<p>Though it may appear that Chicago is changing, my discussions with faculty do not support the contention that there is any real change in the emphasis of the College. They report they see little difference from students past and they have certainly not changed their approach. A couple of newer faculty members who taught elsewhere prior to coming to Chicago have remarked about the intellectual intensity and challenge posed by Chicago schools which is quite distinct from the more career focused students they taught elsewhere. I think everyone needs to relax a little, the University is undoubtably providing a more socially appealing environment, but has not been diverted from its commitment to scholarship, ideas, and inquiry as its first and foremost mission.</p>
<p>idad:</p>
<p>That seems curious to me. By most measures, GPA inflation has hit UChicago, a wealth of amenities and resources have arisen for the student body to enjoy, and the student body seems generally more accomplished now than ever before.</p>
<p>So, it seems that there’s been more of a marriage of “life of the mind” principles with a wide range of other pursuits (besides academic/wonk work). </p>
<p>I’d be much more curious to hear faculty views not on committment to scholarship (a young legal eagle and a budding poli sci phd could have the same intellectual curiosity in college), but on the issue of student happiness. Are students generally happier and less brooding than they were 10-15 years ago? </p>
<p>I’m not as curious about the in-class focus (which I’m sure is high), but on the general culture and outlook of the student body, which I believe has changed.</p>
<p>Muckdogs- the core was “watered down” in 1999. If you are looking for a compulsory Great Books program, look elsewhere. (Though you can easily take the Great Books sequences of Core should you choose.)</p>
<p>Cue7, once again, hits the nail in the head. The University of Chicago College comes out of an experimental tradition (the contemporary equivalent is probably Simon’s Rock or maybe even The Davidson Academy) but it has the size, endowment, and demographics of an international research university rather than an experimental college.</p>
<p>Remember that experimental institutions are, well, experimental. The experiments tend fail more often than the traditional. For the academic quality of students coming in(measured via standardized tests) and for the sticker price, Reed and Hampshire do a pretty awful job at graduating their students. This is not, I believe, because they are bad schools, but rather because of the kinds of students they attract (for some, “experimental” will mean “no more college”) and the issue of fit.</p>
<p>In that sense, Chicago’s much less experimental (look at freshman to sophomore year retention rates and 4/6 year graduation rates and you’ll see what I mean) and a lot less broody or broody-feeling in the aggregate. </p>
<p>And let me also add that though I was a product of “old” UofC, we still had frats and athletes and students signigifantly invested in club life and students who rarely showed up for class or did the readings. So any ideas that we’re living in an antediluvian era for Chicago are somewhat misinformed.</p>
<p>let me paraphrase something I heard an administrator say in response to alumni uproar over a new gymnasium: “The best university in the world doesn’t need a good gym. But the best university in the world has one anyway.”</p>
<p>Just thought I could add my thoughts, as a high school senior who is observing the changes in people who are applying to and attending UChicago. Our school saw 35 students apply to UChicago this year, up from 15 last year. 7 were admitted, and 4 are attending. The people I know who have gone to UChicago in years past have been some of the smartest and most intellectual I’ve ever met. This year, those attending are not. They are people who have gamed the system, taken easy classes to preserve their GPAs. Instead of attracting real “Chicago” kids, Chicago seems to be drawing students from the WashU crowd–students who don’t think they can get into an Ivy, so they apply to the next most difficult rung of schools to get in to. Never mind that Chicago is a better school than most of the Ivies. This has the effect of scaring off people who are actually interested in the culture of the “old Chicago,” who don’t want to go somewhere that seems to be full of people with a WashU mentality. I can’t speak for other high schools, but this is what I’ve seen this year, and it makes me worry for Chicago’s future.</p>
<p>^ This post is the definition of hitting the nail on the head.</p>
<p>@hopelee93: in our school district, the type of students you refered as WashU crowd usually applied Duke ED and most of them did get in.</p>
<p>@ivyfan2. I think my school is a bit of an anomaly with the crazy number of Chicago applications. I suspect a lot of it has to do with Chicago being EA instead of ED, so students figure they can max their chances of getting into Chicago, and then ditch it later if they get into an Ivy. One of the kids who is going to Chicago is seriously doing it because she didn’t get into any school ranked higher by USNews. And, by the way, the four kids I know who possess some shred of intellectualism and really wanted to go to Chicago were all denied admission–when some of them probably would have gotten in and gone 3-4 years ago. I think Chicago’s low admit rate is deceptive. Sure it might be rapidly shrinking, but those who are attending, at least from my school, are not close to being as intellectually engaged at those who went 3-4 years ago, and nowhere near as smart. </p>
<p>On a Duke side note, our school had eight students get in, and only one is going.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Based on those numbers I’m going to assume that you attend a high-flying school-- a Stuyvesant, a New Trier, a Harvard-Westlake, an Exeter. (It also makes sense- you know where everybody’s going and who got in, either from Naviance or from gossip!)</p>
<p>If that’s the case, it would not be unlikely that some of the kids who applied from your school this year or in past years and got in had “hooks”-- strong alumni affiliation and giving histories, influential family members and friends, etc, who want to cash in their chips on the hot property.</p>
<p>I’m not saying this IS the case (of course I hope Chicago isn’t changing the type of kid who they are admitting!), but it’s a possibility.</p>
<p>For our school, it was the exact opposite - some kids with high GPAs using Chicago as a Harvard safety got rejected (it should be said that only one of them actually got into Harvard), while the most intellectual ones did get in. Personally, I picked Chicago over NU, Brown, Cornell, and Hopkins, and it wasn’t all that hard a choice.</p>
<p>Well, most students do choose HYPMS over Chicago if given that choice. But I don’t think these kids had necessary used UChicago as HYPMS safety. HYPMS is HYPMS. The same kids usually would have chosen HYPMS over any other top schools as well. </p>
<p>Giving the amount of additional work applicants have to put into supplemental essays and the school’s soaring popularity among the very top students, it is very unlikely an applicant could have got into UChicago if s/he had used the school as a safety. </p>
<p>The “New” UChicago attracts a more diverse student body than it ever did before. I don’t know how this can possibly be a bad thing for the school. As for those who got into and chose to attend UChicago, at least in my student’s school district, they are among very top and most intellectual ones.</p>
<p>
Where are all these students from your high school who rejected Chicago and Duke going to out of curiosity? I’m curious to see what sorts of universities these 2 are overlapping with the most in college applications.</p>
<p>This anecdotal “evidence” of UChicago’s changing nature of admitted students is meaningless. In fact, UChicago’s policies from school to school could be very different. For example, at the mega-prestigious high schools where UChicago was traditionally not as popular (Exeter, Harvard-Westlake, etc.), UChicago may very well be aiming to accept the “lower” students who will wind up raving about UChicago as part of a plan to increase popularity at these schools.</p>
<p>Then, UChicago can take the cream of the crop intellectuals from schools where UChicago has always done well (e.g. Ill. Math and Science Academy, UChicago Lab School, etc.), and from schools where it’s more of a “sure” deal. Then, at the end of the day, the admitted students will, as a class, be perfectly capable. </p>
<p>Again, just because ONE specific school seems to be experiencing a certain trend with UChicago means NOTHING. Unless we have a broader picture of the class, such “evidence” is meaningless.</p>
<p>I was thinking about this last night. On the one hand, Scav Hunt just ended, and by all reports it was fantastic, hundreds and hundreds of students participating, great, creative work, etc. So how different could the recently admitted students be? On the other hand, I noticed that the two largest, most conventional dorms – Max P and South Campus – seem to underperform their human resource advantage by a considerable margin. South Campus, with 800 students in residence, couldn’t even do better than all of the grad student teams, much less keep pace with dorms less than half its size. Although I suspect part of what’s happening is that the high-quality BJ team pulls in the most enthusiastic South Campus scavvies, one can hypothesize that maybe a larger number than ususal of the first and second years, the ones most drawn to the “social” dorms, are opting not to participate in Scav. (4-6 years ago, Max P was a powerhouse, and was the last team to have beaten Snitchcock until last year.)</p>
<p>Anyway, any current students care to comment? Scav seems like a pretty good miner’s canary for the old, weird Chicago.</p>
<p>Clean and simple, the reason that UChicago is going the pre-professional route is that they have no choice.</p>
<p>Higher education, as it is today and has been for the last century and longer, is under threat because technology and the ability to self-educate, that’s been the last two decades only, can cheaply replace them and certainly will gain share of their market in more time. For a start, if you want to go discuss or read to enrich the “life of the mind” with other (weird or not) “intellectuals,” there are plenty of internet forums to choose from, just as there are plenty of colleges to choose from–and these don’t cost 4 x $60k.</p>
<p>People have always sought value, but these days, colleges are really pushing themselves out to people because people most value security, jobs, and high-flying purpose, and, (even IF) contrary to all reason, they will be convinced to pay for an education that promises them those things <em>later</em>: “success.” Colleges know they’ve got to make education seem like a valuable means to an end, an end to a job or higher-higher (or higher-higher-higher) education, or people will not see the value in a college degree as an end alone.</p>
<p>Therefore, they are selecting people who are in a state of mind to affirm this mission: to “look busy” or “look happy” until they graduate or until they actually do become successful. And, like HPY, they have the coffers and the influence to get this image seen. Above all, they need themselves to make sure that there are as few genuinely, openly dissatisfied souls at Chicago as possible. Mere intellectual heat doesn’t count because it fades before it has real impact. If Chicago didn’t want to lose its old self, it wouldn’t. People who are benignly focused on the pre-professional OR benignly happy in an intellectual heaven, or both, are what they want, because that’s what people are willing to pay for, like a four-year-long really fun summer camp before real life that also gets you a high-paying job.</p>
<p>If people were willing to pay for the alternative, then they’d get that.</p>
<p>And moreover, young folk no matter how smart wouldn’t see the big picture when they’re looking up at all thats possible, but the administrators sure do see the money from tuitions pouring in, and it’s a nice perk to be in a position of power over so many smart, soon-to-be-successful young folk whom they “enabled” to be so.</p>
<p>Another interesting article [interesting excerpts] from the Maroon:</p>
<p>"Lets face it, academics are pretty profoundly committed to what they do. Im sure that for any given faculty member there are at least 100 people somewhere else on the faculty who think that faculty members work is either useless, stupid, evil, unnecessary, or whatever. And this is true of anybody. Anybody you can think of will have attitudes like that. Its also true that probably every faculty member here secretly thinks that there are other whole units of the University that, really, we dont need .</p>
<p>But its also a community where people are concerned and are having debates and fighting about this stuff, and thats a whole lot better than having the place be asleep . Im kind of an exhibitionist and an egomaniac, and it works very well to do that. Its very physical kinds of stuff. Ive taught intro to sociology to 600 people without a microphone. </p>
<p>Its just a grand public performance. But its also true that if, as I occasionally did, you read the exams and see what people are actually learning, [laughs] its pretty frightening. Its pretty easy for you to persuade yourself that your students are learning a lot when maybe they arent . </p>
<p>Ive just done whatever Ive damn well pleased for the last 40 years .</p>
<p>I look at my own college career and realize that I just took all the courses I damn well pleased and it kind of worked out in the end. I could have gone into law or any other field without much difficulty. And that would be true actually for the majority of people here .So whats to say?* Its hard to know what the College should do to try to get undergraduate students to educate themselves, to set that as their challenge for themselves, rather than acquiring credentials. I mean you really have already bought the credential when you get it in. Its that simple. Youve got it. You do that and you pay the money. Youre going to get the credential."</p>
<p>[The</a> Study of Studying The Chicago Maroon](<a href=“Rambling and flat, this family turmoil doesn’t amount to a handful of cherries – Chicago Maroon”>Rambling and flat, this family turmoil doesn’t amount to a handful of cherries – Chicago Maroon)</p>
<p>It definitely hurts the image and profit of the college to have a lackadaisical approach to teaching or learning.</p>
<p>Wow. Way to choose misleading excerpts from the interview with Andy Abbott, and then to present them out of context. (For instance, the part about finding out his students weren’t really learning was describing the early part of his career when he was teaching 600-person lecture classes at Rutgers.)</p>
<p>Here’s the part of the interview that is really pertinent to this discussion:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Abbott is a very big deal at Chicago – the former chair of the Sociology Department and a member of the Faculty Senate committee that basically mediates between the faculty and the administration on academic matters. (Although elsewhere in the interview he points out that Chicago has only a handful of full-time administrators, and that everyone important is – or was until recently – primarily a working faculty-member.) He’s a flamboyant throwback to the old days when faculties were something of a preppy aristocracy.</p>
<p>
I’m a first-year in South, so I might be able to chime in here. First-years made up a very small portion of the South Scav team. However, I don’t think this indicates a shift in kind from the old UChicago ideals. For one thing, having eight houses of ~100 people each makes it much harder to generate common excitement towards something like Scav. You really have to go out of your way to participate in Scav, and if none of your friends seem to be interested, this just isn’t going to happen. A lot of people saw Scav as being something that could potentially be fun, but didn’t feel a strong enough desire to participate with so many other things going on. You would need the buzz that’s more characteristic of a tightly-knit group to convince people of its relative importance. It’s much easier to get a group of 200 together than it is to get a group of 800 together to make 1/4 of the commitment. This also contributes to the major difference in amount of off-campus/alumni help received by each dorm, giving Snitchcock and BJ an even greater advantage. South has been particularly disadvantaged in this regard with the move from the Shoreland. And people here who are serious about Scav go elsewhere. The overall effect is that South begin to see intense involvement in Scav like trying too hard in gym class, whether that is an accurate portrayal or not.</p>
<p>(fwiw: I never felt particularly compelled to participate myself, though I was away for Saturday and Sunday anyhow)</p>
<p>@JHS Wow. Way to spin very a very realistic perspective into a more favorable light for UChicago. That a professor is a “very big deal” at a particular university does not mean that he or she should be a big deal for the rest of the world. You seem willing enough to imply that Rutgers students aren’t actually learning, but what proof have you that Chicago students actually are, as implied, other than its rise in the USNews ranking and other recent successes (the “New” UChicago)?</p>
<p>Said professor may be chair of “this committee” or a throwback, in your favorable opinion, to “whenever,” but the only argument that you have made is that “He’s flamboyant” and a preppy aristocrat. And this statement only agrees with said professor’s own statement that I quoted: “It’s just a grand public performance.” All for show. You are arguing that, because he is an authority at Chicago, he should be respected as really cool, flamboyant, and knowledgable authority elsewhere. But this is hardly the impression that the interview conveys on the whole, for the excerpt you quoted is discussing how to make the university more profitable. And the except I quoted discusses how all of higher education is seeking to make a profit off of people’s desire to “find” and display their own intellectualism–as a means to jobs, security, or high-flying purpose.</p>
<p>My excerpts were not misleading. Your “part of the interview” was not “really pertinent” at all. At the very least, you should explain why the part of the interview you quoted is pertinent. But we already understand why he’s “a big deal at Chicago,” so you can leave that out.</p>
<p>Know:</p>
<p>The part of the interview I quoted was pertinent because this is a thread about the “‘New’ UChicago”, and he was giving a pretty coherent insider’s account of the long-term trend that has produced the changes this thread is about, including things that the faculty sees as problems. You were cherry-picking statements out of context in the manner of attack ads to support some thesis of your own that has nothing to do with Abbott, really. </p>
<p>You are free to do that, of course, but to do it effectively you have to be a lot more clear about what you are trying to say, and you have to pay a little more attention to what your source material is actually saying. For example, there’s nothing in Abbott’s discussion about higher education is seeking to make a profit off people’s desire to find and display their own intellectualism. There IS a discussion about how a university can’t overspend its revenue for decades and expect to survive, but that’s not the same thing. And what he’s saying at the end is that students should feel more free to pursue things that interest them in college, rather than what they think the job market wants, because most of what the job market wants is accomplished in the selection process at elite universities. Guess what? That’s completely true. (And it’s hardly an original insight, either.)</p>
<p>Abbott is also not saying anything shocking or new in describing lecturing to large classes in terms of performance. Have you ever seen a great lecturer at work? The fact that great lecturers are great performers does not remotely mean that they aren’t great educators, too – “great performers” and “great educators” are different sets, but there is considerable overlap between them. And Abbott was saying that early in his career he learned that being an effective performer didn’t guarantee that students were learning, and that he had to pay attention to both things – is that something you disagree with?</p>
<p>As for Abbott – he’s a big deal in the world of Sociology, especially Sociology of Education, although that hardly makes him a big deal in the world in general. He’s about 60, and I suspect he’s something of a dinosaur in a field where patrician WASPs are pretty rare now. And, as the article notes, he has a very important role within the University of Chicago, in terms of setting the University’s long-term strategies, things like what to spend money on and what to cut back.</p>
<p>I know he’s a fabulous teacher, both by general reputation and by reports from one of my kids, who took two classes with him. One of them was a lecture course, and the other was a seminar on research for 15 or so senior sociology majors (who had all previously taken several survey courses on research methods). At the end of the quarter he offered to continue the seminar for an additional quarter since he was enjoying it and the students were, too. So, he continued to meet with them weekly, give them assignments, etc. (but no grades). I have never heard of anything like that – it was magical, and meant the world to my kid. (Abbott is also one of that kid’s once and future recommenders for graduate programs, too.) </p>
<p>I have met Abbott a couple of times with my kid, and found him extremely charming – gracious, entertaining, and pompous in a professorial way.</p>
<p>KnowThyself:</p>
<p>Have you ever met Abbott? If not, you’re taking his words out of context. Abbott was a guest lecturer for several courses I had when I was at UChicago, and you really have to meet him to understand what his speech was all about. It sounds like you’re misconstruing Abbott considerably.</p>
<p>As another example of this, a while back Dean John Boyer talked about how UChicago was a better school than Columbia - that’s pretty much a verbatim quote. Now, for those who don’t know Boyer, this could seem like a pretty outrageous comment for one Dean to make of another school. If you know Boyer, though, you’d immediately understand what he’s all about.</p>
<p>Oh, and here’s the Boyer quote from a couple years ago:</p>
<p>[Huge</a> rise in applications most dramatic in U.S. – The Chicago Maroon](<a href=“Rambling and flat, this family turmoil doesn’t amount to a handful of cherries – Chicago Maroon”>Rambling and flat, this family turmoil doesn’t amount to a handful of cherries – Chicago Maroon)</p>
<p>“Boyer compared the University with Columbia, which also features a core curriculum and defines itself by its urban environment. “I believe we’re a better university than they are, so I think we should get more applications than they do,” he said.”</p>
<p>Just like Know took Abbott’s speech without being mindful of who Abbott is, people could easily misconstrue Boyer’s words - which I jokingly refer to as “fightin’ words” in another post. Again, if you meet these professors, you’d see immediately what they mean and what they’re all about. Knowthyself, you might want to do more homework next time, if you haven’t met Abbott.</p>