<p>Do we love our school at all? Do we see it as our fatherland?</p>
<p>SCO- I wasn't able to see your link.</p>
<p>I, for one, have lots of pride in my school, and I don't think I'm alone. However, I'm not the kind of person to show my pride directly, so it could be a hard thing for somebody else to measure.</p>
<p>For example, I'm not into the "Rah rah rah look at where were are ranked, how many students we are rejecting every year as opposed to how many nobel prize winners we can claim connections to!" way but in a quieter, "Wow, this place is really great for me," way. I love my school, I love that it's challenging, I love the people I run into: charming, geeky, irreverent, or a combination of the three; I dislike that there are twice as many people who want to come and don't even get in than there are students who are awarded admission letters. And even then, some of those kids can't come.</p>
<p>I tend to measure school pride by clothing apparel. I see a lot of t-shirts and sweatshirts, but official ("The University of Chicago" in varying graphics) and unofficial ("Where fun comes to die," "If I wanted an A, I would have gone to Harvard," etc.) those are snarky and less direct, but if people didn't like our school, or didn't feel the need to poke fun of their being here, why else would they shell out the money for a t-shirt?</p>
<p>My general impression as well is that students don't just end up here by accident, but that they choose the school consciously, with some knowledge that it doesn't have Division I sports and a frat row that's longer than the Vegas Strip. A student who is admitted to Chicago certainly has a choice between Chicago and other great schools, many of which are not as academically intense and many of which have more pride. If that's important to the high school student, they'll choose another school. If being prideful isn't really their thing, but they like other things about our school, they'll choose us. So I feel like students, more than not being given a reason to be prideful, are self-selecting towards a group of students that don't really care about being rah-rah.</p>
<p>A good example of this would be our spike in the USNWR rating, from 14th to 9th. I've only heard students talk about to the extent that they fear the higher rank will dilute the nature of our school by encouraging more applicants to apply solely based on the higher rank. I've never heard students say, "Oooh, look at all the schools we 'beat!'"</p>
<p>Oh, weird. I was actually trying to post the list of all of your posts as an example of school pride. The link should be <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=10295007;%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=10295007;</a> it isn't really necessary now...</p>
<p>pride is really a relative term. My child is very proud to be at the University of Chicago because it is where she has always wanted to be. She couldn't care less what other people think about it or who else is going there. She thinks that she is getting a great education, has wonderful extracurricular opportunities at the school, and has made many wonderful friends. In short, the school is a great fit and she is happy to be there. People who go there, as has often been stated, know what they want and know what Chicago is about. They don't go there because everyone in the world has heard about it and its reputation. They often don't care. They don't go there for spectacular partying or great and well known sports. That doesn't mean that there aren't parties and fun or all sorts of sports and leagues. My child is proud to be challenged, is happy to be stimulated by the students around her and the knowledge of the faculty. She has gone on tours with the choirs she is in, has sung with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has had special nights at major City museums, eats at great ethnic restaurants, sees amazing films at Doc films, goes to on campus concerts and plays regularly, etc. In short, she is proud of herself to be able to develop in a way that very few institutions would allow her to do. She will tell you that the school is not for everyone and that she works very hard and long hours, but that doesn't mean that she and other people are not proud of the U of Chicago. They just don't care about social climbing or name brand status ( Even though in the professional and educational world Chicago really does have that status).</p>
<p>Funny thread title. Unalove's posts are a great testament to her regard for the college. If you want to confirm that Chicago students do, indeed, have some self-pride, I recommend checking out posts by current student "Cesare Borgia". (Actually, it ought to be enough to know that there is a current student who uses the screen name "Cesare Borgia".)</p>
<p>Self-pride is not in critically short supply in Hyde Park.</p>
<p>I'd actually say that Cesare Borgia has the least self-pride out of any of us here. But out of the people I've met, pretty much everyone here is proud to be a student of the University of Chicago (and at times flaunt the fact without restraint).</p>
<p>(I was playing off the difference between "proud of being a University of Chicago student" self-pride and "proud of oneself" self-pride. It was a joke.)</p>
<p>Ah, I see. In that case, you're absolutely correct. :)</p>
<p>And that's "so Chicago."</p>
<p>I don't even go to U-Chicago (yet?), and I already feel a tremendous sense of pride for the institution.</p>
<p>TheRisenLilith, that's a medically diagnosable disease named LookedatUSNWRRAnkingsitis</p>
<p>Thanks for all the flattery :-) I'm not a one-person pridemobile, though, promise. I was actually thinking about this thread in class today as I looked around at my classmates and thought to myself, "Yep, they're definitely happy to be here."</p>
<p>I wish Ted O'Neill's convocation address to the class of 2010 was online; I want to quote from it very badly and I don't want to botch the quote, but it's quite fitting to this conversation. Scav hunt points to anybody who can find evidence of this speech on the internet! (It has to be the speech to 2010, though).</p>
<p>It's really, really hard sometimes to feel proud of being part of the same student body as, well, most UChicago students. The whole "We're so nerdy and quirky, awesome!" thing starts to break down when the kids at your house table won't shut up about internet memes, or the dude in your Sosc class who wears wolf t-shirts references Aristotle in every single freaking discussion. </p>
<p>But to be studying at one of the top research universities in the world? Yes, most people are very proud that they made it here. It's difficult not to be.</p>
<p>The wolf t-shirt line was classic. My section put up with a gay bashing gay on the revolving door of homosexuality, as well as a hipster who would constantly rush in late, making a huge amount of noise while whipping out every piece of classroom paraphernalia possible, and then promptly fall asleep.</p>
<p>Do wolf shirt/neck beard sophist types show up less in humanities and philosophy classes past the Core?</p>
<p>Since there are no A's for effort at UChicago, people who make intellectual asses of themselves in Hum / Sosc tend to find it difficult to attain even B's in higher level humanities courses (where you are graded heavily on the caliber of your classroom commentary). They tend to track heavily into majors where communications skills are presumed to be zero like computer science or math, or into obscure subjects where departments are so desperate for undergraduate students to justify their funding that they could care less that the person is functionally retarded (dead language programs, period studies). However, the real odd balls tend to be the ones that disappear after a few years and never graduate, or dont disappear but still never graduate (7th year, super seniors cubed).</p>
<p>I saw this thread title and laughed.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Do wolf shirt/neck beard sophist types show up less in humanities and philosophy classes past the Core?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>of course they do, they are like half the student body</p>
<p>they don't come out to the parties, though :)</p>
<p>edit: just so you don't get the wrong idea, i have plenty of kick-ass people in my classes that offset the wolf-shirters</p>