U of Chicago: 19,306 applications up 42 percent

Parents Forum
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<p>The really interesting thing to know would be what effect the character of a college actually has on the students who go there. I tend to think not very much. In my own case, I am confident that I would be more or less the same person if I had gone to Harvard or Princeton rather than Yale, and I would have had pretty much the same career. (I would be married to someone else, but it would probably be someone very similar to the person I’m married to.) If I had gone to a small liberal arts college – something I never seriously considered – I almost certainly would have spent some time in an English PhD program (the reason I didn’t had a lot to do with being pretty intimately familiar with some of the unpleasant aspects of life in elite graduate programs and among successful faculty). But I tend to think that would have ultimately been a detour, as it was for many of my contemporaries.</p>

<p>I don’t think the University of Chicago had a major impact on my first child there. She is a Chicago type, except for being much more a hipster than a quirky nerd, but she would have found kindred souls and a good education at any university of decent quality. She would never have turned into Charlotte Simmons, nor was she likely to become, I don’t know, Elena Kagan or Hillary Rodham. </p>

<p>Recently, however, I have been contemplating the notion that Chicago HAS had a significant effect on how my second child leads his life. He is a much more standard-issue Ivy type – strong all around in everything in high school (at least until the second semester of Physics C), something of a joiner and a leader, interested in and engaged by the real world, but no clear idea of exactly how he fits into it. I have reported often how one of his reasons for choosing Chicago was that he liked to party, and he was a little afraid of falling into a pit (as had happened to several people he knew when they went to college). He felt he had seen what the pit looked like at Chicago – specifically his sister and her friends – and, as he put it, “it’s a pretty shallow pit”.</p>

<p>Something I realized over Christmas is that he has essentially abandoned the “party” lifestyle. Not as a matter of conscious decision at all, and certainly not out of unrelenting focus on his studies. He is – true to type – deeply engaged in various extra-curricular activities. He makes periodic excursions to the more exciting parts of Chicago. He has had a series of girlfriends, some of whom seem to be on repeat. (In his world, breaking up does not seem to entail spending a lot less time together.) But one way or another, his life has gotten too full to spend much of it on social drinking or drug use. Part of that IS the academics – he is constantly excited by his classes, and for all his other activities, if a professor suggests that he read three books not on the syllabus to get a handle on a question he asks, he reads the three books. But another part is that he is solidly embedded in a community that just isn’t all that party-centric. People have fun, they are enjoying themselves (certainly the “girlfriends” part involves the kind of fun that 20-year-olds who are attracted to one another often have), but his actual behaviors are meaningfully different than those of similar kids at other colleges.</p>

<p>I doubt this will have any kind of profound long-term effect, and I think lots of people tone down their partying by the middle of their third year in college. In my case, “toning down” meant consciously limiting my recreational alcohol and drug abuse to only two or three times a week, which made me sort of a moderate Puritan compared to my classmates. For my son, at his university, and without anything like a Great Awakening, that all seems to be approaching a limit of zero.</p>

<p>Your mileage may vary, of course. Nothing remotely similar happened with his sister, whose “Latkes and Vodka” Hanukkah parties were apparently very popular in certain circles. But, still, I have a sneaking suspicion that Chicago has actually made a difference in how half of my children spend their time in college.</p>

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<p>A grad student teaches … Wow! I thought that graduate students never teach but do “other” things while professors teach. </p>

<p>Today the story is that frightened --and perhaps not well trained nor prepared-- graduate students are teaching cohorts of future Nobel winners. Tomorrow, if the debate is about the number of classes that are not taught by faculty, we’ll read that TAs do NOT teach. </p>

<p>Welcome to the wonderful world of semantics!</p>

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<p>Weird. Not a single current, recent, or recently Ivy-accepted student that I have met in the last 7 years has fits this repeated stereotype on every Chicago thread on PF. Obviously, I meet the supposedly rare “life of the mind” students who just coincidentally must be of the extreme minority at Ivies. Think of the mathematical possiibilities of that. :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>JHS:
An interesting post. S2 seems to have fallen among a bunch of non-drinkers. My S took up an EC which I would never have expected him to be interested in and discovered he had some skill at organizing people (again something well hidden at home). But I put it down to growing up rather than to the impact of H on his personality per se.
S1 seems to have been largely unaffected by the social scene at Wes. He never fit the Wes stereotype, except perhaps that he is liberal in his politics. He does regret phoning on behalf of Joe Lieberman in his freshman year, though!</p>

<p>ETA: To follow up on epiphany’s post, H claims to want to construct a well-rounded class, not necessarily to admit only well-rounded students. S2 was always extremely lop-sided (though he did well in social studies and humanities, so I suppose he could be considered well-rounded).</p>

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<p>epiphany, I don’t know why you have such a querulous tone. I was not putting down “Ivy types”, nor was I suggesting that they are uninterested in the life of the mind. For the 100th time. Jeepers!</p>

<p>And, yes, Harvard wants “well-lopsided” students rather than “well-rounded” ones, but (at least from what I’ve seen) its definition of “well-lopsided” is getting As and 750+s in the disfavored subject areas, but not caring much about them. You know all those class-rank statistics? You don’t get 90% of your students from the top 5% of their high school classes by admitting people who are actually lopsided, except at a very high level. (And, yes, I know about schools that don’t rank.) And when you go down the food chain to the – ridiculous phrase – “lesser” Ivies, I think people get more well-rounded, not less.</p>

<p>The one phrase I used that is not “standard-issue Ivy type” was the one about not having a clear idea where he fits in. In most cases, the HYP students I know generally DO have a clear idea where they fit in, although some of them change that idea significantly from time to time. Again, the mix changes at some of the other colleges.</p>

<p>As for “leaders” – that comes up in Chicago threads because for some time it was an actual, demonstrable point of difference between Chicago and the Ivies. Almost all of the Ivies, both in explicit statements by people like Presidents and Admissions Deans, and implicitly by their behavior, have traditionally valued leadership. Not exclusively, or monochromatically, but anyone who has spent any time at one of those places knows that it is much easier to find a chief than an Indian. Meanwhile, until fairly recently Chicago explicitly and implicitly disclaimed any interest in criteria unrelated to academics. That seems to have changed after a McKinsey study cited it as contributing to some of the college’s and university’s weaknesses.</p>

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<p>And I don’t know why JHS is mischaracterizing my response as “querulous.” I don’t like stereotypes and misrepresentations, particularly when they’re off. There is no “Ivy-type” in the bland, generalized context you have provided (or failed to provide). It is you who made the statement I boxed, not I. It’s not a “type.”</p>

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<p>Hmmmm. I do think there is a Chicago type, but I believe that it gets shaped once one arrives more than arrives with the student, and though all are not instances of the type, most are affected by it. I would think this is true at most schools and is not a bad thing. It is just how culture tends to work.</p>

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<p>JHS:
Well-lopsided does not mean getting As in certain fields. It means being absolutely passionate about some field of knowledge or some other endeavor and doing far more than just getting As.
I’ve come to understand that “leadership” is interpreted in various ways. In the case of some students, it means taking control of their own learning. They may or may not change the world; but if they do, it will be through their learning, not through having a political career.</p>

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<p>I knew that this day would happen sooner or later
U chicago,ranks top 5 in the world and top 10 in america,with such a high EA acceptance rate without binding,it is definitely very attractive to students.
And i think there are some business cooperations between Chicago and US news or some other organizations,there are so many corruptions in Illinois,maybe there are many untransparent things going on we just don’t know.</p>

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<p>marite, right. But in the HYP sense, it also means getting As in all the other fields that you’re not passionate about. That’s the “well-” part of the formula.</p>

<p>I could be wrong – I’m not claiming omniscience – but around here a student who is over-the-moon, verifiably passionate about, say, Classical Greek, with high achievement to match, and who gets Cs in non-AP math classes (and is not being recruited for a sport), has absolutely no chance of admission at any of the Ivy League colleges. Or, probably, at the University of Chicago anymore, although that clearly wasn’t the case 7-8 years ago.</p>

<p>And, again, re leadership: Everyone values intellectual leadership. And not everyone wants to go into politics. But that’s an enormous area of cultural difference between Chicago and Harvard or Yale. The latter have lots and lots and lots of people – not everyone, of course, but you can’t get far away from them – who are ambitious to take part in political leadership (including, of course, appointed offices, and behind-the-scenes machinations). At Chicago, they are few and far between, and often the subject of derisive ridicule by their classmates. There is nothing like the Yale Political Union; that’s probably the largest student organization there. Any office that requires an election is an office that has trouble finding two non-humorous candidates, or getting more than a trivial number of people to vote.</p>

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<p>JHS:
Hmmm. S1–who applied to Chicago (and might have gotten in had he stayed on the WL) was the one who did not take a single AP in math or science (and indeed wrote his essay about going from liking math to becoming interested in what makes people tick). S2, by your definition, was both well lopsided and well-rounded.
I agree that Yale or Harvard have their share of world-beaters (Harvard possibly more than anywhere else) and they make the most noise and grab headlines. But this noise masks the fact that the rest of the students are pretty much like the Chicago students. If temperament alone were to predict where some students would end up according to schools’ stereotypes, S would have gone to Chicago and his chum would have gone to Harvard.</p>

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<p>Post 70:</p>

<p>In this we have some agreement, at least in the first 2 paragraphs.</p>

<p>Yes, the Ivies have always strongly preferred, and continue to prefer, students who are high-achieving in both favorite and non-favorite areas. This is historically and currently accurate. If you were referring to that as a “type,” then we are not in discord. :slight_smile: Perhaps where I would differ with you is in two respects:</p>

<p>(1) Many (maybe even most? – certainly a large segment that I meet) of these same “types” do in fact know exactly where they’re going/what they want. That seemed to be contraindicated by the boxed statement from you I previously quoted.</p>

<p>We know it does not exclude a more lopsided student like marite’s S, but it is a preferred HYP admission, yes.</p>

<p>(2) I somewhat agree with marite that, while Harvard in particular prefers a “classic” leader or leader-to-be (again, her S possibly excepted), it would appear that there is slightly more variation along the leadership spectrum at other Ivies, and/or in leadership style. Non-H campuses appear to have more of the quiet, role-model leaders, along with some more extroverted ones, and in that respect, H may be more “lopsided” itself, leader-wise. Strictly my impression, from encounters, that’s all.</p>

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<p>Why is there so much investment in “proving” that HYP students are, indeed, of great similarity to Chicago students? Why is everything that’s said about Chicago twisted and taken as a put-down of other schools and students at those schools? Why is everything about Chicago’s life-of-the-mind schtick re-purposed as “Oh, well, I guess you must think that you can’t find a single life-of-the-mind kid at an Ivy whatsoever”?</p>

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<p>It appears that currently the conversation is shifting slightly as to focus, but to answer your question, the responders would say (and I know I’m not alone), that categories have often been drawn by previous posters on many threads, to include and to exclude, to draw strong contradistinctions between Ivies as “pre-professional” and UChicago as “intellectual.” I don’t buy it for a second. If you want a life of the mind, you will find it, if you seek that, equally in both categories of U. For that matter, you will most likely find it at many flagship public U’s, at many LAC’s (some would argue, even more so at particular LAC’s). The distinction I would draw is that UChicago attracts those who are interested in dwelling in theory (not a criticism of course, that’s to be admired), as well as deepening their academic interests as soon as possible, prior to any graduate endeavors, and even saturating a particular interest in the undergraduate years. Such students may or may not matriculate to graduate level studies as well. Those Ivy students in love with the Life of the Mind and who are consciously graduate-school bound may or may not be as invested in immediate saturation during their undergrad years at an Ivy.</p>

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<p>On all the threads I’ve read, the charge that there is SUCH a distinction – that Ivies are pre-pro and Chicago is life-of-the-mind and never the twain shall meet – seems to be one that’s ascribed to one side by the other. But I’ve never actually seen real evidence of such beliefs, nor have I ever heard anyone suggest that an intellectual kid can’t be found or can’t have the time of his life at an Ivy.</p>

<p>Doesn’t the focus on Chicago as some alleged standard-bearer get tiresome? Good lord. Chicago certainly occupies a greater share of CC-hive-mind than it does in the real world, where no one thinks about it except to confuse it with U of I - Chicago :-)</p>

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<p>Actually, epiphany, while I don’t think I personally know H students who were mediocre in one area but shone in others, it may be a consequence of my encountering students through my S. Math students are more likely to have high verbal scores than the other way around. They can do okay, even well in non-math/science areas, but the converse is not necessarily true.
Still, Harvard supposedly admits 300 or so academic stars every year. I would expect that these would be heavily represented in the “lopsided” category. Out of a pool of 1660 (I’m assuming that the yield for them is higher than the overall 76% yield) admits, it is small, to be sure. If we also include the artistic stars, then the proportion of lopsided students is not insignificant, though it is not quite 1/4.</p>

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<p>PG: yes, it does get old. Which is why I wrote post #57.</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl: This is true of most of the schools talked about on CC. For the fun of it, I asked a roomful of Ph.Ds to name all 8 Ivy League schools, out of about 10 only 2 could do it. Most commonly left off the list were Dartmouth, Penn and Brown.</p>

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<p>epiphany: I’m glad to find out that we don’t live in parallel universes.</p>

<p>It’s the lopsided students who are most likely to have a clear idea where they are going and what they want – that’s what lops their sides. However, just like college students elsewhere, a lot of them change directions, and then all of a sudden they are lopsided in some different way. The science-competition champ/math prodigy of my daughter’s high school class, who went to Harvard, is now in finance. A friend who was all about Latin and Ancient Greek in high school is an Economics major and right-wing political blogger at Yale. I believe some of that know-where-they’re-going quality is more an expression of (justified) self-confidence, along with experience in how to satisfy other people’s expectations, than actually knowing where they are going. There’s nothing wrong with that.</p>

<p>But, yes, I acknowledged before that uncertainty is not part of the “Ivy” stereotype. Although I would still suggest that one of the things that separates HYP from the rest of the Ivy League (Columbia, too, a little, and to some extent Wharton) is the ubiquitousness and fierceness of that apparent sense of direction. Not that it’s universal at HYP either, just way more in evidence than at other places really smart kids hang out.</p>

<p>On leadership, I reiterate, every college values role models and intellectual leaders as well as political leaders, certainly including Harvard. (And the three things are hardly mutually exclusive – Harvard is happy to take combos, too.) I think there are plenty of non-extroverted types at Harvard, whose leadership may be visible only at very close quarters. But there is no Ivy campus where the level of noise generated by the public leader types is not exponentially greater than at the University of Chicago, at least so far. Fun does not die at the University of Chicago; explicit undergraduate political ambitions do.</p>

<p>Just to be clear, let me say this: I do not think Chicago students, as a group, are superior in any respect to Harvard or Yale students. I believe Chicago and Harvard or Yale (or Dartmouth, etc.) do NOT have different intellectual criteria for picking students, and may not have any different criteria at all (except for athletes). They are all looking for the same qualities, and to a large extent Harvard and Yale get first pick. So if I had to make a judgment, I would say that they have the best students. Luckily, they are not perfect, and neither is anyone else, and kids are not uniform in their tastes and application choices, so there are plenty of great students to go around.</p>

<p>There ARE some differences among these largely similar institutions, both historically and currently. And I think Chicago has a particularly strong sense of unique character, which influences what its student body looks like, because kids who don’t like it tend not to apply, or if accepted tend not to enroll. (Same with Dartmouth, by the way – a different mix of qualities. Some of which I, personally, like better than Chicago’s, and some of which I don’t.) Those differences are important and interesting to discuss, but do not outweigh the overwhelming similarity of all of these institutions.</p>

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<p>Student A is a life-of-the-mind type who wants to go to school among primarily / mostly other life-of-the-mind types.</p>

<p>Student B is a life-of-the-mind type who wants to go to school in a setting where there will be more than enough likeminded life-of-the-mind types for him to be able to immerse comfortably in it, but he’s also perfectly happy for there to be non-life-of-the-mind types around him too, so long as they are also smart. </p>

<p>Is that a fair description of the differences, or no?</p>