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The College admissions main page also claims that, at Chicago, conversation is the style [of the life of the mind]. In my house lounge, when I hear people have a U of C conversationusually discussing Marx or Hume or someone of the sortsomeone inevitably says proudly, Wow! That was so U of C! The fact that this is so self-consciously admitted detracts from its authenticity.
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<p>I think Matt does a good job of pointing out that the U of C doesn't always live up to the pixie dust that gets sprayed over viewbooks and mailings. U of C kids are not intellectual all the time (a good deal of the time we're watching YouTube, drinking foul-smelling liquids, playing broomball, and baking cookies), but rather that intellectual conversations will pop up in the most unlikely places about the most arbitrary things.</p>
<p>I also think that when people exclaim "this is so U of C!" (I've heard it too), they are comparing the nerdquotient of college conversations and college experiences to their high school conversations and high school experiences. It's not like people are saying "This would never happen at any other school!", they are saying "This is what happens at this school!"</p>
<p>thanks for posting that. It's good to have a different perspective at the "literature" broadcast by the university... especially from a current student.</p>
<p>I read that a while ago too. However, I don't think mentioning this sort of disenchantment in your app will get you any points. From what I've heard, admission is pretty proud of their image. :)</p>
<p>I swear there was a similar article written by an alum who went back on campus, and it was in some non-campus publication. gah I can't think of it.</p>
<p>"If I wanted an A I would have gone to Harvard." I liked what the author had to say about that. Clearly, if someone was accepted at Harvard, they would almost certainly not go to the U of C instead. Some reasons people may turn down a school would be:
1) Financial circumstance - however from my own experience and also from what I have read, Harvard's financial aid would be no hinderance, especially compared to Chicago's
2) location- but who would turn down Harvard because of location?
3) atmosphere - someone may claim that Chicago has a more intellectual atmosphere, but certainly someone could find an atmosphere at Harvard that is equally if not more intellectual</p>
<p>Also, the part about Chicago having high acceptance rates:
I have thought of several reasons why Chicago is still selective, yet does have a high acceptance rate.
1) no business or engineering programs which are hot for high schoolers
2) when people apply to a dream school "for the hell of it," it is MIT, HYP, not UChi
3) no common app, which I have seen has a bigger influence than it should due to the laziness of us seniors
4) no one at my school has ever heard of Chicago, which is true many places and possibly goes along with #2
5) does NOT have early decision, meaning that UChi has to accept MORE students because they do not have that guaranteed enrollment that ED schools have</p>
<p>...so I guess I am sticking up for Chicago a little with those acceptance rate issues</p>
<p>I suppose, also, that a lot of one's experience of a university is based on what one does there, rather than one's expectations. That is, instead of seeing UChicago as a place that where intellectual conversation simply happens, I only hope it is a place where I can put a certain amount of intellectual intensity into my environment and get a commensurate response. I want to be able to indulge (and improve!) myself by spending socially inappropriate amounts of time in the library, or by engaging others in genuine and unselfconscious 'intellectual' conversations - I only require that I can do that kind of thing constructively at the University, not that all (or many) of my peers share my wishes.</p>
<p>Is this a more reasonable expectation than assuming that analysing Kierkegaard at 3 AM is a regular activity?</p>
<p>Full disclosure:
I know Matt as an acquaintance (the one who wrote the op-ed). I know people who know Perlstein (who wrote the article I linked to) and I know many of the people quoted in that article. To be honest, I think that both pieces are more of a reflection of the writers' personalities than anything else. Matt strikes me as a reserved, cautious, and critical person-- in his columns, he's as critical of himself at times as he is of others. Perlstein is of a different breed, and I think anybody who reads the article can get a sense of that.</p>
<p>I didn't really intend to start a Harvard vs. U of C discussion (maybe I'm amused that there exist a number of students who are admitted to both and still turn down H, or other superelites, even though they are often the cheaper, more recognized, and more user-friendly alternatives to the U of C). I didn't think of adding more grist for your college apps. I did, however, want to add a counterweight to a lot of what I say. I think I sometimes make the U of C out to be Candyland, and I think that's because I look for all the silver linings in life.</p>