<p>Again, the response was not to the later, random, O/T concept of a school’s mission. The response was to Post 235, which asserted clairvoyance about student motivation for attending any particular elite U.</p>
<p>Student mission =/= University mission. It can, but it needn’t, and often doesn’t.</p>
<p>And where a student matriculates is also =/= the student’s own primary mission or the U’s mission. As kantianethicist indicated, a student may love a U and be well-suited to it but choose not to attend for a variety of reasons having nothing to do with “mission.” As in, quarter system; as in, swim test requirement; as in, weather; as in, location; as in, financial aid award,…etc., etc.</p>
<p>What on earth just happened? Good lord. All right, people are misconstruing things and now this thread will unravel out of control. Back to topic, and let’s avoid mentioning U of Ch. for the next few pages. This is getting ridiculous.</p>
<p>Epiphany- Not sure about the financial aid, but you get good Midway Airport (close to UChicago) with Southwest and you freeze your butt off at most of the Ivys, too.</p>
<p>I might know that our high school valedictorian had 5’s on 14 APs because I’d been to some award ceremony at our high school - where they list the accomplishments of the top 25 kids in the class. I don’t remember all of it now, but I can still tell you that the valedictorian my son’s year had a 106 point something average which was the highest in the history of the school and that he was accepted at both Yale and Harvard and chose Harvard. I remember some other stuff about him too, but won’t bore you with all the details. ;-)</p>
<p>Back to topic! The first thread in this post ended with:</p>
<p>Starting soon, for many of you, the admissions news will start to come in. Not all will be good news. Not all will be what you hoped for or expected. Hang in there. Support your kids and celebrate the good news, whatever it might be. In the long run, these things sort themselves out. In the long run, folks will care about what your kids did far more than where they did it! </p>
<p>I think that this newmassdad’s advice makes a lot of sense. All a kid needs is a college that is a good fit, a college where he/she feels comfortable. It will never be perfect, but who cares. In the right environment a student will develop his/her talents to the max. For some specific elite colleges are the best fit, for others a local community college will do the trick.</p>
<p>My post implied nothing about the motivation for attending a particular elite university. I know most good students apply to a bunch anyway, and I personally was set on going to attend a particular ivy before I changed my mind at the last minute.
The quote “why they are there” was more about “why they are chosen to be part of their class” and also “what their priorities will be in college.” I knew a lot of ivy league kids that spent more time in their EC’s than their classes in college, and this was probably expected of them when they were admitted. Some are chosen because they look like they will be leaders in academia, sure, but I think more often the philosophy for choosing students is to get people which will support the extensive EC’s and sports on campus while still maintaining a relatively high bar for intelligence (i.e., maybe 1450 and top 10% in high school class.) </p>
<p>Tellingly, one former Harvard President (Derek Bok I think) “shuddered” when thinking about the possibility of Harvard “becoming like University of Chicago.” And he clarified it to mean that they didn’t want to have a campus full of intellectuals. In particular, he said that he had personally struggled with whether they should admit so many athletes because many of them were not academically equal to the rest of the student body. He decided that in spite of their relative lack of intellectual firepower, they had a lot of energy, were competitive, and were often successful in high-paying careers in the financial sector (and having rich alums is always good for the university’s bottom line.) So I think the difference in philosophy is more than hype or propaganda.</p>
<p>Well, actually curmudgeon? I was one of the first classes in Northwestern’s Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences program. It was – and is – a fabulous, rigorous program. At the time that I was in the program, graduates split their other major between Econ, Poli Sci, Psych and Soc, and my fellow graduates did all kinds of neat things – academia, public policy, government, think tanks, private business, etc. Nowadays? It seems to be serving more as Northwestern’s alternative to Wharton and all the grads are co-majoring only in Econ, getting their certificates from Kellogg at the same time, and developing their quant skills because they want to go into hedge funds, investment banking and management consulting. And yes, while it increases the starting salaries of grads and all that, I think it’s a huge shame and I’m <em>glad</em> I was in the program before it was so pre-professional. I’m <em>glad</em> that I was in it when there was a sum total of one accounting course and we weren’t allowed to take any courses at Kellogg as undergrads. Blech to the environment that is only focused on developing skills because we want to impress Goldman Sachs and McKinsey.</p>
<p>I haven’t read through every post, but can’t image there are many people out there who would be disappointed to ‘end up’ at schools like Univ. of Chicago or Stanford. Sheesh.</p>
<p>I think the age of enlightenment regarding college occurs between the spring of senior year of high school and the fall of their freshman year at college. Sure kids have their favorite schools at application time, but in most cases they’re going to set foot on their new campus and never look back. I think many kids who are programmed to think ‘only ivy’ in HS have been steered that way by their parents.</p>
<p>The Law and B school of The School That Must Not Be Named was jointly throwing a party and invited the Med students to attend. </p>
<p>The invite poster in the Med school lounge said “We suggest you attend, as someday you may need our services.” </p>
<p>To this a Med student had written the reply “We suggest you be nicer to us, as while we <em>may</em> need your services, you <em>will</em> need us.”</p>
<p>I wish! Several years ago, a parent posted about her D being depressed (her words) about being rejected by all the Ivies she had applied to and having to settle (again her words) for Chicago, Rice and Wellesley. This was six weeks or so after decisions were announced. I was excoriated for my lack of sympathy when I pointed out that these were great schools that many would love to attend.</p>
<p>Huh. I view colleges as having a wide range of characteristics contributing to the elusive notion of “fit” and in my book Swat and U/Chicago and maybe Reed are perhaps the purest places for intellectual pursuit. And I have no connection to either school, save that one of D’s high school friends, when I talked to her about what she was looking for, had that sum of qualities that led me to say, “You’ve <em>got</em> to apply to U/Chicago” and she did and earned her degree there.</p>
<p>The response that there are plenty of intellectual students who get great educations at Flagship State U rather misses the point, I think.</p>
<p>Neither U/Chicago nor Swat are for everyone but that’s a poor reason to diss their merits.</p>
<p>The reputation of a college is an important factor. After all, who wants to invest a fortune in a place that is not worth it. But this doesn’t mean that colleges with the best reputation or (USNews) rankings are therefore the best for an individual student. The success of a student depends on how this individual fits into the academic and social climate of a specific place. Being a good fit will result in a wonderful experience during four years and a good start in life. Reputation and ranking will give this success some extra bling, but being in the right environment contributes so much more to success. Therefore the ranking of USNews does not really help and neither do the people who are using this thread to get rid of some overly generalized frustation.</p>