[POLL] What is the hardest university?

[ktan09]

I constantly hear my friends say that they're flushed with work all the time, but which university gives the most work? Where would you say you have to work the hardest just to keep up?

edit: Generalizing of course, I understand some programs are harder than others, but given the schools reputation for their difficulty.

[simplicitygirl]

I'd imagine all universities would require you to work (and fight) hard for your marks.

[Sazafraz]

lol....

You have to specify which program, some schools are good in some, give a lot of work, but for their less known programs, they give less than another university.

[B0000rt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technology

[Jay Hova]

I'm doing ECE at Ryerson, sure is hard work man. I can only get drunk and party four times a week now! Oh, by ECE I meant Early Childhood Education.

[ah_long]

the poll is useless, most of us have probably only attended 1 university..

besides.. course difficulty would differ by content, instructor, program, and your level.. this poll is useless...

[nx6288]

i think engineering at any school should be one of the hardest programs

[omchow]

I'm doing ECE at Ryerson, sure is hard work man. I can only get drunk and party four times a week now! Oh, by ECE I meant Early Childhood Education.

For a second I though you went ECE = Electrical Computer Engineering

And it depends on the program you are doing as well.
No doubt Engineering is the hardest program in any university with life science or around thought as the next hardest.

I personally think U of T. St. George Campus is probably the hardest generally for all programs .. well thats my opinion.

[VorteC]

If you're refering to UTSG for their Life Science and Engineering programs, they're not as hard as people make them out to be. I didn't even know this until recently but Waterloo's Life Sci program seems to be better than UTSG's. My GF is taking biochem in Waterloo and she's taking 1st year courses that UT students would take in 2nd year. I think it's because Waterloo specializes in 1st year rather than UT's 2nd. Oh yeah, she has 9 exams. It's rape.

[BlueHurley]

I love how its only ontario universities.

[adamtheman]

I love how its only ontario universities.

There's universities outside Ontario?

[rfdrfd]

U of T.

The most famous names are the hardest. They do that on purpose, so their name will be "respectable". Like MIT, Harvard.

I did Sciences at U of T. Try BIO150..... my class size was 1600 students. ALL in ONE class (Convo hall). Talk about competition.

In one of my course, Test 2 had an average of B+, which is too high for their taste, so they Bell Curved everyone DOWN !!


Did you know we had to BALLOT for our next years' classes ?

They look at your grade in the class now, then they rank everyone, and cut off. Because the next year's class does not have enough room for everyone. eg. Human anatomy

Those who got cut off, have to take 2 other related half courses to make up for it. Like Animal physiology + something else.

And if you forget to send in a ballot, too bad, you are CUT OFF.


Trininty college at U of T, if your GPA falls below a certain point, they also kick you out of the college.

[peeb]

U of T.

The most famous names are the hardest. They do that on purpose, so their name will be "respectable". Like MIT, Harvard.


Uhh, ivy league US schools are known for their rampant grade inflation... especially Harvard.

[Sylvestre]

There's universities outside Ontario?

There's places in Canada outside Ontario? :razz:

[sexpuppet6000]

I doubt anybody has attended more than a few (at most) of the universities listed, thus making the entire poll, void and irrelevant since it would be based purely on heresy.

[sexpuppet6000]

Uhh, ivy league US schools are known for their rampant grade inflation... especially Harvard.

University of Hong Kong?

[VorteC]

U of T.

The most famous names are the hardest. They do that on purpose, so their name will be "respectable". Like MIT, Harvard.


I have friends who goto Harvard and Berkeleys for Engineering. They have 3 courses, and 1 pass-fail course.. which is alot easier than ours. They told me that their undergrad programs are easier than the Waterloo/UT undergrad programs...

[spudlauncher]

And this poll is completely useless as it is all biased for the most part, and would require a third party to determine which ones are "harder", and even then there'd still be a bias.

[tabiji]

If you're refering to UTSG for their Life Science and Engineering programs, they're not as hard as people make them out to be. I didn't even know this until recently but Waterloo's Life Sci program seems to be better than UTSG's. My GF is taking biochem in Waterloo and she's taking 1st year courses that UT students would take in 2nd year. I think it's because Waterloo specializes in 1st year rather than UT's 2nd. Oh yeah, she has 9 exams. It's rape.

That's because Waterloo and UofT have different admission requirements. :!:

[omchow]

U of T.

The most famous names are the hardest. They do that on purpose, so their name will be "respectable". Like MIT, Harvard.

I did Sciences at U of T. Try BIO150..... my class size was 1600 students. ALL in ONE class (Convo hall). Talk about competition.

In one of my course, Test 2 had an average of B+, which is too high for their taste, so they Bell Curved everyone DOWN !!


Did you know we had to BALLOT for our next years' classes ?

They look at your grade in the class now, then they rank everyone, and cut off. Because the next year's class does not have enough room for everyone. eg. Human anatomy

Those who got cut off, have to take 2 other related half courses to make up for it. Like Animal physiology + something else.

And if you forget to send in a ballot, too bad, you are CUT OFF.


Trininty college at U of T, if your GPA falls below a certain point, they also kick you out of the college.

Thats so whack, I don't even know if other universities do this kinda of thing. A lot of students used to apply and go to U of T St. George for the name, now most of my younger friends and cousins avoid it to avoid the educational rape!

[I am XeNo]

A Mod needs to close this topic. It is impossible to rate which is the hardest university unless you've attended them all... which I doubt anyone here has.

Everyone thinks there university is the hardest. Im in 3rd year engineering at waterloo, and I can tell you its damn hard, but I have no idea if its harder at UofT or Queens or etc.

[kheavan]

And U of T wins by a LANDSLIDE.

Why is no one surprised.

[BlueHurley]

Why is Ryerson on there but other Ontario universities aren't lmao.

[tabiji]

A Mod needs to close this topic. It is impossible to rate which is the hardest university unless you've attended them all... which I doubt anyone here has.

Everyone thinks there university is the hardest. Im in 3rd year engineering at waterloo, and I can tell you its damn hard, but I have no idea if its harder at UofT or Queens or etc.

You can do research by looking at websites, lecture notes, syllabus, etc.

[nalababe]

It is not that simple...

Most comments here will also be only anecdotal. I know that I was getting a number Masters interviews at U of T with an upper second class degree from Queen's, but was not getting the same opportunities at Queen's. Does that mean U of T is easier? That wouldn't be fair to say.

What you can say is that some universities have lower entrance standards in general. U of T is lower than Queens for example, Ryerson lower than U of T...so maybe more people will find U of T harder for example if the program is comparable to Queen's or McGill...but again, this really is useless.

U of T, Queen's, McGill...there is little if any difference when it comes to difficulty as a whole.

[tabiji]

U of T, Queen's, McGill...there is little if any difference when it comes to difficulty as a whole.


McGill isn't on the list. :twisted:

[BlueHurley]

Queens is on the list

[omchow]

There's places in Canada outside Ontario? :razz:

Ya man definitely, we're only exposed to Ontario Universities on RFD :cheesygri

[omchow]

Queen's and McGill aren't on the list. :twisted:

Dude...Queen's is on the list but not McGill.

[tennis_ballz]

university of waterloo engineering program
no doubt
its the hardest thing ever

[I am XeNo]

You can do research by looking at websites, lecture notes, syllabus, etc.

Please enlighten me on how I could obtain lecture notes for every university listed for a third year engineering program. Most, if not all, of those university's have there notes on password protected websites. Furthermore, how do lecture notes count as a basis for how hard a university is lmao? You could probably have a base for comparison off of final exams, but even then, it really depends on how well your prof tought you the material and how similar it was to what you were tested on.

[tabiji]

Please enlighten me on how I could obtain lecture notes for every university listed for a third year engineering program. Most, if not all, of those university's have there notes on password protected websites. Furthermore, how do lecture notes count as a basis for how hard a university is lmao? You could probably have a base for comparison off of final exams, but even then, it really depends on how well your prof tought you the material and how similar it was to what you were tested on.

So you don't think that different textbooks or notes, articles, whatever effect your learning?

[Aznsilvrboy]

So you don't think that different textbooks or notes, articles, whatever effect your learning?

That's not what you proposed. Your statements implied that you can determine the difficulty of a university by simply looking at their course material.

[penquinbum]

U of T.

The most famous names are the hardest. They do that on purpose, so their name will be "respectable". Like MIT, Harvard.

I did Sciences at U of T. Try BIO150..... my class size was 1600 students. ALL in ONE class (Convo hall). Talk about competition.

In one of my course, Test 2 had an average of B+, which is too high for their taste, so they Bell Curved everyone DOWN !!


Did you know we had to BALLOT for our next years' classes ?

They look at your grade in the class now, then they rank everyone, and cut off. Because the next year's class does not have enough room for everyone. eg. Human anatomy

Those who got cut off, have to take 2 other related half courses to make up for it. Like Animal physiology + something else.

And if you forget to send in a ballot, too bad, you are CUT OFF.


Trininty college at U of T, if your GPA falls below a certain point, they also kick you out of the college.

It ain't necessarily so about the name colleges. I did my Bachelors degree (AB) in Math. at Harvard. I wouldn't say it was any harder than anywhere else. In fact several of my optional courses were birds. At Harvard, if you can get in, you'll also probably graduate. Many of my courses were equivalent to what friends were taking at U of T and also compared well with what one buddy was taking at Carleton! :D:lol:

[Rishi]

It is not that simple...

Most comments here will also be only anecdotal. I know that I was getting a number Masters interviews at U of T with an upper second class degree from Queen's, but was not getting the same opportunities at Queen's. Does that mean U of T is easier? That wouldn't be fair to say.

What you can say is that some universities have lower entrance standards in general. U of T is lower than Queens for example, Ryerson lower than U of T...so maybe more people will find U of T harder for example if the program is comparable to Queen's or McGill...but again, this really is useless.

U of T, Queen's, McGill...there is little if any difference when it comes to difficulty as a whole.
I agree. Except for a handful of flagship programs, I don't think there is much difference between top-tier schools. I define "top-tier" schools as places that many people who have free choice of universities pick as their first choice. These include, but are not limited to, Waterloo, UT, Queen's, Mac, and Western (listing Ontario schools only).

Party schools (not going to name any so I don't get flamed but we all know what these are) are another matter entirely are they attract mediocre students, making it much easier to come out on top of the grade distribution.

[shannn]

I think right now, York is the hardest university...I mean, it's impossible to pass as of now (considering we don't have school b/c of that strike...) :lol:

But in all seriousness, it depends on the program. Different universities have different programs that differ in difficulty (if you look at it in terms of attrition)

From personal experience and accounts from friends, I don't think you can get much harder than engineering at U of T...the attrition rate for some of the engineering programs is disgusting...same goes for Life Sci at U of T, but it is a bit more manageable b/c of electives

McGill is pretty killer as well.

[tabiji]

That's not what you proposed. Your statements implied that you can determine the difficulty of a university by simply looking at their course material.

I never said "simply looking at their course material." It's possible to get information about courses at different universities but it's not physically possible, etc. to attend every univesity's lectures. I said you can do some research and make some comparisions using whatever you can find. When I was applying for universities I asked for guidebooks and calendars. I got information on programes, courses, etc. Some guidebooks and calendars were better than the others. There are so many things can affect your performance as a student.

[CanadaBoy]

McMaster

[kasianman]

I've been enrolled in UofT science program for 4 years.
I'm currently in Ryerson nursing.
So far, the first semester was much easier (imo) than my 1st year & 1st semester at UofT.