Why do I get the feeling that some who argued for a so-called “liberal arts” education (in the other thread and here) are really arguing for a humanities-centric education? Are the natural sciences, or even math, too “vocational” for them? Is that not pompous?
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Yeah, the irony here is that MIT has much more humanities requirements than most Ivy League colleges, with the notable exception of Columbia. UChicago also has significant humanities requirements, similar in depth to Columbia, but with a bit more flexibility.
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I’ve long thought of UChicago and Columbia as being extremely similar schools – urban, core requirements (though as you mentioned, UChicago’s are a bit more flexible), similar academic strength, similarly selective, etc. Both are also known as being academically rigorous.
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One is known for heavily promoting its ranking while the other is known for manipulating its ranking 
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Not sure why you get that feeling. Projection, perhaps? Speaking for myself only, I am not in favor of any exclusively “x-centric” educational system.
Again, speaking for myself only, not in the least. But then I don’t consider “vocational” to be a derisive term, nor do I consider all science education to be vocational.
And both are considered by HYP-on-a-pedestal people to be Unworthy…
Of course, the people engaged in rankings manipulation/promotion are themselves caught up in the “HYP-on-a-pedestal” belief. After 40 years, rankings are still “how similar are they to HYP?”, so administrators/alumni/parents who are obsessed with rankings, are, in essence, obsessed with how similar their college is to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Are you referring to how MIT recognizes the importance of humanities while some MIT boosters cast aspersions at every opportunity?
I think it’s great that MIT grads learn about both volts and Voltaire.
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I too think it’s great that MIT students at least have the opportunity to study Voltaire. But I also think that there is quite a lot of arrogance, insecurity, and close-mindedness driving the notion, repeatedly pushed by some, that the careful study of Voltaire is a “worse” option that exists for who those who aren’t intellectually astute enough to learn about volts.
In this regard the comparison/contrast of MIT to Chicago is an interesting one. Chicago’s seems to be an institutional insecurity about its status among other top institutions, and many of Chicago’s boosters (and prospective students) seem to share in and feed off that insecurity.
in contrast, MIT as an institution seems comfortable (and rightfully so) with its standing and its undergraduate educational mission, including its emphasis of STEM with substantial requirements beyond specialization. Yet some of MIT’s most vocal boosters (on CC at least) seem more akin to Chicago’s. I think whatever is driving them involves something deeper than just insecurity about the quality of the institution.
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Maybe people given to self-reflection are prone to insecurity? I once heard an MIT student say that the only thing all MIT students have in common is that they all feel like they don’t know how they got in.
I suspect imposter syndrome runs rampant at most top schools.
Well, except Harvard. (That was a joke.)
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I agree that imposter syndrome runs rampant among students at many top schools, and perhaps Chicago (or it least its marketing) provides a good example of imposter syndrome on the institutional level.
On the other hand, I think that you may be giving too much credit by attributing this to “self-reflection.” I am not sure that those who are truly self-reflective are quite so obsessed with trying to justify their choices by ridiculing the choices of others.
I think it may have something to do with the (IMO) toxic culture surrounding certain educational pursuits starting from an early age. But then that is probably a topic for another thread.
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They are essentially twins who grew up to have opposite political viewpoints. My D loved Columbia and expected to apply ED there, until she learned about its political climate. She then switched to UChicago.
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Perhaps if fewer “toxic culture”, “education as a race”, “checking boxes”, and other similarly dismissive euphemisms for academic excellence were used by the self-reflective and self-confident humanities folk, there would be less of a blow-back from the arrogant and insecure STEM types.
But then, what would we all come to CC for?
There is some truth to this and it’s unfortunate.
Go back to 2016, and UChicago had the most flexible admissions program. It only had EA and RD. And despite being that flexible, it still had a yield somewhere between 60-70%. If I recall, that was above Columbia which had ED and above Princeton which had SCEA.
When my D decided she would apply early to UChicago, she expected to apply EA. Her year was the first year that ED was offered, and because it was her unconditional first choice, she went ahead and applied ED.
I don’t remember if that is the same year ED2 was offered or not. But I remembered thinking why take the best admissions program among the top 10 and make it the worst?
UChicago doesn’t have to try to be Harvard. In fact, it isn’t at all, and shouldn’t try. Unlike Harvard, which makes it pretty easy to graduate without working hard, UChicago is demanding. It also has an emphasis on freedom of expression, again different from Harvard. For the right type of student, this environment is ideal, and UChicago should be confident that it can find roughly 2000 students each year that want to be there and would thrive there, without the gamesmanship of EA/ED1/ED2.
I think a good deal of the blame rests with Nondorf, the head of admissions. He did a good job of raising the profile, but went overboard with the admission games.
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Thanks for making my point for me.
@mtmind , I’m not a big fan of armchair psychoanalysis, but I’m ready to do a little navel-gazing about “boosterism,” as seen from the Chicago side anyhow. This IS a Chicago forum after all. Anyone not interested can take a snooze.
First off, how is it that praise of a school is in itself something that needs to be slapped down? A fond description of the culture of any school always interests me. People are more alive and more observant when they’re writing about what they love. The reaction this gets on cc always bewilders me. When a Chicago booster does this, it’s construed ipso facto as an attack on every other institution, even when it has nothing whatever to do with any other school or with the trivial subject of ratings, something that interests this particular booster not at all.
It’s certainly correct that Chicago alums, though a diverse bunch, do tend to have attitude. To understand this you really need to have been inside the belly of the beast. It also helps to know something of the history of the institution, of the city of Chicago and of the Midwest. Whatever “insecurity” might mean, that’s not what Chicagoans feel. It’s more a sense of resentment over coastal domination and elite institutions. Chicago calls itself “the Second City,” a proud in-your-face boast not an apology, for a reason. In a similar spirit the University has always distinguished itself from its peer schools of the seaboards. Here we were co-ed from the very beginning, and we never had quotas for Jews. Important Black scholars studied and taught here from the beginning. Chicago had its early rah-rah stage of being a football power, but Hutchins banished football and all intercollegiate sports in the thirties, deeming them incompatible with a serious education. And education at Chicago was and is nothing if not serious, many have said way too serious, the reason for the historic disdain felt for it by the children of the upper classes. It was never a finishing school or a place you would go to have a brilliant social life and make contacts for a future decorative life. No, being wealthy or sporty or even gregarious got you no credit. What did was showing you could think and argue. That chip on the shoulder, that determined maverickness, defined the culture, loathed by all the right people. When it was suggested to a former President of Harvard that admission on the strict basis of merit would be a good idea, he was horrified: “That would make us like the University of Chicago.” (shudder)
I could go on. Nobody needs to like any of this, of course. But for those of us who do like it, what’s the point of pretending otherwise? After all, here in the Midwest we never imbibed ivy-like good manners or learned the fine art of boasting by not boasting.
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If I had a dollar every time I heard “toxic culture” slur used as an euphemism for “too many Asians”, it’d take a good bite off the college bills.
(not an Asian myself, so I hear these things, and as a member of another historically-discriminated-against minority and an American by choice, I sympathize)
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you go, marlowe1! 
only when you say things like “UChicago is unique in that all other schools are full of jocks” - without appropriate deference to MIT and Caltech
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The first post of this thread is quoted below, which led to this long thread. It’s uncommon for a poster to start a thread about the yield of their school, but I don’t think that’s primarily what triggered the many comments. The many comments were instead triggered by the 2nd sentence, stating that Chicago had a higher yield than Harvard. This type of comment is more reactionary, particularly if focusing on metrics that are heavily manipulated.
It’s far from the only example. For example, a notable portion of Chicago threads seem to end up comparing Chicago’s core to other schools and talking about how Chicago’s core is more rigorous than other colleges. This type of comparison is also likely to lead to pushback.
This type of thing seems to happen more often in the Chicago forum than elsewhere. For example, MIT had the same 85% yield as Chicago and has what many would consider a more rigorous core; yet I can’t recall a MIT forum thread comparing MIT’s yield or core rigor to other colleges.
University of Chicago yield was 85% for students offered admission; Maroon admit rate was 5.4% overall.
By comparison, Harvard University yield was 83%, which was down from 85%; Crimson admit rate was 3.1%.
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But it is interesting, and not just in a train wreck sort of way.
Wow. That’s a leap beyond logic.
As I said, it is probably better left to another topic, but it would more accurate to accuse me of believing that there are “too many men,” or rather, boys, dominating math class, and defining there self-worth therein. Of course it is more complicated than that, but let’s leave it there since subtlety seems to escape you.
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