6/14    "10 toughest colleges"
        http://encarta.msn.com/collegeArticles/NeverStopStudying.asp
        Hmm, we're not on the list. :-(
              \_ Kalamazoo?? Basically, in order to assess
                 toughest colleges you probably have to distinguish
                 between technical and non-technical. Among
                 technical schools, I'd include MIT and Cal Tech
                 and then add the millitary academies (real curriculum +
                 millitary training). Among liberal arts schools,
                 I'd probably put the schools that take seriously
                 great books and foreign languages: St. Johns,
                 Deep Springs and then maybe Chicago, Swarthmore.
                 After that, you would add schools have tough majors -
                 if you want to take them: Berkeley, Michigan, the Ivys
                 and places like Amherst.
        \_ "MSN"?  gee.
        \_ Any list headed by CalTech, I don't want to be on.  -tom
           \_ Thus spake the wise one, whose widsom was not good
              enough for admission into the high temple of science
              and learning.
        \_ they smoke a lot of crack at Reed
           \_ they smoke pot.  especially at "Ren Faire".  Portland is nice
              tho.  Rains a fuckload of a lot.  Lotsa hippies and burrowood
              shit.
                \_ What's the name of the festival where they do
                   do the most digusting thing imaginable, and then
                   you get the cute girl next to you to do something
                   worse, like eating mealworms out of someone's
                   asscrack?
                   \_ CU73 42N CH1X W0U1D ! D0 7H47!
              \_ That's just 23rd Ave, Portland's version of Haight-Ashbury.
                 \_ and the Reed Campus.  I was there.  No, Really, I was.
                    were you?  Did you live in the mac-only dorms?  Did
                    you see your roommates make bongs from soda cans and
                    drink microbrew peach ginger ale?  Or are you a sodawanker?
                    drink microbrew peach ginger ale?  Or are you a motdwanker?
                    \_ Yes, I've visited Reed. But I had more sense to go
                       to Cal than to go to a school like Reed. Portland's
                       not exactly the place to go for higher education
                       unless you want to go to OHSU and become a doctor.
                       Most of Portland is pretty well maintained. It's
                       a fairly liberal city but it's nothing like Telegraph
                       Avenue
              \_ I feel gritty already just by reading this!
        \_ what?  did you really expect Berkeley to be on this list?  are you
           kidding?
           \_ i'm glad berkeley is n't on this list.
        \_ there's a world of difference between "10 toughest colleges" and
           "10 colleges with students who whine the most". sure, mit and
           caltech are most likely on both lists. the rest look verrrrrry
           questionable.
           \_ The Coast Guard Academy is on the list. That tells you all
              you need to know. --dim
              \_ What's wrong with the Coast Guard Academy?  Thx.
                 \_ It's not exactly West Point, not that West Point is
                    all that. For fun, find out where celebrities went:
                    http://www.uselessknowledge.com/vmd/education.shtml --dim
           \_ MIT and caltech _AND_ Swarthmore.  Swarthmore is a pretty tough
              driven place. --chris
        \_ Swarthmore I'll buy.  Reed, KZoo (Kalamazoo), Grinnelle?  Yeah,
           right. -dans
                \_ Swarthmore.  Anywhere else it would have been an C-
        \_ I think basically these colleges run real curriculums but accept
           average students, who have to work at a killer pace juts to keep up.
           \_ Caltech and MIT have killer curriculums and admit only the
              best of the best and then work them to the bone. The other
              universities have average curriculums but accept shitty
              students, the kind that would find Cal hard (hint Cal is
              not hard).
              \_ well, what is our criteria of hardness? if there are some
                 really hard classes but most people don't take them, what
                 does this mean? if most people are L&S weenies, then what?
                 if you do 16 units or more a semester of solid technical
                 classes, is that "easy"?  or even less, since in the end
                 it comes down to time. is it hard because your peers are
                 smarter than you and set high standards on the exams?
                 is it hard because the material itself is hard to learn?
                 \_ The material covered is much more detailed and the
                    expected understanding of that material is much higher.
                    For example, you could not pass MIT's equiv. of the
                    7 series without attending a single lecture, section
                    and lab. At Cal it is trivial. Same for ld math. Its
                    harder to pass a ud or grad course with zero work, but
                    it can be done with a fraction of the work required
                    at CalTech or MIT. The Farm is no better than Cal,
                    and in fact its worse in some ways. (I've never seen
                    bigger bunch of whiners and sisses in my life. I keep
                    hearing things like, no fair, don't change the rules
                    half way through the course, we need extensions because
                    life is too hard when your dad make $1e6 a year, etc.)