If UChicago joins the HYPSM club, why will that mean that the University can no longer be the U of C and will “lose its soul.” Please be specific.
MIT has carved out its own niche in that grouping while remaining MIT to the core. Why can’t UChicago do the exact same thing? Why can’t UChicago be a household name while retaining the intellectual vigor we all appreciate? Why are we afraid of having UChicago be the No. 1 choice for intellectual prep school kids, intellectual farm kids, and intellectual ghetto kids alike?
Exactly, the only difference between UChicago and HYPS is name recognition, if you care about that then fix it if otherwise, no need to worry about it.
Yeah and UChicago was right there with MIT until last year. Basically it acted as if it recognized its niche and its drawing power within that niche and conducted its admissions process accordingly. But if you want to be the school in the US that everyone aspires to, then you can’t market yourself as the school for intellectuals. Because most Americans aren’t – and don’t aspire to be – intellectual. In fact, there’s a pretty strong (and currently quite prominent) tendency toward anti-intellectualism in the US. There’s also a tendency to conflate wealth, power, brains, and ambition when talking about “elite” education. Which makes it easy for people to talk past each other, to think they agree when they don’t actually, and to pursue very different visions of improving a school while using similar rhetoric.
That’s before we get to the facts that so many well-regarded universities in the US are private schools whose relationship to each other is competitive (vs public and hierarchical), that our elementary and secondary school educational systems vary dramatically (based on wealth and location/jurisdiction), and that one of the main tools we use to sort students is also the creation of a for-profit corporation looking to preserve/expand its market and spin-off businesses.
To address TYFYH’s question more directly: (a) UofC is already in that club (CHYMPS) and (b) to the extent it doesn’t believe that it is, the issue of losing its soul comes up wrt what it’s willing to do to join.
Of Course you can. In fact that is what marketing is all about. “We are a school for smart people. We think you are smart (everybody likes to be told they are smart). If you think you are smart, then Apply”. Once they apply, screen for the very best based on the criteria that is important to the school. If that is “intellectual kids” then so be it. Waitlist the others, before gently dinging them, saying “Oh Wow! you are so good, maybe at a different time, we could have admitted you, but this year, Gosh it was such a tough decision” They feel a little sad, but they feel honored to be wait listed at a Top 5 university. They leave happy. Really. I see so many kids say “I never thought, I could get in, but I got wait listed. Must have been close. I feel honored to be wait listed by such an elite school instead of being dinged outright. Maybe I do have potential”
No, there are significant differences between HYPS and UChicago. Academics are more central and more rigorous at Chicago and, historically, admissions has looked for students who are drawn to the school for that reason. It has given its students less control over their education and more control over their lives outside the classroom. It’s a product of the 19th century rather than the 17th or 18th and that means it has had a stronger research focus from the beginning and was never primarily a finishing school/networking hub for the sons of the social elite.
I applaud most of the changes in student life that have enhanced the popularity of the old place. I can even accept the spreading of the word through all that supercharged marketing activity (assuming that what’s being marketed is a true Chicago education). I draw the line at some of the suggestions being made - creating easier courses and inflating gpa’s, recruiting an ever-growing quota of athletes and wealthy frat types, wooing movie stars. If that’s what it takes to join the HYPS club, count the U. of C. out!
This is not to disapprove of Chicago actually getting into the club - as long as it does not do un-Chicago-like things to get there. However, making that the overriding goal (as many here appear to do) is bound to lead to Faustian temptations of the sort described above and is in any event simply trivial and unworthy.
I respectfully disagree. This is just hubris. Yeah. Kids work hard at UChicago. Yes grading may be tougher in some areas, but to say that Academics is more rigorous throughout one University when compared to another, specially when compared to other peer schools is just not true.
That is such an insult to the students at HYPS. There are many first generation, poor kids and URM kids at these schools. There are many accomplished and hardworking kids at these schools. To dismiss these schools as “some country club for the rich” is just not fair.
When you put HYPS in the “country club for the rich” category, then obviously you don’t want Chicago to be like them. But these schools produce awesome research, have brilliant professors, have some great traditions, have great students who have achieved many wonderful things in their lives. If you look at them that way, there is no harm in emulating the good things from these schools while retaining Chicago’s unique flavor.
@ThankyouforHelp - we are delighted with the changes as well, in large part because that kind of support now has very good outcomes. If UChicago wants to mimic the Ivy’s by offering career placement, decent dorms, and an enriching and unforgettably positive college experience to its undergrads - well, then Go For It, UChicago! It needn’t dumb down its curriculum nor its grading system to make those happen. There seem to be enough kids and families out there who are gaga about the school as is to ensure it doesn’t “lose its soul” (or lose it further LOL).
But this worry about losing the soul is a bit overblown. Can anyone really see the college backing down from its free-speech thing last August? Or revising the Core to less than a two-year process? Or NOT piling on the workload? This school marches to it’s own beat and doesn’t mind controversy. Given the current winds blowing through the academic landscape, that level of integrity and independence is quite refreshing and there is definitely a large demand for it. Sure, it made changes in the past but change, when good and necessary, is a positive and bold step in the right direction.
(Just a thought about the Core and the change it went through 20 years ago: it used to take up more than 2 years of your college experience - a bit less if you brought in AP. Not sure about all majors, but many have seen increasing specialization in technical and other types of required knowledge in order to be considered proficient in that subject. Or . . . many kids have increasingly found that bringing a couple of specialty areas - i.e., a double-major - to the job market helps give them an edge in getting hired and promoted. So dropping a mere four courses in order to free up the collegiate schedule to meet these newer demands probably wasn’t just helpful - it might have been necessary to keep one on track to graduate in four years! Did UChicago foresee the trends, or did it just want to make the College more attractive? Probably both - because they are linked.)
One thing to consider about that soul of the university. In the old days, they tended to choose presidents from within the rank and file of the faculty. That changed with Sonnenschein and the next guy, neither of whom lasted more than six or so years. With Zimmer, it was back to an internal promotion. In light of comments that he may soon retire, it’ll be interesting to see who’s next in line. The university has an overwhelming history of preferring its own kind to lead the helm, but could well go outside again.
What you’ve described, dd, is marketing UofC as a “top 5” school – not as an intellectual school. No one will believe Chicago has a monopoly on smart kids and so what makes UofC different from the other four? Heavier workload, more requirements, lower GPAs, and less mainstream name recognition! Not exactly strong selling points within the category.
By contrast, you can do what MIT does and Chicago did. Take those defining features and use them as selling points. If you believe in what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, then stress what makes you different from the rest and why it’s a good thing. MIT promises “people like you who think STEM is fun.” Chicago promises"people like you who think learning is fun (and who don’t want to sacrifice STEM for arts/humanities or vice versa)."
It’s really SH then P then Y for name recognition, Yale needs to up its game before it goes to SHP.
The Bush’s really didn’t help Yale out here, especially G.W.
Chicago has a good chance of displacing Princeton and Yale. It is already ahead of Yale in the Times and Shanghai ranking and ahead of both Yale and Princeton in the CWUR ranking. H and S are going to be very difficult to displace for now.
I think it is realistic to plan and pursue a HSC strategy. Simply being an intellectual school without the financial resources that come with being a “Top 5 school” will doom Chicago.
Consistent positioning and actions as a school that will give you a fantastic education without all the “PC” “free speech killing” nonsense that is going on at the other campuses in a vibrant urban city environment. A school that values “Viewpoint Diversity” because this is the most important kind of Diversity for a top notch educational institution.
MIT manages to be in the top 5 despite being very different than the other 4 schools in the HYPSM group, and it has no trouble retaining its unique identity. UChicago can do the same.
Being in that tiny first tier brings you more than just name recognition. It brings donations that might go to other schools, more applications from strong, qualified students who want the rigorous Chicago experience but are scared off by the lack of name recognition, better career outcomes for those students, etc.
“What makes UofC different from the other four? Heavier workload, more requirements, lower GPAs, and less mainstream name recognition! Not exactly strong selling points within the category.”
Actually, for many students the heavier workload, the intellectualism and the core requirements are all selling points. Getting rid of the mainstream name recognition problem will attract more of those students. Top students think in terms of HYPSM as their ultimate choices, due to history and to social pressure, and (to be honest) legitimate recognition of likely career outcomes. Why not have them automatically think of HYPCSM instead?
You’re trying to steal a base in the argument by characterizing disagreement as fear, ThankYou. That’s a rhetorical strategy which is common enough in the world of politics but which your U. of C. education ought to have taught you is not employed by the best models in non-polemical discourse. It attributes motivations for the positions of those you disagree with, but it doesn’t consitute an argument.
In the case at hand the question is whether the objective we Chicago-lovers (everyone on this board except those NU guys who wandered in a while back) are seeking is membership in the HYPetc club (with all the benefits that brings, as you correctly point out) or some other goal for which the membership thing is desirable but ancillary. Those of us who argue that there is another goal do not fear success, even in the way you define it (membership in the club), we simply do not regard it as the greatest good and goal of an education Chicago-style. Not all desirable things, Aristotle tells us, are the ultimate end for which we act.
@Marlow1 is my Chicago-bound kid going to be quoting Aristotle to me over the next 4 years? As if she doesn’t already think she’s smarter than her mom. Not sure I’m ready for this . . .
