Surely if students feel the high school chemistry and physics is easy and the college classes are too hard, that's the fault of the high school level instruction being too easy and "fun" oriented as opposed to the college classes having somehow leapt into being too difficult.

On the other hand, we (as in, American society) really haven't discovered how to teach math and science in a way which will scoop up the students who aren't immediately capable in those subjects, and as a result we leave a lot of people behind when it comes to educating in those subjects.

I suspect it's something between the two -- high school has dumbed down its curriculum in order to help students succeed and graduate on time, while failing to actually educate them to the level where they are prepared to be able to keep up (or even approach the subject matter) in college level courses.

Also, is it that surprising that studying at a selective school is more difficult than at a less selective school? 13% seems like a pretty low number of failures when it comes to the intense level of selection which takes place at these more intense institutions. I wonder what the non-completion rate is when you compare music majors at Julliard to a state college music program.

The original t-shirts all said "Frankie Say", never "Frankie Says". Frankie Say Relax. Frankie Say Arm The Unemployed. Frankie Say War No More.

"Frankie Says" came in years later when copy-cats decided to try to make a buck on something they didn't actually design in the first place.