<p>IMO the Brown no core style INCREASES 'intellectuality' rather than decreases. People who are learning for the sake of learning shot more intellectual vitality than those who are only fulfilling requirements.</p>
<p>i just wanted to say that i really like this thread. good job OP</p>
<p>it seems to me, from my very ignorant and naive point of view that the more selective under-the-radar LAC's would have th more philosophy type of intellectuals while the ivies, uchicago etc would have the more pre-professionals and such.</p>
<p>thats just what it seems like to me.</p>
<p>obviously. there are many exceptions.</p>
<p>Weskid, while I see your point, and don't necessarily disagree with you, I can see it very easily going the other way around.
Brown must be the most popular elite school. I mean, if your parents told you they were buying you into a school, you'd think of Brown if you were a stereotypical rich kid</p>
<p>Bump... I like this thread. Anyone else have any ideas?</p>
<p>I don't think Harvard's been given enough mention. It's fantastically intellectual. There's a reason it's the most selective university in the country, you know.</p>
<p>I also second the University of Chicago. If you want to go to a university that values intelligence and learning and theory over practice, look no further than here.</p>
<p>on the subject of brown intellectual doesn't necessarily mean that the students there study and devote all their time to academics i think intellectual is intended to mean that the type of people who go there do things such as carry out deep philosophical conversations about life and the like and i feel like these type of people would attend brown</p>
<p>Screw the term "intellectuality"; what college or university do kids stay up until four AM arguing the merits of Nietzsche vs. Kant over espresso while listening to Mahler- in at least two languages with kids of different ethnic background?</p>
<p>^^Lots of college kids stay up until 4 AM, but it's usually not to argue about two dead Germans while listening to a third.</p>
<p>Ivies:
-Columbia
-HYP all have their intellectual groups, but overall, they're much more WASPish/snobby/pretentious than intellectual</p>
<p>Other Elite Universities:
-UChicago
-MIT</p>
<p>LAC's:
-Swat
-Reed</p>
<p>I'm not sure how other people are interpreting what an "intellectual" college environment really consists of, but to me, a truly intellectual college environment is one where students want to really learn for the sake of learning, not for the purpose of career advancement. I am attending Brown in the fall and I feel that all the different policies Brown has instituted like Pass/Fail and the Open Curriculum encourage students to explore their intellectual interests and helps to make Brown an "intellectual environment". To me if students are excited about learning then that college has attained an "intellectual" environment.</p>
<p>Uhoh... what's questionable about the intellectuality of Beloit, Yale, and Middlebury? I'd like to hear people's impressions on these...</p>
<p>Intellectualism is pretty hard to talk about, especially with the need to separate intellectualism and just strong academics, not to mention pseudo-intellectualism which can just translate to "most pretentious student body". It's hard, because a lot of schools (especially big ones) are hit or miss- I'd say Yale is one of them, with about a 50-50 spread. </p>
<p>You can't really boil it down to the stereotypical philosophical discussions late at night, because that's really not that different from educated people getting high together (Brown?). I don't know.</p>
<p>Pomona is definitly an intellectual experience</p>
<p>I remember having a conversation about what being "intellectual" meant. I mean, we're UChicago kids after all, and we knew we were having an intellectual conversation about intellectuality and not much else.</p>
<p>There are a few ways to define intellectuality, I think. I would be interested to think what posters would say about what colleges cater to students who:</p>
<p>1) Bring boxes upon boxes of books with them to college.
2) Don't know the boundaries between work and play (think that work is fun and talk about Marx when they are smashed)
3) Spend lots of quality time in the school library
4) Like challenging others' ideas
5) Participate in class discussions beyond teacher expectations</p>
<p>these are just a few ideas... I would consider myself a "Brown" personality (i.e. I don't like learning for grades, I'm very laid-back about academics but I get the work done and I work on it or its own sake, and I like sitting around and talking about how great life is and playing Scrabble) but I chose Chicago because I felt I would get a more hard-wired intellectual experience. That's just me, though.</p>
<p>move Carleton up..</p>
<p>Based upon the criteria listed above by unalove, I would definitely put Bennington in to the 'very intellectual' category</p>
<p>I would agree. I don't think my definition of "intellectual" is anywhere near complete, though, as I think that the Ivy Leagues are somewhat intellectual and yet they don't remind me of the criteria I listed.</p>
<p>Tufts is quite intellectual. I am not arguing that it's on par with Chicago, as it's too political/social for that to be possible, but with the 6 semester language requirement, Ex-College, and various other programs, I've had some very interesting conversations here.</p>
<p>I actually adore Tufts for what I think are ideal qualities... it's LAC-esque, near but not in a city, with bright, intelligent students. I imagine I'd be quite happy there.</p>
<p>I love it here. For all the reasons you just mentioned and more. :)</p>