[Philo]

[ QUOTE ]
"The toughest grading institution I have ever taken classes at was the University of Louisville. It was much harder to get an A at U of L than it is for undergrads at Amherst, Columbia, Harvard or Princeton to get an A."

Almost certainly doesn't matter. I'm betting the Harvard courses are much harder. Especially the science and math courses. They probably go through twice as much stuff and in more detail. Most Louisville calculus B students would flunk out of freshman calculus at Harvard, if I had to guess. In fact I will specualte that the elite schools give out a lot of A's because they don't want to give the wrong impression to outsiders. If they gave out the typical percentage of B's some people wouldn't realize that their B students are usually better than average college's A students.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're generalizing in saying the Harvard courses are much harder you're wrong. In fact, I took calculus at U of L and it was an incredibly difficult class even for very good students. Getting a B in that class was absolutely comparable to getting a B in calculus at Columbia, and I would suspect Harvard as well. And no, they don't go through twice as much stuff. The idea that Ivy League classes are always more difficult is just a misconception. No one flunks out at Harvard unless they just don't do any work. Harvard is not in the business of flunking out students.

What do you base these conclusions on?