What is college like?

I don't know where you live, but here, in Brazil, it's simple, but not easy.
the biggest difference for me was the freedom. You can go wherever you want, skip the classes, sleep and play video games at academic directory, choose the classes you want to have, and a lot of other cool things.
But there's the responsibility, be aware of your time, your money, when you have paper to deliver and when to enroll on the new semester in college.
you will have the chance of your life to meet people so much different from you, in color, economic class, gender, age, sexual choice, country, story. and being able to handle all this stuff may give you a lot of knowledge of life.
hope you enjoy it, and don't be afraid of not being prepared. everything that's new shows up another side of ourselves. hope you learn with yourself, too!
kisses.

socially? Its different because the student body is huge. There is less bullying and peer pressure because its optional schooling and everyone has the ability to find/build their own group of friends based on common interest. academically it can be summarized as quality over quantity. Yea there are fewer classes (full time is 4 classes) but most of them require more work then an average high school class. If you do a bit of studying before each class and participate in the discussion the professors will like you. But in the end of the day if you didn't do well on a test or do the homework it doesn't matter how much the Prof. likes you because its mostly automated. But if the professor likes you they might let redo work. If you screw up a second time they are not as lenient. the 101 level classes will break you in pretty well. they know you are new to college and they tend to cater to those who are taking 101 levels to knock out their pre-recs. so long as you work hard you will get the hang of it. Oh and read the reviews on rate my professor. Don't pay attention to the numbers but try to find out what people say about them. Going in knowing what to expect helps and often the negative reviews are written by people who didn't do well but kinda deserved it.