<p>Sure, but I will let you comment about that since you seem to know more about Amherst.</p>
<p>I think people can find intellectual atmospheres everywhere, even at Williams.</p>
<p>is that smoke? because i smell a BURN OHHHHHHH SNAP.</p>
<p>Nobody ever mentions any public schools in their list. Is that because public schools really don't care about intellectualism or is it just a stereotype?</p>
<p>I usually use the lists of percentages of students who go on to seek PhD's as an informal measure of intellectualism. No public schools have made the top 50. This list is a little outdated, though-- maybe in a few years New College of Florida will make a showing:</p>
<p>At the same time, I think a lot of public schools are excellent schools.</p>
<p>^^ I think that's a pretty weak measure. Schools that are pretty small are the ones that are able to send off a large percentage of PhDs, simply because of their sheer size. And look: Caltech produces 2x the % PhDs than MIT -- does that mean it's twice as intellectual? I don't think so.</p>
<p>Dang, Reed is way up on that list! Why is Reed not ranked in the top 50 LACs by USNWR? Is it really just because they are boycotting the ranking? Has Reed ever been in the top 50?</p>
<p>If you were to judge Reed based on the reputation it seems to have on CC, it would be in the top 20.</p>
<p>How does Reed College </p>
<p>compare by way of test-score stats with the other colleges we are talking about here?</p>
<p>Eddyx77: IIRC, before they started boycotting, Reed was always in at least the top 20 (at lowest top 25) of LACs (and sometimes in the top 15, I think. I don't think it ever made it to top 10, though). But yeah, boycotting really does seem to be the main reason they are ranked so low.</p>
<p>Reed has a very strong standardized test showing, but I also believe they are SAT optional if the applicant meets a few thresholds.</p>
<p>Kyledavid-- I'm using the PhD list as a beginning source, but not an end source. To be fair, large public schools (like <em>Berkeley</em>) have many, many, many students in many many many different fields of study. Haas kids and Ross kids are NOT the ones going on to get PhDs, and yet they dilute the percentage of students who are.</p>
<p>Somebody who is "intellectual" will definitely find his or her own at a large state school (one of my favorite writers, Joan Didion, is a Berkeley grad), yet a poster who specifically asks for "intellectual" schools is probably looking for a different fit from a large state school.</p>
<p>^^^^ Nonsense. I am amazed how some people always manage to find correlations for whatever they try to justify. Not even worth discussing.</p>
<p>unalove, PhDis not a synonym of Intellectual. </p>
<p>INTELLECTUAL: relating to or involving the mental processes of abstract thinking and reasoning rather than the emotions.
-having a highly developed ability to think, reason and understand, especially in combination with wide knowledge
-intended for, appealing to or done by intelligent people.</p>
<p>Let's stick to the OP intended purpose and spare us your absurd analogies, please</p>
<p><a href="like%20*Berkeley*">quote</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>=)</p>
<p>On that note, I don't think 'large state school' and 'intellectual' are mutually exclusive. While obviously one can find an intellectual niche at any college, I think some publics can be deemed overall 'intellectual.' Berkeley, for example, has somewhat a reputation for this (if you check out the 'post your state college reputations' thread, you'll see many know Berkeley as the school where the really smart/opinionated/liberal/political-thinking students go).</p>
<p>I do think, though, that PhDs can be part of the measure, simply not the best indicator by itself. I would consider many of the schools on that list 'intellectual,' though I'd add that the list doesn't cover all. And some of them get lower scores because they're larger; e.g. Stanford, while sending off a large percentage of students who get PhDs (at least enough to get on that list), is large and will thus have a lower percentage. I wouldn't consider it any less 'intellectual' than, say, #1 on the list.</p>
<p>
[quote]
PhD is not a synonym of Intellectual.
[/quote]
But earning a PhD is accepted proof of being intellectual. Schools which produce a high percentage of future PhD earners show a statistical correlation to "being" intellectual.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How does Reed College
<a href="http://collegesearch.collegeboard.co...28&profileId=6%5B/url%5D">http://collegesearch.collegeboard.co...28&profileId=6</a>
compare by way of test-score stats with the other colleges we are talking about here?
[/quote]
Being intellectual has more to do with attitude (though some level of aptitude is required, the more the better). That's why schools that produce a high percentage of future PhD earners are considered at least somewhat self-selecting. Princeton and Yale are two exceptions, requiring high stats and prodigiously producing future PhDs.</p>
<p>MovieBuff, think about what earning a PhD means.</p>
<p>It means extending your study at school another 5-10 years and working in what can essentially be solitary confinement to produce a book-length dissertation on a subject that interests you, and teaching classes and doing other things in the interim. If you're very very very very lucky, you'll get a tenure-track spot at a university nobody has ever heard of, doing research and teaching classes and getting pebbles for pay. Otherwise, you have to go and find a job for yourself.**</p>
<p>There are so many sacrifices that one makes for the PhD (personal, social, family, money, etc.) that one cannot do it unless one is absolutely devoted to learning and research. This is not to say that students who DON'T get PhDs AREN'T intellectual, but students who DO get PhD's certainly ARE.</p>
<p>** The science PhD's are the most marketable, I believe, and that's why I think they make up more than half of the students from each school. Some humanities PhD's that I know have an easy time entering the business world from, say, medieval studies.</p>
<p>Ph.D. production statistics are probably skewed to favor colleges that admit wealthier rather than poorer students. Many state flagship university graduates of limited means might be very intellectual in orientation, but unable financially to spend as many years going to school as it takes to gain a Ph.D., especially in a humanities discipline. For the OP, who is looking for an intellectual atmosphere during undergraduate study, there is still much to be said for studying at a major research university.</p>
<p>Having earned a PhD and knowing many others who have I can confidently state that the PhD's I know are NOT more intellectual than other friends. Instead, we have mastered the basic knowledge base or research methodology of one discipline. In the main, they are intelligent, but I can't even confirm that for everyone. </p>
<p>In fact, my mentor, who had shepherded many PhD', told me that of her students she had taught only two true intellectuals in 25 years of teaching. I was incredibly honored to be considered one of them. I am the "go to girl" in my academic department for all things not related to our discipline because I am omivorous about ideas and knowledge. </p>
<p>For most people, a PhD is just another brand of vocational degree, like MD, LLD. </p>
<p>Posters have provided a good list of schools with an intellectual atmosphere. However, any good institution will have a group to share thoughts with. The differences in schools is more a question of style than substance. For instance, although Swarthmore is noted a the most "intellectual", my kids felt its knee-jerk PCness (is that a word?) made it less truly intellectual. They are leftists, but they are cynical leftists. My D doesn't find anyone but NY'ers truly intellectual (her bias, not mine). My apologies to Swarthmore; this is the conclusion of young people, and I offer it not to dis Swarthmore, which most certainly IS an intellectual institution, but to show the flaws in the context of the question.</p>
<p>Tokenadult is right as usual. </p>
<p>Therefore, we come back to the two pillars of the college selection process: fit and affordability. There are no shortcuts here. Find the school that matches your needs in these areas.</p>
<p>eddyx77- William & Mary is prob the most "intellectual" public school. This is mostly due to its small size (5500 undergrads), residential dorms, and history/culture.</p>
<p>Agree with tokenadult and mythmom.
I think many schools refer to themselves as "intellectual" when they really have pretty smart kids with poor social skills. I've studied and now work at the University of Chicago and put it in that category along with many others that have been mentioned on this thread. And I've steered my kids away from them -actually, they didn't need to be steered! They had enough first hand experience growing up in Hyde Park!
I don't respect Swarthmore kids' intellect more than Williams kids, or Dartmouth kids' less than Chicago kids.</p>
<p>First-- interesting commentary from mythmom, tokenadult, et. al. I guess I was just projecting my own image of what studying for a PhD is like (in other words, UChicago on massive steroids).</p>
<p>And danas, you're the one with more expertise, but I don't think Chicago is as heavy-handed intellectual as it once was. It probably still turns a lot of people off. The 38% acceptance rate is pretty telling.</p>
<p>Some other ways to tell if a school is "intellectual":
-- What sorts of campus publications are there, and what are they geared towards? For Chicago, both <em>Gordian Knot</em> and _ The Midway Review_ are academic/culture magazines.
-- Coffee shops? Book stores? Independent CD stores? Where are they? Or are there any? (Major shout-outs to UC Berkeley and Amherst on this one, and demerits to Cornell).
-- Where do students go for cultural/art events? What sorts of events are there, and how often are they? Who comes to campus? How many people attend special events?
-- How are the school's classics/comparative literature/philosophy/etc. programs?
-- How many books are there in a typical dorm room that are not course reading? Bonus points if you think a book is for a course and it's not.</p>