<p>I'm not sure what "intellectualism" means - does it means the students are smarter? Or is it just a nice way of saying "nerdy"? Or that people are more well-read and up-to-date, or go on protests more?</p>
<p>Qualitative things can be so confusing to define.</p>
<p>Generally, most schools will have either a "pre-professional" atmosphere, or an intellectual atmosphere. At most top schools, you will certainly find both, although some are tipped a little more either way. (Duke is reputed to be more preprofessional, while UChicago, a peer school, has more of an intellectual slant, many others will compare to lesser extremes) </p>
<p>(I now prepare myself to get s**t on for the examples I chose)</p>
<p>BTW, what I would think would be a good metric to look at intellectualism would be PhD rates, fellowship and scholarship numbers, and things along those lines (not the WSJ feeder list).</p>
<p>brassmonkey, not going to disagree with you. If you come to Chicago, you better like school for school's sake. That said, I know lots of students who have fantastic job prospects for the summer (JPMorgan, Citibank, etc.) but the focus at Chicago is on the education itself and what comes afterwards.</p>
<p>I imagine that the intellectual at Duke would also be able to find his own, but he would be surrounded by people who are more focused towards careerism.</p>
<p>I don't think that one is "good" and another is "bad." Some of the most interesting people I know are in pre-professional programs in journalism, marketing, and architecture. They love those things; I love literature. There's not much of a difference as far as passionate, happy students are concerned.</p>
<p>And, Duffman, always, always happy to put in a good word for Tufts. Being at another "ivy wannabe" school, I have a difficult time explaining to people that I'd RATHER be at Tufts, WashU, Hopkins, and Chicago than at most Ivies.</p>
<p>^ Yeah, I will never understand why people cannot understand that there are schools beyond the Ivy's that just "fit" better for a certain person.</p>
<p>BrassMonkey, I like your usage of Duke and Chicago as examples for pre-professional versus intellectual, since they are very similar schools in terms of academic strength. </p>
<p>One thing I noticed - Chicago is the popular example for intellectualism. However, its also the poster-university for a school with a slow social life. Duke is an example of pre-professionalism, yet its a poster-university for having a very active, party oriented social life (one is not better than the other of course). </p>
<p>Based on this, does intellectualism correlate with having a quieter social life, and does pre-professionalism correlate with having a more active social life?</p>
<p>Also,
Chicago, per capita, has 15% of its undergrads get doctorate degrees.
Duke, per capita, has 9% of its undergrads get doctorate degrees.</p>
<p>Chicago sends 6% to the top 15 professional schools surveyed by WSJ.
Duke sends about 9% to top 15 professional schools on WSJ.</p>
<p>Duke had more Fulbright scholars than Chicago in the past year (16 versus 7) - only mentioning this because you mentioned scholarship/fellowship numbers might be a good indicator of intellectualism, and that its felt that Duke was more of a pre-professional school rather than an intellectual one.</p>
<p>So really, the differences in terms of student destinations between Duke and Chicago undergrads aren't that different (of course, you do see the academic vs preprofessional slant in the numbers, but its not that big a difference). Because of this, I think intellectualism might be difficult to measure with data...and since colleges have 25% student turnover annually, I don't think the campus culture is static.</p>
<p>This thread is ridiculous. All schools have their intellectual circles, and I think my school (Princeton) has many, many intellectual circles. It is a very intellectual campus and greater community. Additionally, most of the top schools I've been to are like this. You don't go to the frat parties and complain that the school lacks an intellectual atmosphere.</p>
<p>intellect-
a. The ability to learn and reason; the capacity for knowledge and understanding.
b. The ability to think abstractly or profoundly.</p>
<p>ok, for a: ***, this applies to every college. ever.</p>
<p>for b: um, this is near impossible to measure. However, its true that some schools promote this, whereas others keep this ability locked in the closet (state schools? hm...)</p>
<p>Thanks for the data, thoughtprocess. It shows that a pre-professional can do Chicago, and an intellectual can do Duke. Both are fantastic schools that really open up opportunities for students.</p>
<p>For the sake of argument, both schools are equal in terms of smart. I actually don't know much about Duke (I can't say much, because I've never visited the school) but what I love about Chicago is that it aggressively fosters intellectual culture, with a push towards small classes and many students reading the same texts at the same times in Core. I'm sure I could go to a school like Duke and make it into Chicago quite easily by taking certain classes and joining clubs, etc. But Chicago is already Chicago, and I don't have to work to make that happen for me. I could just as easily imagine a student saying that he preferred a sports/fraternity environment with intellectuality on the side.</p>
<p>You'll be able to find it wherever you want. I got into a discussion about Sartre and existentialism at the Eat N' Park restaurant down the street from the WVU campus with a random group of drunk college students at 2AM before. It was one of the most fascinating discussions I've ever had in my life, actually. They had thick Appalachian accents, making it all the more amusing. Stuff came out of their mouth like, "The hotel ain't a metaphor fer' life..hell nah....that there love triangle is...that damn hotel is a metaphor for a hostile or indifferent universe, ya dumb sum*****." Plus I got to simultaneously eat pancakes at a breakfast buffet. </p>
<p>God damn, I love Morgantown...</p>
<p>I'd say Stanford is very intellectual from what I've heard.</p>