<p>Is there really a difference in terms of intellectualism between these two sets of schools?
It seems that the academic profile of the students is very similar for all four.
I always hear of the first two as anti-intellectual pre-professional hotspots while the other two are very focused on learning and ideas.</p>
<p>Hey, Captain Falcon, let's play tiers again.</p>
<p>Tier 1
UChicago</p>
<p>Tier 2
Columbia</p>
<p>Tier 3
UPenn
Duke</p>
<p>I guess you've figured out my love for ranking things, kwu. ;)
Thanks for the info.</p>
<p>If you want to play stereotype games.. then UChicago is the place fun goes to die.</p>
<p>but seriously all four of the schools have an equal proportion of kids who love to learn so stereotypes, like the one I just wrote, shouldn't have a bearing on your decision</p>
<p>Well, I've visited Penn and Chicago...not the other two. </p>
<p>Penn came across as "middle of the road" between work hard-play hard and "where fun goes to die"...it's the social ivy, but it's still an ivy.</p>
<p>All of the things people say about Chicago seem ABSOLUTELY TRUE. I did not see a single person on campus who wasn't arsty or hippieish or supernerdy, etc.</p>
<p>Well, Chicago has an improv team so they must have seven to ten fun people..</p>
<p>Unless it's really lame improv.</p>
<p>I am a father of a daughter who wants to study BS biotechnology. She has zoomed down to this list of colleges</p>
<p>1) Tufts University
2) Penn State
3) Rutgers
4) WPI
5) Indiana University at Bloomington and
6) RIT</p>
<p>Could anyone help us in selection of the colleges to apply. We are from outside of US not familiar with US colleges. Thanks</p>
<p>I can't comment on Penn, Duke, and Columbia, but Chicago is pretty heftily intellectual. There are still people who talk a lot about parties and things like that, but I can see certain kinds of people being unhappy here for various reasons. (Not enough of a competitive spirit, most girls not "dressing up," big on "Where fun comes to die" self-deprecation).</p>
<p>When I visited Penn and Columbia as a high school student, they appeared to be very different to me than Chicago. I reasoned I'd be happy there if I attended, but I thought I'd be happier from the outset at Chicago. If you haven't visited these schools and you're interested in them, and you're still thinking about them after April, they're worth a look.</p>
<p>I think this is a fair way of looking at it since Kwu's ranking's didn't say anything meaningful. Ok so the two extremes of these four are clearly Duke for partying/sports spirit atmosphere and Chicago for very intellectual/"fun goes to die". The two one's in the middle would be Penn and Columbia. Penn is to an extent pre-professional and has a sizable frat presence. Columbia also is intellectual with its core, but it still has a very nice social/partying aspect. So if you want the extremes go Duke or Chicago (nothing alike) and if you want a healthy mix of both Penn and Columbia seem like the best choice.</p>
<p>I'd say the people at Duke are the dumbest out of those 4, but overally they are all smart.</p>
<p>Bescraze, are you even in college?</p>
<p>Bescraze summed it up perfectly</p>
<p>
I'm offended you would use the word "dumbest" to describe the student bodies at any of these schools, even as a relative comparison. Anyway, UChicago students are definitely less academically qualified than Duke students. Their SAT score ranges are similar but Duke has many more kids who were in top 10 % i.e. performed well in high school.</p>
<p>People think Chicago kids are smart just because they are "intellectual", but that doesn't necessarily translate to actual intelligence or academic performance. Duke students are more competitive than Chicago kids and I would wager they would perform better in a classroom environment than Chicago students because they had a proven track record in high school.</p>
<p>Perhaps part of the reason Chicago can seem more intellectual than the other schools while being less numerically competitive than a school like Duke, when we're looking at percentage of students ranked in the top 10%, is that Chicago students aren't that competitive about grades. </p>
<p>I seem to remember in high school that the students who had the highest grades tended to be the ones who worried about them the most, whereas I sort of had a "que sera sera" attitude about grades. Most of the students I come across here at Chicago had a similar attitude in high school and have a similar attitude now.</p>
<p>unalove:Even though I chose Duke over Chicago in the end, I realize that the 'caring too much about grades' environment is one I truly do not desire to be in. I'd say that it exists at Duke- mostly since it's such a pre-professional environment.</p>
<p>Those are four schools I seriously considered attending. All four are amazing academically and will provide any student the best undergraduate education has to offer. Schools with 4,000-10,000 undergraduate will have a niche for all types of students. I am sure a large chunk of the 6,000 undergrads at Duke and of the 10,000 undergrads at Penn are very intense intellectually and I am sure Chicago and Columbia attract their fair share of party animals. </p>
<p>Chicago and Columbia are more intense intellectually, but also offer less active and spirited campus environments. All four are located in relatively bad areas, though not as bad as some would lead you to believe. I think the best thing you can do is visit all four campuses to get a feel for their respective settings. Personally, Chicago is my favorite of those four schools, but like I said, all four are amazing.</p>
<p>just browsing on cc, it seems that Columbia ED/Chicago EA or Penn ED/Chicago EA is pretty common. and i'd also wager that Penn and Columbia get a lot of cross-applicants. maybe there's a difference, but i think anyone can find similar people at any of these schools. it would probably be different for a small school. </p>
<p>for what it's worth, a guy at my school was deferred from Columbia, waitlisted at Duke, accepted at Chicago, and now attends Penn. i'll probably be applying to all four as well (undecided about Penn).</p>