Did t everyone find college less stressful than high school. The work might be more challenging, but there is less pressure to do well when -- let's face it-- you don't have your parents on you everyday to do well so that you can get into a good college.

I went to a competitive high school. College was difficult in the sense that I needed to adapt to the real world and make mature decisions about how to spend my time. But it surely was not as stressful. In high school, I was short on time on everything. In college, the biggest challenge was what to do with the vast expanse of free time on my hands.

There are some intensive humanities programs at competitive schools that rival the sciences. I have heard Princeton students who have taken both find the intensive humanities program as tough as engineering. Yale's is even more intense. Students in these sort of programs rarely breeze through unless they skip the reading. But these programs are unusual, and in general I agree the sciences usually are more time consuming.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is at one of those privates where 3-4 hours of homework per night is the norm. Alumni at college who come back to visit the students almost all say that college is easier and far less stressful. And this is kids at Ivies and other top 25s.

Honestly, why would anyone do this to their kid?!?! 3 to 4 hours a night? That's horrific.

Hah. I had more like five hours a night.

I was going to say I went to a public school and definitely had more than 4 hours per night (no, not TJ either)!

This is an anecdote, but might still be useful.

Two years ago DD had a public school friend who graduated in the top 10 at her NOVA public. DD had several classmates that same year at her private who attended the same college as the public school friend. The private school friends coasted at William and Mary, but the public school's mother confided to me that her DD was struggling with the workload.

All these girls were smart, but the girls from the private were just used to so much more work. As a public school kid we used to make fun of all the homework the private schools had, but at Georgetown, I felt I was underprepared in time management compared to my private school floormates of which there were many. I caught up, but that first year was a struggle.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is at one of those privates where 3-4 hours of homework per night is the norm. Alumni at college who come back to visit the students almost all say that college is easier and far less stressful. And this is kids at Ivies and other top 25s.

Honestly, why would anyone do this to their kid?!?! 3 to 4 hours a night? That's horrific.

Hah. I had more like five hours a night.

Things sure have changed. I went to a very rigorous public magnet high school (not in this area, but routinely in the top 20 on that US News list) and on to Georgetown, where I graduated with a 3.7.

With the exception of certain times during exams or when a big paper was due, I never did that much homework in high school or college.

I went to NCS and then the University of Chicago. I was the only student in my 1st year Humanities class that got an A on my first paper. Most everyone else was F-C's. I also tested out of a lot of core requirements. Yes, it was much easier.

Honestly, I don't think 3-4 hours a night of homework is that much of you are taking 5 academic subjects. That means you have less than an hour of homework a night per subject, which seems light if you are taking all AP courses. I think this can be mitigated a bit with a block schedule, but to teach a rigorous class you have to assign reading and problem sets and you have to study. At my high school five hours wasn't unheard of, which is pretty intense. 3 hours is doable if you get out of school at 3:30, have an hour of extracurriculars, spend a half an hour commuting, a half an hour changing and showing, a half an hour eating dinner, and three hours doing homework that gets you to 9:00. So you have some buffer room to goof off, have an extra hour or two of homework, have a longer commute, or do a couple extracurriculars after school and still go to bed well before midnight.

I think there's a difference between feeling well-prepared and capable of rising to the challenges presented in college, and, OTOH, feeling like college is a walk in the park. My kids are in the first category; not sure I'd want them to be in the latter. Also, as other posters have noted the student's major field is a critical factor as is the level of involvement in athletics or other activities. Finally, there are some colleges that are just more rigorous, either in their curriculum or grading policy or practices. I'd put Chicago, Columbia and Princeton in this category.

College students work far less than high-schoolers, in my experience. But then I graduated from a very competitive high school. Occasionally that's when an overachieving high-schooler just goes off the rails, just because they don't know what to do with all this free time!

Anonymous wrote:DC is at one of those privates where 3-4 hours of homework per night is the norm. Alumni at college who come back to visit the students almost all say that college is easier and far less stressful. And this is kids at Ivies and other top 25s.

Kids who come back to Whitman, an outstanding public high school in Maryland, often say the same thing. The kids at Whitman often have 3-4 hours of homework per night as well.

^^also, part of this was just that the structured time demands required as a science major was just more intense than as a humanities major. I typically took 2-3 lab classes a semester, with 4 hours in the afternoon on top of 4 3x a week lectures. In between that, I was doing research, homework, and studying. My friends who were in the humanities often had quite a bit of reading and rigorous writing demands, but they had less than half the in-class time that I did. I still had many days when I was essentially in class from 9-4, whereas people who majored in the humanities didn't.

I went to a top suburban high school not in this area, but equivalent to the likes of Langley or Whitman. I took mostly honors and AP classes. Then I went to a SLAC known for a rigorous curriculum and majored in a hard science (biochemistry). Despite having a rigorous high school experience, college kicked my ass. I heard from a lot of peers that college was easier for them than high school (even ones who went to the ivies), so either that says something about the rigor of my school or my major or both. Anyway, at the end of the day, I think it varies very much by individual person (how the adjustment to college goes/how independent they are), the individual high school and college, and the major.

Even at the Ivies, some are known as being more rigorous (Columbia, for one) and some as being less (Harvard, or at least you hear that, feel free to correct me).

Also, as others have pointed out, wherever you go to college, your major also makes a big difference to your stress level.

So, it would be helpful if posters writing "my kid found the Ivies a breeze" could give a little more info on the college and the major.

Anonymous wrote:DC is at one of those privates where 3-4 hours of homework per night is the norm. Alumni at college who come back to visit the students almost all say that college is easier and far less stressful. And this is kids at Ivies and other top 25s.

I would have to think that the college schedule is probably largely responsible for this.

I remember in college I had one semester where I only had class on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thuresdays. That meant a 4-day weekend all the time to do other things (homework, party, extra-curricular).

It's easier to manage a homework load when you're not "at school" from 7-3 every day of the week.