’and usually in their frosh year. Many kids who have taken AP psych will retake psych 101 to get the easy A. The class does not get any “easier” by waiting for soph year. The class would still be filled with frosh and repeat AP kiddos.
I guess the only way it gets easier to get an A in soph yr is at huge public unis where 500 kids take it and the grades are “curved” so that only x amount of kids get As. There would be a small benefit of waiting until soph yr, because generally sophs are better at studying than frosh. Just as the game that this rule would apply to any “typical frosh class” that a soph was taking. If you play this game, then what other classes will you have left to take in your frosh year? If there are plenty of other classes to take, then it’s fine to wait.
Others will argue that it’s better to take psych 101 frosh year because it’s better to take an easy and interesting class in frosh year when there might be so much learning how to study in this new environment and will make the transition to college more fun and gentle.
I’ve never heard of Psych 101 as being labeled “difficult”. It’s an introductory course for a reason. It’s made for beginners! It’s basically just memorization and understanding of the principles. There’s nothing really tricky or confusing about it - it’s very straight forward. It’s silly to put it off. Everything else is probably harder!
BTW, I loved my psych classes and found them to be very interesting.
True, but if the % of A grades is fixed at 15%, for example, and the class and exam is easy, a student might need 95% average to get that A (if that’s a concern).
So- a freshman is supposed to try to game the system by choosing classes they can likely get easy A’s in? Why not take classes that sound interesting that one can want to learn enough to get an A? The 100 level classes are meant for newbies. If a student finds they like a subject but waits until later in the college career there may not be time to take more than the one course or change one’s major.
OP- trust your D to manage her college classes with the help of her academic advisor. If an advisor suggests she wait for good reasons then she should. Outsiders do not know your D, her school, the course etc. btw- good students will jump right in with a decent class load- having too many free hours (the consequence of too few class hours) makes it harder to settle down and study. Remember- it is a lot easier to drop than add a class after the first week. If she is used to a rigorous HS load she should do fine with whatever she deems workable at her chosen college.
psy. 101 is not hard…sociology 101 however is a lot easier.
Sometimes the college requires a gen ed in an area in which you really have no interest. Sometimes you want to balance out an impossible organic chem class. So yeah, I’ll choose the easy “A” in that case.
Taking it easy the first semester/ year may be an excellent strategy especially for some premeds who simply must produce a competitive app in all respects (GPAs, ECs, etc.) It may be better for some to tap on brakes at the beginning, maybe even slow down and wait to apply towards end of senior year (as opposed to after junior year), if that’s what it takes get it right the first time you apply.
Students will often try to create tight schedules for different reasons (eg work schedules, ECs, athletics, maintaining FT status for FA in order to graduate on time, etc). So instead of taking a class at 10am and waiting around to 4pm for some “interesting class” (who determines interesting anyway?), they may take an arguably less interesting, perhaps an easier class at 11am to free up day for whatever else they have going on.
It would not be surprising if the high GPA requirements to have a chance of admission to any medical school or a law school whose graduates have decent law employment chances created incentives for some pre-med and pre-law students to emphasize the GPA game rather than choosing the most interesting or challenging courses at potentially higher risk to their GPAs.
Well then you save all of your difficult classes towards the end and have to take them all at once. I think it’s better for difficulty management to balance your schedule so you have a mix of difficult and easy classes, or what you perceive to be difficult and easy - because classes often turn out different than you expect. The most challenging classes I took in college were NOT math or science classes; they were French 202, an honors philosophy class, and an upper-level Japanese sociology course. Frankly I find math and science to be kind of easy to learn; I have much more difficulty with abstract and theoretical concepts. Which exemplifies another concept, that things that are difficult for some might be easy for others and vice versa.
That said, psychology 101 does have a reputation of being easy for most students, but it also depends on how it is taught. At my undergrad intro psychology was a two-semester sequence; pacing was good, the classes were split pretty equally between the more biological aspects of psychology and the social/developmental ones, and I found the class to be pretty easy. At my grad school, I TA’ed for intro psychology and it was significantly harder IMO. It was only one semester, and the class was probably about 2/3 biological/cognitive psychology. More memorization and systems testing than anything else. Assessment was also different - I went to an LAC so the final paper was weighted more heavily than the tests. I TA’ed at a larger research university and the grades were heavily reliant on performance on primarily multiple-choice tests, which were more about fact recall.
Those medical school wannabes who avoid challenging themselves will be beat out by those students who can take the more difficult classes and still succeed in getting top grades. The top students will be taking more credits, more rigorous courses AND do well in them early on. There is no easing into medical school, best to be used to pushing yourself.
I was so fortunate I was taking courses for my chemistry major and others I wanted to then decided on medical school. I feel sorry for those whose only goal is medical school- so much more to college.
I thought psych 101 was a lot of memorization of names, dates, and types of theories. Still, test were multiple choice. Abnormal Psych was truly fascinating. That was my fav class to TA for, and I repeated it several times. Lucky students had the full prof for all lectures, I was in charge of section.
DS took Psych 101 freshman year at Georgia Tech. He really liked it and yes it was an easy “A”…
Thanks, all. Lots to consider here! Seems Psych 101 might be best in spring of freshman year at the latest.
If your daughter can’t handle psych101, how is she going to handle the premed classes?
Let’s just say that the competitive tracks that require substantial grade strategy are not for people who can’t handle psych 101 as freshmen 
I took introductory psych my freshman year of college as did almost every other freshman at the school. It was a required course for many majors, and a required core course. It was not a hard course at all. But it definitely did not get me excited about the fielded of psychology in the least. The full year intro to psych courses were HUGE…think we’ll over 100 students in a lecture hall. I did well enough…but it certainly was not my favorite course…and my minor was psych.
Perhaps times have changed, and this is now a smaller sized class…perhaps. But I know current students who took it in a lecture hall format as recently as six years ago.
Wait until sophomore year? Why? I can’t think of any reason why this introductory psych course couldn’t be taken as an incoming freshman.