I can start with my response to some questions that ChickenTendas asked me:
Before I try to answer your questions, I want to give the caveat that it’s all from my specific experience and you should talk to as many people as possible, especially anyone from the schools you want to apply to, to get the best idea of what you’ll experience.
Class difficulty varies in a ton of ways. If you were really good in a subject in high school you might continue to have a knack for it in college. Some classes, especially electives, can be designed to help lighten the burden on an otherwise intense course load. I found that the hardest classes were the ones I wasn’t interested in and took to please someone else (I was terrible in Marine Biology but I took it because my then-girlfriend was majoring in it). Whatever you do, definitely explore the range of what’s out there, every school has some wild classes that are a blast to take.
Studying is a tough one because it depends on your habits. But the most difficult thing about studying for me was this fundamental difference between college and high school: in high school you learn the material in class and doing the homework helps you nail it down, but in college you do the homework first to learn the material and class time is spent nailing it down. That was really hard for me. Also crucial is that most professors think they are God and that they are the most important teacher you have that semester and so the homework can be crushing, so you have to figure out how to be efficient in your studying, knowing what you need to read and learn yourself and what is being taken care of by your professor and therefore you don’t need to re-read that article or whatever.
I’ve never seen meal-dispensing vending machines, but I’m sure they exist some places. Our dining halls were basically buffets. On Sundays we also had brunch there they put out waffle irons with our school’s logo built in. Since our motto is Veritas, we called them veritaffles. The food is usually great, you’ll hear of something called the freshman 15 because you’ll be loving the food so much you gain 15 pounds.
The freedom is overwhelmingly great! You are basically stepping up to a buffet and are short-circuiting because there are so many options. It’s a real culture shock and you have to take care that you don’t go crazy because of all the freedom.
Some schools and their parties are just like the movies, especially in the Greek (frat) scene or at tailgates. My experiences were a little more tame just because I’m a bit of an introvert and big parties where I don’t know must people intimidate me. But parties run the gamut; there are some big ol’ kegers, there are intimate nights where it’s you and a half dozen friends playing beer pong, and everything in-between. Schools have different attitudes about policing them. In my case, there was a resident grad student who was the point of contact each weekend who you could call if there was a problem or would let you know if you were getting out of hand so that you could enjoy yourself without police involvement. My roommates and I threw a couple of good parties that had a few dozen people hang out and it was fun, usually there were several parties happening throughout the building and folks would come and go. My signature was to buy cases of cheap Andre champagne and people could buy their own bottle at the door and feel like a baller. I also sometimes made skittles infused vodka.
In college you’re considered an adult and responsible for yourself as far as attendance is concerned, but smaller classes with notice your absence and you risk pissing off your professor, but you could skip without needing a note if you had to be elsewhere. You can go wherever you want if you don’t have class, but you might be limited depending on where campus is; Harvard is smack dab in the middle of Cambridge, so I could walk off campus and be in the middle of one city and have easy subway access to Boston. Some colleges are their own thing and there’s nothing to do right outside campus unless you have a car that can take you down the road to the nearest town.
A typical day for me could be: get up/shower etc, get breakfast, go to classes, lunch, classes, work at the library where I earned a little money, dinner, study, hang with friends, study, bed.