The Most GRUELING Colleges (PHOTOS)

What makes a college particularly difficult? Myriad required courses? Impossibly high standards? Necessary IV of caffeine? Decide for yourself -- and weigh in below if you think your college qualifies to be on this list.

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Swarthmore College

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Tiny Swarthmore, a liberal arts college of fewer than 1,500 students outside of Philadelphia, is known for its challenging, highly intellectual curriculum and boasts an Oxford tutorial-inspired honors program. College Prowler outlines the ideal Swarthmore student: "In the broadest sense, someone who is open-minded, ultra-liberal, and possesses a true passion for intellectual stimulation tends to thrive at Swarthmore ... with that being said, Swarthmore at its worst can make you feel claustrophobic, inept, apathetic, and extremely frustrated. You might even be tempted to heave your laptop out of the window of the library at the height of finals week." Sounds fun!

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Tiny Swarthmore, a liberal arts college of fewer than 1,500 students outside of Philadelphia, is known for its challenging, highly intellectual curriculum and boasts an Oxford tutorial-inspired honors program. College Prowler outlines the ideal Swarthmore student: "In the broadest sense, someone who is open-minded, ultra-liberal, and possesses a true passion for intellectual stimulation tends to thrive at Swarthmore ... with that being said, Swarthmore at its worst can make you feel claustrophobic, inept, apathetic, and extremely frustrated. You might even be tempted to heave your laptop out of the window of the library at the height of finals week." Sounds fun!

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Comments

[neucanaan]

02:46 PM on 06/15/2010

When you insert a political agenda, you remove credibility. Morehouse? Give me a break. There's nothing WRONG with Morehouse, but extolling its academic superiority only counts if you qualify it relative to other historically black schools. According to www.blackexcel.org, "SAT's above l000 combined will place you in excellent position" for admission. 1000 is only average, and 69% of applicants are accepted.

[Mondayboy]

01:29 PM on 06/14/2010

I am an alum of MIT but I want my kids to attend Harvey Mudd. Harvey is a great school.

[A dean89]

10:02 AM on 06/10/2010

Can anyone tell me what is the less stressfull Ivy League school and the easiest to get enroll??

[Ari Winkleman]

10:24 PM on 06/01/2010

I would like to see someone be a graphic designer or illustrator and then tell me that cramming twice a year was tough

[vet-of4renwarz]

09:04 AM on 05/28/2010

Naval Academy is on there but not West Point? Comeooonnnn...

[A dean89]

10:00 AM on 06/10/2010

Go Navy, sink the Army sink the Army go.

HaHa, Just kidding.

[DannyGee]

03:30 PM on 05/24/2010

"grueling" and "liberal arts" shouldn't ever be used in the same sentence, unless you are talking about your job prospects after graduation.

[Misty Hoenn]

06:06 PM on 05/28/2010

"liberal arts" does not always mean "majoring in women's studies and spending 3 hours a day tanning on the lawn". Harvey Mudd bills itself as a "liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics," but *every* computer science graduate in the past two classes is either employed or in grad school. The stats are similar for its other departments, but I don't have them memorized. How's that for job prospects?

(You have good reason to hold your opinion with regards to the average liberal arts school though. Pomona is highly rated, but it's on the high graduation rate list for a reason. I've received A's in every class that I've taken there so far. The school's a joke as far as I can tell)

[veritas88]

10:00 PM on 05/23/2010

As a Hopkins 09 grad I must say that I have never heard of rampant or even sporadic Adderall use, or felt Hopkins to be a cutthroat environment (and I was pre-med). Where did this "information" come from? But yes, Hopkins is an academically rigorous school. The professors are extremely tough graders. There are no easy As.

[Courtenay Jones]

06:55 PM on 05/20/2010

i really wish i went to swathmore. souunds like a riot!

[ramper]

10:44 PM on 05/23/2010

Beautiful campus. Rigorous academics. Have known many students. All raved about the school. Never saw a laptop laying on the ground outside the library.

[argus4]

11:46 PM on 05/18/2010

It would have been helpful to know what happens to those who do not graduate. Do they drop out, never to complete an undergraduate education? Do they transfer to other institutions and finish their undergraduate degrees there? Are there other reasons some fail to graduate: death (Virginia Tech, for example), injury, illness, etc.?

But such lists are for diversion, amusement, and lack the seriousness of lists like dictionaries, telephone books, UPS, FedEx, and USPS rates.

Still, they can draw our attention away from the decline in the value of the Euro, increased Taliban activity in Kabul, the ever increasing US debt, the frightening number of children born out of wedlock, the failure of various wars: cancer, drugs, HIV/AIDS, you name it.

And refreshed from those concerns, we can return to considering them and other burning issues, more likely on a personal, not a universal, level, but troubling nonetheless.

[BacSi]

01:36 PM on 05/17/2010

Ha ha ha, US Naval Academy but not West Point?

I think its funny but not accurate. WP is every bit as hard. And without Annapolis near by to give you a brief break.

Not a Grad but the Dad of a Grad and an unofficial house dad to more than a few.

22 semester hours one semester. Including more high level math and other stuff I never came close to taking as a LibArts major. Plus the BS stuff, plus the military stuff, plus being an in-season varsity jock.

Cripe the youngen went days without sleeping at times.

And he was a bleeping PolSci major.

A tough tough tough school.

[robsreports]

03:20 PM on 05/17/2010

As a grad I'd have to agree. I think they should have lumped all the academies into one, but West Point definitely has the lack of access to anything fun...except of course the metropolis of Highland Falls.

[BacSi]

03:33 PM on 05/17/2010

"metropolis of Highland Falls.” "

LOL....I only saw it that one time.

My sons junior year match against Army-----the one time he did not get a star for the game. It made me realize how tough the Cadets had it up there.

Well there is always a longer liberty and NYC I guess.

[vet-of4renwarz]

09:08 AM on 05/28/2010

It's like 2 years of basic training and 2 years of tech school squeeze into a tight schedule...

One of my co-worker taught engineering at West Point...at times even he felt sorry for the kids and he's been through ranger school and Q Course...

[chaya]

01:32 PM on 05/17/2010

An education is as grueling--or not--as the student who seeks it.

[bkrider9]

02:15 PM on 05/17/2010

x2

[Cool-School]

11:41 AM on 05/16/2010

Smaller institutions of higher learning, such as Morehouse, Bates, Elon, Spelman, Harvey-Mudd and many others, seldom receive the national recognition they deserve for upholding high standards of academic excellence.

Listing Morehouse among the “Most Grueling Colleges” in the nation along with the recent Forbes Magazine listing of “10 Great Schools for Networking” serve as acknowledgement of the greatness that is Morehouse. A recognition often unreflected in quantitative rankings.

That said, it is unfortunate if not disturbing that the mere mention of Morehouse as being among the nation's "top" schools gives birth to a discussion of the school's quality and relative worthiness.

While Morehouse need not defend her academic reputation, it is worth noting the success of her recent graduates such as: Eddie Glaude, Princeton professor; Ronald Sullivan, Harvard Law professor; Shaka Rasheed, VP JP Morgan, Paul Q. Judge, MIT award winning engineer; Gordon L. Johnson, II, Lehman Brothers securities analyst; Christopher Jones, Assoc. Dean MIT; Jason Sello, Brown University professor of chemistry; Robert L. Howard, NASA aerospace engineer....

[gclafontaine]

04:09 PM on 05/16/2010

When listing your "accomplished" alumni, I would recommend that you leave anyone at JP Morgan or Lehman Brothers off the list.

[am10]

06:40 PM on 05/17/2010

Elon? Are you sure?

[summer11]

02:30 AM on 05/16/2010

As a swarthmore graduate, I have to say that those 4 years were amazing. I wish I could do it all over again. It was hard work, but it was also stimulating, exciting and an incredible amount of fun. Not for one moment did I ever wish to be anywhere else in the world.

[Trymore MacVivo]

07:50 PM on 05/15/2010

Whoever compiled the list has a sinister agenda. How do you decide on who to put at the top? Including Morehouse on the list, very sinister indeed. And so, the list is, as they say over in London, hogwash!

[gclafontaine]

04:05 PM on 05/16/2010

Sinister?

[theight]

11:04 AM on 05/15/2010

I don't know much about engineering but the pre-law program is crazy at Morehouse. If anyother school in the state of Georgia is more grueling, i wouldn't want to attend. I think your comment is totally based on the fact that its an HBCU. How can you say top ten when you probably haven't attend 10 schools in the state of georgia. My question is, have you taken any courses at Morehouse?

[DannyGee]

03:32 PM on 05/24/2010

Ga Tech for one.