Hahahaha, That Kids still exist and they are still annoying. The Shady Dealer just (like, a few weeks ago) made an an amusing That Kid Test, including a Myers-Briggs-knockoff typology of That Kids: https://thatkidtest.github.io/test/
@Cue7: Silly students will be with us always. It’s silly profs, majors and admin that are the problem elsewhere. Anyway, if you were in a discussion or seminar-style class, you probably had plenty of opportunity to speak up and correct That Guy/Girl. Hopefully you did so once rolling the eyes failed to work.
An environment of ideas will always include a lot of bad ones. Just ask any faculty member who has served on a univerity committee (thesis, admin, other . . . ).
That taxonomy is pretty amusing, @HydeSnark , but consider the opposite scenario - the class entirely devoid of pretentious a-holes because, well, no one is engaged or brave enough to stick his head above the parapet. Or because all concerned are simply focussed on getting the necessary dope from the class in order to write the exam, get the mark and get the heck out. That would never be a U of C class - at least not a small one in which discussion is possible - but I learned from experience teaching at a state U once upon a time that there it’s a different world. For a teacher that was playing tennis without a net - actually, without another player. I’m not putting down those kids - they were polite, earnest and reasonably determined to understand the subject matter. The class was an introduction to things they hardly knew existed and couldn’t possibly have an opinion about - the old “Beowulf to Virginia Woolf” anthology of Eng Lit. This was mysterious stuff to them. They wanted the authoritative word on it from the teacher. That’s part of the mission of education, of course, and humility in the presence of all one doesn’t know is a virtue, for teachers as much as students. Still, the passivity was disconcerting. I longed for that old Chicago sense of engagement with text, even if it was in the form of a half-baked abrasive opinionated “that kid”.
@JBStillFlying - as the OP is considering Chicago’s peers as well, what “silly” profs, majors, and admins are found at those other schools?
My suspicion is, if a student wants college to be a pathway to a good first job, s/he will encounter a lot more “nonsense” at Chicago to get there.
Chicago’s peers (maybe not Columbia) do a much better job of letting a student tailor the curriculum to their interests, find applicable, high-octane extra-curriculars that employers like, etc. etc.
If your goal is to work at Google or Goldman Sachs, you’ll have to get through a lot of Hum and Sosc to get there at U of C.
(I would contend, taking core classes in the Humanities and Social Sciences is a good long term investment, but it may not be immediately apparent to the 18 yr old gunning for wall street. It would seem, for many 18 yr olds, to be nonsense.)
Which brings me back to my main point - if you like Chicago’s approach, and major in econ and data science, you’ll have great job prospects. If you don’t like Chicago’s approach, stay away.
(Nowadays, though, with Chicago’s ranking so darn high, and it’s reputation/prestige level higher than ever - prospies find it harder and harder to stay away.)
As I read @Cue7 's post down to the final parenthesis I thought, “Wow, he is really giving us the anti-Chicago case without adulteration”. Why bother with the nonsense of Hum and Sosc or submit to the silliness of those eye-rolling-inducing talkers in your classes? You can avoid contamination from all that at a school where you are free to tailor your curriculum for maximum traction in a pathway to a good first job at Google or Goldman. You will also have more exposure elsewhere to all those high-octane curriculars. The whole nature of the student body at those other places will be more athletic, more Greek and more blonde than at nerdy Chicago.
I thought, yes, those are the straight goods coming from a guy who hated Chicago as he found it in the nineties and still dislikes it enough today to recommend that kids cut from that cloth should go elsewhere. Yet I find myself in agreement at least with the conclusion: Kids with that principal motivation would be less well-served by Chicago and should in fact go elsewhere. Let’s not water down that message.
But then you do water it down, Cue, in that last paragraph. Though I would hardly characterize a Chicago education as a “long term investment”, it sounds to me like you are saying (wrapped in a parenthetical afterthought) that it might be good for these would-be tycoons to get some of the humanizing stuff. You even seem to be saying that what is nonsense to the 18-year-old is not the final word.
I don’t quite get you.
What’s not to get @marlowe1 ?
@Cue7 - OP hasn’t yet weighed in on what is meant by “no nonsense” - hopefully it doesn’t dovetail with your rather poor view of the high school crowd. You have reduced their ponderings to a dismissive lack of forethought concerning what UChicago has to offer, or a superficial desire to join the “prestige” caravan. Surely there are some who apply with that woeful lack of insight and we tend to hear from a couple of them every year (“i applied ED in order to increase my chances but now im really scared my friends tell me its super harrrrd and chicago is cold idk I might wanna switch . . .”, etc.). But the kids who end up there are a different sort - they WANT what the College has to offer and they apparently were able to articulate it well enough that Admissions took notice. They fit in just fine with the school’s philosophy, rigor, and incessant writing-intensives even if it’s overwhelming at first, and of course they end up thriving there. Since the large majority (well over 90%) seem to graduate with plans in place for the next phase in their lives, I’m betting that it’s not just econ or data science majors who have “great job prospects.”
In fact, I’m betting that the total number of applicants who have the same long-term understanding of the place, would do just as well if admitted and would also have great job (or other) prospects upon graduation, well surpasses the number lucky enough to be selected. Call me a cockeyed optimist, why don’tcha?
Hi Everyone! I don’t post on this forum a lot but i wanted to weigh in. I graduated from Chicago this year, and I majored in English and History (lol I’m the most liberal arts guy ever). I’m working at a top consulting firm (McKinsey, Bain, BCG) in New York - so just wanted to say that your job prospects are NOT limited by your major, unless you really do want to enter a quantitative field, which is obviously easy to enter with an appropriate degree. Anecdotally, I had friends who now work in consulting and finance who majored in Biology, English, and History.
@Cue7 I didn’t see the two paras that you added while editing yourself after the parenthesis beginning “I contend”, which is what I was referring to as the last paragraph of your post 43. However, I’m still confused. In that paragraph you said that the Hum and Sosc classes were not nonsense at all but rather a good “long term investment”. Are you saying that such classes only seem to be nonsense in the eyes of a certain kind of 18-year-old but really aren’t nonsense at all? If that’s what you are saying in that paragraph it is contradicted by your several emphatic assertions that that stuff really is nonsense. That’s what I don’t get. Is it or is it not nonsense as you, no longer an 18-year-old, see it now?
@JBStillFlying and @marlowe1 - so my core assertion is, at least from what I observed in my time at Chicago: lots of students had a love/hate relationship with the school. Students appreciated the pedagogical approach and the intensity, and, at the same time, complained about the pedagogical approach and the intensity.
I think this was amplified by the fact that we were all a niche group of young adults - not particularly mature, didn’t have a lot of life experience, and were all fairly smart. I’ve found I appreciate the Chicago approach more as I have gotten older, and complain about it less. When I was in college, it was 50/50 (or, on some cold days in the winter, like 20/80).
Does this love/hate theme not exist any more at Chicago? Is it all just positivity and optimists, nowadays? In my day, you could talk about your love AND hate for the core, all within one breath, and no one would bat an eye. Maybe now it’s more positive because the job prospects and prestige/recognition are definitely better, and the counseling is better, BUT…
My instinct is that Chicago is still the sort of place that generates mixed emotions – it’s complicated.
(I remember, when Facebook was just starting back in 2004 or 05, I heard students (and some family members) there wish they could say their relationship status with the U of C was: “It’s complicated.”)
^ It’s still complicated. But maybe less so. ED has allowed students to let the school know who really really really wants to go there. It has been implemented not just to improve yield and lower the admit rate but to improve fit. In addition, they are a kinder (if not gentler) school than back in the day. The Core offers more choices and fewer requirements. They have been able to pluck a more diversified and interesting group from the talent pool. The kids seem better prepared for the grind (we can thank the standardization of college prep, the explosion of extra-curricular academic opportunities and additional college-level course options in the high schools these days). But they still get graded pretty dismally compared to the happy grades of H or Brown, they still work a LOT harder on average and they still struggle to get used to the quarter system. None of that has changed.
Colleges in general are far more catering to the parents and students than they used to be, since the “tuition model” came in vogue. It’s also a sizably larger chunk of family income than it used to be 
@JBStillFlying - it’s interesting you say it’s less complicated now. In some ways, I agree with you - the college has more support and amenities to surround its students, definitely less grade deflation and a less punishing atmosphere, and probably more contentment on the ground. In other ways, the rankings and frenzy to get into an elite college have intensified, other peers are catering even more to their “customers” (see Hopkins, Columbia, and Penn, among others - they used to be gritty, less attractive places to attend in my day, but have changed), and my sense is, when you put uniformly high-achieving people in one place at the same time, the intensity to achieve on the ground can increase, too. (My cohort certainly was not as high achieving as the current students.)
Also, re your point about ED, I wonder if students use their ED shot because they “really, really, really want to go there,” or if there’s a sizable contingent that want to go to an “elite school,” and Chicago is their best shot at that, so they apply ED. The frenzy to get into an “elite” school just seems greater now, so I don’t know. Generally, ED improves the atmosphere for the student body, but there are costs, for sure. Yes the ad comm can parse out who is a good “fit,” but, to a certain degree, the ad comm is trying to effect some culture change at the undergrad level, so their outlook on who is a good “fit” may be changing.
So, I think the factors that make it complicated have changed. Maybe they are less present now than before. But I’m not sure.
For my part I am not asserting that all is wonderful, etc. or debating the desirability of changes. That’s not the question (though it’s another question and one we’ve debated many times on this board). However, what we were discussing before you took that turn, Cue, was whether a kid focussed on getting the big bucks right out of college should best go to Chicago or another place. I believe I was acknowledging your point about Chicago’s relatively more challenging atmosphere and ethos and agreeing that if that is indeed a kid’s principal goal he or she might better go to another sort of school. I certainly don’t like to see a kid coming to Chicago with a false idea of its true atmosphere or merely because it was the highest prestige school he or she could actually get in to. Ugh.
@Cue7 no doubt there are ED applicants who fall under the spell off the “prestige” factor but my anecdotal foray into this subject reveals that those who selected UChicago as #1 choice did so due to fit. It still has the rep. of being a pretty intense place. Again, stats like retention and transfer-out rates will help understand that better. Also, I’m probably not the only parent who wishes the college were a tad easier to get into.
Admissions may not have changed their view on who is a good fit - they may just have a wider choice set now. The prices have changed, not the utility function.
@Marlowe1 what’s wrong with wanting depth AND big bucks? One can do a lot with both.
Believe it or not, the world (or at least that portion of the world represented by undergraduate programs at highly selective private American universities) is full of young people who both want to work at Goldman Sachs and who value a deep education in mainstream Western traditions (including social science) and intellectual challenges. Many of those students are thrilled to attend the University of Chicago (until, perhaps, sixth week of their first winter quarter, when things may indeed get “complicated,” but over time the complications fade and the thrill remains). But, you know what? There are lots of those students at Columbia, at Yale, at MIT, and even at Penn or Harvard. Or Dartmouth, even. “That Kid” is everywhere. People who go to Brown and get to pick all their classes with no requirements have That Kid in many of their classes.
Chicago does not have a monopoly on intellectualism, pseudo- or otherwise. I agree that its culture is unique, but it’s not as unique as all that.
I guess there’s nothing wrong with it, @JBStillFlying , but the bucks ought not to be the tail wagging the dog, at least while you’re in school. I admit my attitudes on this subject date from a time when virtually all U of C undergrads were a lot more worried about selling out than they were about selling product or even selling themselves.
@JHS - Chicago doesn’t have a monopoly on intellectualism, but it’s a lot harder to opt out at Chicago than at many of its peers, no?
I know for a fact that there are grads of UPenn and Yale, Harvard and Dartmouth and Brown, who glided through - who opted not to obtain the transformative and powerful education that was made available to them. Many of them didn’t even go for the academic opportunities in particular - their most formative experiences came on the playing fields, or they attended for some non-academic reason (e.g., “everyone in my family goes here.”).
Given how highly customizable education is elsewhere, students could go through an entire four years of college without ever truly “feeling” their education.
Note of course, these students are in the minority at their colleges. But at Chicago, I’m not sure how you could ever escape the vibe or opt out - there was simply no option that I know of to do this. Not true at many schools.
(I can’t speak for Columbia and MIT - I know very little about these two institutions.)
I agree with that. It’s hard (maybe not impossible, but hard) to opt out of intellectualism at Chicago, and easier to do that elsewhere. However, for the most part I think the students admitted to the institutions we are talking about don’t want to opt out of intellectualism. They may not fetishize it, but they do feel it.
@JHS - yeah, for the most part that’s true. It’s a powerful thing to be given the choice to opt out, though. I knew many students at these other schools who, while generally committed to their academics, sometimes said they were “taking it easy this semester.” Or, they would mix up their course work with ridiculously easy classes (not to be snobbish, but there are some classes at these other schools where, if you have a pulse, you get an A).
Those options just didn’t exist at Chicago. Aside from maybe taking three classes a quarter (where the three classes could still be very, very hard), I don’t really know how one could “take it easy” at Chicago. I still genuinely don’t know what the easy classes are - especially for the upper-level courses. I believe Core Bio and “Rocks for Jocks” might be easier now, but are there significant groupings of easy courses at Chicago now?
I think at these other schools, I could name literally dozens of such courses. I also observed a not insignificant number of seniors at these other colleges, enjoying a “senior spring” semester (read: breezing through their final semester of college).
And, at the end of day, I think that’s what distinguishes Chicago - and it’s a fairly substantial difference. Each and every quarter, you’ll feel your education - whether you’re a first year or a fourth year.