It doesn’t annoy me that people make mistakes. It annoys me that people make mistakes that could have been easily avoided. I linked to the per capita PhD data just a few posts ago.</p>
<p>1 35.8% California Institute of Technology
2 24.7% Harvey Mudd College
3 21.1% Swarthmore College
4 19.9% Reed College
5 18.3% Massachusetts Institute of Technology
6 16.8% Carleton College
7 15.8% Bryn Mawr College
8 15.7% Oberlin College 9 15.3% University of Chicago
10 14.5% Yale University
11 14.3% Princeton University
= 14.3% Harvard University</p>
<p>Caltech produces significantly more PhDs than Harvard. Chicago does not.</p>
<p>You’re right, hippo. But the atmosphere at Chicago is still more intellectual than at Harvard.</p>
<p>The source for hippo’s numbers is a study that gets done periodically by the Higher Education Data Sharing Foundation based on surveys taken by the National Science Foundation. Hippo used the 2003 data, but the most recent is 2006. It’s not very different, though.</p>
<p>I don’t see why it’s so outrageous that some people would pick Chicago over Harvard. Chicago’s and Harvard’s resources are about equal in every area, and it is only in the area of social prestige that Harvard wins. Although as parents, I’m sure it’s incredibly difficult to believe after familiarizing yourself with modern hyper-capitalist American society, most truly serious students care little if anything for social prestige. When I was applying to college, I didn’t apply to Harvard or any Ivies. They weren’t reputed as universities where serious students went to study, so I didn’t think they would provide me with the educational experience that I desired. Hence, Chicago. </p>
<p>Many other students here have similar experiences of having applied to no Ivies at all. When they say that they would pick Chicago over those Ivies, they’re met with disbelief. This assessment is unfair, if not a bit vicious and presumptuous. The best explanation I can give for it is that these people are so disconnected from true academic passion (and, as I hinted earlier, nearer to the realities of our capitalist society) that they’ve become entirely estranged from the thoughts of these serious students. It’s almost similar to the trend of becoming more politically conservative with age - people lose their passion as they age, and as they become more ‘realistic’ in their beliefs toward a capitalistic society, they become puzzled with the passion of the liberals of the younger age. And that’s my analogy for the day.</p>
<p>I agree on one point with you Phuriku as my son applied to UChicago and did not apply to any Ivies for the reasons you stated. But could it be possible that the trend of becoming more conservative with age is due to an increase of maturity and knowledge?</p>
<p>Phuriku, fundamentally I don’t understand your position. Let’s say you love the University of Chicago and think it’s perfect. (Not exactly a common sentiment among Chicago undergraduates, but a simplifying assumption for this argument.) Fine. What is your second choice? What other universities or colleges offer 95%, 90%, 80% of what Chicago offers?</p>
<p>Now, of course, answering that question requires you to say what exactly it is that you love about Chicago, what you think it is. And there are some people who would answer that question with Reed, or Swarthmore, or St. John’s, or one or another of the Claremont Colleges. But I would argue – rather strongly – that the institutions that most resemble the University of Chicago are the Ivy League ones, especially Yale, Columbia, and Harvard. Sure, there are things about each of them that differentiate them from Chicago, but the similarities completely swamp those differences, which are primarily those of style. I don’t see how, being intellectually honest, a student can want to go to the University of Chicago and not be at all interested in at least a few of the Ivies, except for people who live within easy driving distance of Chicago and don’t want to go farther than that for college.</p>
<p>Of course, I completely understand the reaction “Why should I put myself into that weird lottery if I don’t have to?” That’s rational. But that’s different from taking a collegiate Sherman Oath: “I am not a candidate for admission, and if admitted I will not enroll.” Apart from issues of whether it is futile to apply, a couple of those colleges ought to be among the top choices of most Chicago students.</p>
<p>My daughter went to a prep school with a fairly high population of wealthy kids. She looked that the kids who wanted to go to the Ivies and decided she didn’t want to be around that type of kid. Kind of a screwy way to choose colleges. But she felt as though one of the big lessons she learned at her prep school was that wealthy, privileged kids don’t have to follow the rules, and she wasn’t really interested with spending the next four years with a large percentage of those kids. I am certain that Chicago also has its share of rich kids, but for some reason, it appealed to her where HPY did not. She did not want to look at Harvard or Yale; she did tour Princeton, but did not apply. She got in to Chicago and then followed the money to Pitt. You just cannot categorize kids and make any sense of why they do what they do.</p>
<p>I applied to two Ivies, Yale and Brown. Looking back I probably would have applied to Princeton too. Of all the Ivies, those are the only three I would even consider applying to. Harvard doesn’t appeal to me. I’ve heard, from even Harvard kids, that their focus is very graduate based and they’re not at all undergrad friendly. The only Ivy that I applied to that would even rival Chicago in my interest is Yale. Honestly had I been accepted, I’m not sure which I would have chosen. Of course, I didn’t get into Yale or Brown so…</p>
<p>The point though is that if I was magically offered admission to Harvard today, I’d consider it for about 10 seconds then say no and still choose Chicago. Unless of course for some reason, financially speaking, I wasn’t able to afford Chicago…which may be a very real possibility.</p>
<p>There are many things I love about Chicago that I don’t think Harvard offers. I won’t go into detail unless you guys really want me to.</p>
<p>But whether by default or not…I’d still, like I said, choose Chicago over Harvard any day. The fact that I haven’t been offered admission to Harvard doesn’t make that statement any less credible.</p>