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Haha, I can assure you that nobody's working "night and day" every day to survive at MIT, and I participated in plenty of frivolous banter during my four years there. I mean, MIT's difficult, but there are plenty of hours in the day.
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<p>Well, I guess you're different from the students at MIT whom I talk to. Of course I'm not saying every student at MIT does nothing but work, just that at least quite a few of them work for a large portion of the time and do relatively less socializing. I was also using MIT as an example, of course. I see students at Cal Tech and UC Berkeley like this too, often engineers. And when they chat, it's usually about classes and not about the next great idea in art, literature, politics, the world economy, etc. Maybe my experiences have simply been different from yours.</p>
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Well, I guess you're different from the students at MIT whom I talk to. Of course I'm not saying every student at MIT does nothing but work, just that at least quite a few of them work for a large portion of the time and do relatively less socializing. I was also using MIT as an example, of course. I see students at Cal Tech and UC Berkeley like this too, often engineers. And when they chat, it's usually about classes and not about the next great idea in art, literature, politics, the world economy, etc. Maybe my experiences have simply been different from yours.
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<p>There are people like this at Harvey Mudd. All of us work pretty hard, but there's definitely time for a social life (but some opt to skip the social life and just study more). If people get work done as early as possible in the day, they can have a couple hours to themselves at night. On the weekends plenty of people party, but those who do usually end up doing work saturday afternoon and all day sunday.</p>
<p>This thread has brought up some interesting issues. Thanks for the replies. </p>
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<p>Of the two situations described in replies above, I guess I would describe the first rather than the second as the atmosphere of an "intellectual college" as I partially defined the term by my original questions. It is possible, of course, that other observations might change my impression of each college. </p>
<p>On the issue of liberal arts college students going on to study for Ph.D. degrees, I've always thought that this is only a partially helpful proxy for </p>
<p>a) which colleges are most intellectual in atmosphere (my concern here) </p>
<p>or </p>
<p>b) which colleges provide the best undergraduate education (which is often what this figure is used as a proxy for). </p>
<p>The simple fact is that certain very intellectually demanding jobs are available to young people with only bachelor's-level degrees, but only if those degrees come from the right schools. For example, MIT graduates with only an undergraduate degree can get many consulting, investment bank, or start-up high-tech jobs that are simply not available to most graduates of most liberal arts colleges. If they don't go on to get Ph.D. degrees, it may be because they are intellectually and financially satisfied with what their undergraduate degrees enable them to do. </p>
<p>My dad graduated from an LAC that so far has not been mentioned in this thread, but which I think ranks reasonably high by the production-of-Ph.D. criterion or by the bull-session-in-the-hallway criterion. I would not assume that his lack of pursuit of a Ph.D. related so much to not being ready to go on for a Ph.D. as it did to being able to find a good job after he finished his Army service without needing to go on for another degree. He demonstrated his intellectual interests as I was growing up by buying and reading books on philosophy of science, which was not what his occupational field was (that was industrial engineering, after a chemistry degree as an undergrad) but just something he became interested in during college. </p>
<p>Does that help in defining my inquiry? Of course all the rest of you can debate on any issue you like in this thread--it's a free country.</p>
<p>Of the colleges we have been researching, Swarthmore and U of Chicago seem to have the most of "students wanting to learn and learn and learn" with an edge to Swarthmore. </p>
<p>(We have NOT been researching Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia or MIT, so I don't know how the environments there compare.)</p>
<p>My list of intellectual colleges would be:
U Chicago
Swarthmore
Reed
St. John's
Bryn Mawr
Brandeis (mix of intellectual with pre-professional)</p>
<p>I would characterize Sarah Lawrence, Hampshire as more arty-quirky than purely intellectual. Bard somewhere between these two categories. Also Oberlin closer to the intellectual list.</p>
<p>Would also agree with Carleton, Macalaster, Claremont M. as intellectual. MIT intellectual towards the geeky end of the spectrum. Ivies all inlcude intellectual types as well as others not so intellectual. Same true for Wellesley, Smith, Barnard, Mount Holyoke.</p>
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This thread has brought up some interesting issues. Thanks for the replies.
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Originally Posted by tokenadult
At what colleges do students try experiments, read books, or write papers that aren't even assigned by their teachers?
Quote:
Originally Posted by molliebatmit
There's definitely quite a bit of independent non-school-related work done at MIT. I think the dorm culture fosters this -- you live with your friends, so you sit in the hallway and banter and throw ideas around with them until all hours of the night.
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Originally Posted by sac
As for what books students there read for fun, I get the impression there is not a lot of time for extra-curricular reading, except on breaks. They work hard and tend to load themselves up on classes.
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Of the two situations described in replies above, I guess I would describe the first rather than the second as the atmosphere of an "intellectual college" as I partially defined the term by my original questions. It is possible, of course, that other observations might change my impression of each college.
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<p>I understand your distinction, but I'm not sure that I agree with it. A campus culture that includes loading up on more classes than are required to me signifies a culture that attracts students who like to challenge themselves intellectually. In fact, when my S chose Columbia, he listed as one of the reasons that students there took more classes than the other colleges he was considering, and seemed more intellectually engaged. He has challenged himself by taking classes as a sophomore and junior that include a significant number of grad students, an experience not available at an LAC. I'm not saying an LAC doesn't have other advantages, just that there are varying definitions of intellectual challenge.</p>
<p>I do believe, however, that NYC tends to compete with those late-night intellectual bull sessions that take place at more isolated colleges. On the other hand, a Saturday afternoon at the Met might meet someone's definition of an intellectual experience. Anyway, it's an interesting discussion.</p>
<p>Thanks Gellino. But really now, redcrimblewhatever, why the hostility -- and the spelling corrections? Of course UC Berkeley is at the top of the list (for schools with graduate programs)! Go Bears.</p>
<p>As the longest-lived, "hist and lit," as it's informally known, still has immense cache. For one, it's among the few concentrations - once called "honors concentrations" - that require a thesis. (The others: Folklore and Mythology; History and Science; Literature; Social Studies; and Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality.). And its rigor is well known. It requires oral exams in both sophomore and senior years, proficiency in reading foreign-language literature, and a three-year series of tutorials. </p>
<p>At least while you’re at Harvard you’ll be a hotshot, though—the department is all about academia, meaning that your professors will take you and any harebrained idea you have seriously. They’ll also throw their backs out to help you win money for research, recognize you for your accomplishments, and pull you out of Widener’s gutter when you become overwhelmed (you will). But Hist and Lit giveth and it taketh: jettisoning schoolwork for extracurricular commitments or a hot date will fly about as well as a hardback copy of Swann’s Way. </p>
<p>History and Literature is a program that is truly unique to Harvard, and is arguably the most personalized, student-oriented program here. There are no graduate students in Hist and Lit, which means the focus rests completely on the academic development of its undergraduates. It’s certainly not the easiest track at Harvard, but it is widely considered one of the finest. </p>
<p>A century later, Hist & Lit is still honors-only: every one of its concentrators completes a tutorial every year, each of them still endures an oral exam before graduating, and they all write a thesis. They may communicate the name of their concentration with fewer syllables, but today’s students are as elite as the alumni who came before them.</p>
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These</a> raw numbers don't address the "Intellectual Colleges?" question well; the size of the schools must be considered in order to use future PhD numbers as a measure of the (average) intellectual level.</p>
<p>By raw numbers, the top ten on page 34 (Total All Disciplines 1986-1995) are:</p>
<p>Oberlin 959
Carleton 639
Swarthmore 619
Smith 545
Wesleyan 543
Wellesley 542
St. Olaf 506
Barnard 491
Wheaton 464
Reed 461</p>
<p>But when normalized for current undergraduate student body size (clearly not an optimal measure, but available) it becomes:</p>
<p>This list is just for LACs, as defined by HEDS, so it doesn't include other future PhD leaders like CalTech, MIT, Harvey Mudd, U Chicago, Bryn Mawr.</p>
<p>I wasn't trying to say that it was necessarily proof of intellectualism, although I think the numbers do give a good flavor of the student body; merely trying to defend a refuted claim. I think later pages of that link (maybe ~ pp.75-80) have the same info for those other schools you mentioned.</p>
<p>You could also deduct 500-600 students from the Oberlin total for the Conservatory students, who enter under different criteria. But that is not to say that it is "more intellectual" than Swarthmore, say, in any real sense.</p>
<p>At Reed University all they do is smoke pot and intellectually talk about the world. But trust me, you want intellectuality (is that a word?) Reed is the place to be.</p>
<p>It seems to be that here there is a disconnect between the notion of “intellectual colleges" and colleges that attract the ubiquitous self-styled “intellectuals”--that is to say, fashionably opinionated bores.</p>
<p>Intellectually rigorous colleges for me:
Princeton
Columbia
Oxbridge
+ others like them </p>
<p>And in a different sort of brainy way:
MIT
Cal tech
+ others like them</p>
<p>I would also have said Chicago but for the caveat emptor noted above. It is certainly an academically rigorous school with a scholastic bent, as Columbia.</p>
<p>As for the ubiquitous “intellectual’s” colleges: pass the ear plugs.</p>
<p>The original post began: "Supposing a student was looking for a college with lots of intellectually curious students (not necessarily students with high grades, or with high test scores)."
None of Ivy League schools or top public schools (UC Berkeley, UCLA) fit that bill with regard to selectivity -- you need top grades and scores unless you are an athelete. But some of the other schools mentioned do -- accepting a higher percentage of applicants; some also offer merit scholarships as well as need-based aid.</p>
<p>I have to agree that just because you are at an ivy league doesn't mean you are an intellectual. Many of those people are really good at getting A's, for a variety of reasons, hard work, good memory, etc. But they aren't necessarily good thinkers, or people who enjoy thinking. I am at an alternative school not because I couldn't have gotten in to a more highly ranked traditional school, but because I also was looking for an intellectual atmosphere. I second the alternatives as very intellectual (and they do all have very high rates of PhD's) Hampshire, Bennington, Bard, Oberlin, Reed, etc.</p>