Ok. If you feel it’s much better somehow.
Let’s. But we all have different perspectives in life owing in part to our origins, and you should perhaps consider checking your own privilege from time to time when throwing around phrases like the ones I cited in the message above.
…and a less draconian… er… I mean sophisticated early admission policy 
Sure, Data, arguments cutting down outsized claims and pointing out convergences are fine in my book. But are you suggesting there aren’t differences - significant differences - among the cultures of the group of schools among which Chicago would be compared? When I ask this question, I’m not in the least concerned to create a pecking order - indeed, underlying any idea that this could actually be done is an assumption that there’s some univocal measure of excellence. No, I’m very happy to let Harvard be Harvard and Stanford Stanford. My own heart lies with Chicago and, yes, it feels different to me than the other campuses I have been on.
No. I didn’t say anything of the sort.
I mean, that’s just a reality. It is shockingly easy to graduate from Harvard or Yale with little effort if that’s the goal. My kids have compared some courses between their UChicago and Harvard experiences, and there are cases where UChicago students learn more in a quarter than Harvard students do in a semester. Now there are certainly Harvard courses that are extremely demanding like Physics 16 or Math 55, but these are all optional. And I suspect that Columbia is as demanding as UChicago as well.
Is UChicago as demanding as MIT? Most certainly not, and even less compared to CalTech. But those are not the competition for UChicago given that it really has no engineering program to speak of.
I’ve witnessed MIT and UChicago’s rigor being mentioned in the same post, if not the same sentence. Both are generally regarded as tough, to those who follow these things. Add Caltech. Add Columbia… Swarthmore… Reed… Carleton. Call them the Magnificently Rigorous Seven.
I’m comfortable with the phrases used and their context. For instance, I don’t take issue with families who choose to treat math as a race by checking off as many boxes as they can as quickly as they can, and from an early age. Where I get stuck is when they then insist that their approach is superior to those who approach math (or any subject) differently.
Another wow.
Some kids have both real interest and strong talent in some areas. For some kids it is a sport, for others it is music, and for others it is math. In many of those cases it is not the parents pushing the kids, but parents trying to keep up with what their kids are hungry to do.
So many people don’t seem to understand this 
They see a kid spending 6 hours on the weekend playing soccer - they think: kid’s got real passion and drive. They see a kid spending 6 hours on a math or coding competition - they think: pushy parents, cultural pressure, just trying to get into a T-10, etc.
No doubt it is often kid driven.
It depends on the familues but pushy parents drive quite a lot of youth athletics
You must know that there are PLENTY of parents pushing their kids into sports, thinking they have the next Gretzky, Jordan, Brady, etc.? The parents driving the “recruited athlete bus” route to college is a well-worn path.
Carry on with the Chicago, MIT, Columbia discussion. 
ETA: @mtmind beat me to it. Grrr.
Unlike math, CC is a race.
True. But my neck of the woods has far more academically driven students and parents vs the athletic type. So I hear a lot of “it’s just for college admissions”.
Even though some parents may be pushing some kids into sports, it isn’t many student-athletes who can get recruited to play in college without spending the considerable time and effort necessary to be successful at their sport, same as a musician, or mathematician, etc.
It’s certainly true for the student-athletes who I know who have gone on to play at highly rejective schools, including U Chicago, where athletic recruiting is alive and well (and where some of the recruits might be below average on the academic side).
Many student-athletes who were pushed into the sport by parents fizzle out well before college, not unlike some students who are forced to take piano lessons or insert other activity here. I get that recruiting is more of a hook than some other activities, but there certainly is some recruiting happening for other things like music, math (as for USAMO winners and other competitions), and debate, to take a couple of examples.
I hang out more with the “dumb jock” crowd. 
Not only are Marlowe’s posts excellent, he brings out the excellence in other posters.
Why if it isn’t Prince Hamlet himself!
In my neck of the woods it is both, and whether academics or sports, it is usually some combination of parents and kid who seem to be driving the interests. But even when the kid seems to be the driving force, parents have played a primary role in shaping the environment which may inadvertently (or explicitly) favor certain interests and choices over others.