Reply to are Dartmouth and Brown easier than WASP schools?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a sophomore at Dartmouth. It's tricky because their quarters are 10 weeks, basically 8.5 to 9 weeks once the exam week, etc. are factored in.  
In one of these time blocks they will cover the same material that a semester school covers in 16 weeks so it's particularly rigorous for things like chemistry, physics etc. where a standardized amount of material needs to be taught.[/quote]

If you have a yearlong course, say intro economics, organic chemistry, first year physics,
wouldn’t it just be broken up into 3 quarters, not 2 semesters? So the amount of time spent overall is the same, you just get 3 grades on your transcript, not 2. I can see how quarter system could
be more rushed for classes that are normally 1 semester though. [/quote] with physics, you can include third semester intro topics (waves, light, optics, thermodynamics, relativity, modern physics) that would normally have to get chopped up to try and fit them into the two main Mechanics and EM semesters in a two semester cours.[/quote]

I think the second poster is not accurately capturing this. Kids at Dartmouth on quarter system generally take 3, sometimes 4, classes per quarter for a total of 9 classes (sometimes 10) per year, just like kids at many (most?) semester-based schools, who take 4-5 classes per semester or 9-10 classes per year.  Each class theoretically covers the same thing.  So kid at Dartmouth who takes 3 quarters of a particular subject is covering the same as a kid who takes 2 semesters.  Each class is more intense, but there are fewer of them per quarter -- but again, same number per year.[/quote]

Sorry-- meant to say Kid at Dartmouth who takes 3 quarters is covering same as kid who takes 3 semesters.  [/quote]
Wouldn't it be 2 semesters? 3 quarters -> 1 year, 2 semesters -> 1 year.[/quote]

No -- that's the point.  The classes are the same -- a class in the quarter system covers the same as a class in the semester system.  So each class covers the material more intensely/quickly.  The trade off is that you take fewer classes at a time, but in the end the same number of classes over the course of a year.  Otherwise the quarter kids would be learning less overall because they can usually only take three classes at a time.  [/quote]

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