<p>Of the elite schools, only 3 are truly going to be as or more difficult than high school would be: Caltech, MIT and Cornell. (Johns Hopkins too if you count that as an elite school.) Since I am friends with many alumni from places like Penn, Brown, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Harvard, I know for a fact that you pretty much just have to have a pulse to get a C average in those schools; a slight increase in effort will earn you a B. (Apparently things have changed somewhat in Princeton though I am not sure how much.)</p>
<p>Among the liberal arts schools, Swarthmore has a reputation for intensity but even that is questionable.</p>