<p>I’m still trying to get over the shock of seeing the word “querulous” on an internet message board. Let’s just say it’s not a word I’d expect to run across on the other boards I frequent. ;)</p>
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<p>As to your last sentence, I’m not so sure that’s true. My son was a B, not a C student in high school in math and science (though he did get a C- in chemistry and an A- in biology IIRC), but certainly was neither stellar nor particularly interested. And maybe that’s why he didn’t get into Yale, despite being a double legacy with a 3.8-something GPA and 2230 on his SAT’s and good EC’s. I’ll bet he would have back when I applied, of course, so it could just be the whole numbers game. </p>
<p>(His opinion was that at least from his school, H and Y took <em>only</em> so-called “leaders,” that you had to have had leadership positions in multiple activities, while he was only editor in chief of the lit magazine for a couple of years. So he never expected to get into Yale, and Chicago was always his first choice. In fact, he told me he was kind of relieved he didn’t get into Yale, because he thought I would have pressured him to go, and he really preferred Chicago from the beginning. The Chicago vs. New Haven issue made a huge difference to him. I guess we’ll never know if I would have pressured him, unless the same thing happens again when it’s time for graduate school!) </p>
<p>But in the two or three subjects he’s truly good at, I honestly believe he’s spectacular. That there’s nobody better. Nobody. I was entirely confident that he would stand out in those subjects in Chicago (or anywhere else), and so far I’m right. </p>
<p>Personally, and that’s just me, I’d rather have a person who’s spectacular at some things and mediocre at others, than a student who’s really good in every subject but truly outstanding in none. (And, please – I am not remotely questioning that there are huge numbers of truly outstanding students at H, Y, and P. )</p>
<p>So, It’s Yale’s loss. I have no doubt he would have done at least as well there as I did, having met my share of current Yale undergraduates in the last 5 years or so when I went up there to be on various panels as the token Yale graduate. And this isn’t sour grapes. After all, among his parents and grandparents, there are already 2 Yale degrees, 3 Harvard degrees, and 3 Columbia degrees, so it isn’t as if there’s an Ivy League shortage in the family that anyone was depending on him to fill.</p>
<p>As for parties and drinking, my son has told me that he goes to at least one party somewhere almost every weekend. Usually at someone’s off-campus apartment, I think. Never during the week. And that he’s begun to drink beer (which he <em>never</em> did in high school), and has had as many as 3 or 4 in one evening at those weekend parties. Or the same number of screwdrivers. I can’t say I’m happy (I always disliked beer myself, and only pretended to drink it), but I realize that as college students go, this isn’t exactly a dissipated life. And at least he’s only been drunk enough to have a hangover one time, he says. And didn’t like it, which is good. That’s less than I did that when I was in college, even though, like him, I"d never been drunk in my life before college. (And I’ve almost never been since college, that I can remember.)</p>
<p>I have to say that I’m much more upset that he also has been smoking cigarettes, although he supposedly has never bought any, just mooched a few at parties. I know how easy it is to develop a smoking habit; I started in law school and it took me 15 years to stop. When I get upset about it and figuratively stamp my feet, he kind of just laughs at me (he finds me quite amusing when I get upset that way, apparently), and I know that there’s nothing I can do about it, really. I hope he has the good sense not to go further with it than he has.</p>
<p>In any event, even though he says people are always having parties on weekends, it’s not like there are a lot of people staggering around the campus throwing up. Chicago is definitely not one of those schools where students seem to pride themselves on having a “work hard, party hard” culture.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: I think you’ve described two different types of student, but not a Chicago vs. anywhere difference. Student A types are pretty rare in any event. Chicago may have slightly more of them than Harvard, or anywhere else (except maybe Reed, or St. John), but I’m sure Harvard has some, too. And Penn State, for that matter. There are all kinds of reasons why a Student A might end up at Penn State. Or Harvard.</p>
<p>I suspect that most Student A types, as high school seniors, would be perfectly content to know that in college they would meet enough people like themselves to get up a regular bridge game.</p>
<p>epiphany: I do not use “pre-professional” as anything other than a description. There is nothing wrong with being pre-professional. However, I would suggest that there will be a difference in tone between College A, where 40% of the students expect eventually to get law, medicine, or business professional degrees and 10% to get PhDs, and College B, where 20% of the students expect to get professional degrees and 20% PhDs. But I do not think that difference relates to the “life of the mind”, or not exactly.</p>
<p>S1 attended a top Ivy known for catering somewhat to pre-profesional students for a summer term where one could do an entire year of chemistry in 8 weeks. (Many Chicago students attend because it is considered far easier than doing 3 quarters of it at Chicago.) In a discussion session he asked a somewhat theoretical question of the kind that would inspire some excited discussion in the courses he previously took, only to be asked by two students who attended the school, “Why ask that? It won’t be on the MCAT.” For what it’s worth, he said the prevailing cultures were quite different. He found he “clicked” better with the grad students.</p>
<p>Maybe I understand “lopsided” differently from you, JHS. Lopsided does not mean a student who does very well in some area or who has a clear notion of where s/he was headed. The level of excellence has to be beyond the ordinary. I have met a number of these students, some at Harvard or MIT, some who graduated from Chicago or some other school.
As for changing focus, a lot of mathy kids end up in economics or computer science; some who started out as pre-med end up in a humanities major.</p>
<p>S2 is pretty much the kid who does well in everything, but until recently had no real passion for anything academic. His ECs, however, are exceptional in leadership and talent. What he has a passion for is a certain profession. He has picked the schools to which he is applying accordingly (and Chicago is not one of them). From his perspective, he is actively seeking a campus with others more like himself. I’m sure that he will encounter life of the mind types wherever he attends, but that is not what he is looking for. S1 on the other hand was, and is why he is at Chicago.</p>
<p>I know that’s supposed to make all of us shake our heads and rend our garments that oh-it’s-so-terrible-that-a-student-might-not-want-to-learn-something-if-it’s-not-on-the-MCAT’s but it takes both practical and philosophical people to run the world.</p>
<p>PG: I wasn’t passing judgment on those students, only pointing out that there are “cultural differences.” S2 would likely be sitting with them.</p>
<p>When S2, the very lopsided one, began looking at schools, he wanted to be among people like himself; then he decided that he wanted to have enough people like himself but not to have everybody like himself. By that, he meant in terms of both academic and non-academic interests.</p>
<p>How many parents here who spend so much time proclaiming the “intellectual merits” of UChicago had kids who were not accepted at higher ranked schools? It seems like quite a few. I really have not witnessed this fervor from parents (or alums or other mysteriously motivated school-boosters) for protecting the reputation of their/their kids’ school on other school’s forums. If this is indeed going on at other places (and I have checked out the UPenn forum, at least), I would welcome being directed to it. </p>
<p>What it seems to me to be is a massive inferiority complex about the school. I have a family member who is constantly bragging about how superior everything connected to his life is. Obnoxious, yes–but also sad. I think that intuitively my S came to the realization that because of this weird defensiveness Chicago was just not the place for him, even though the essay prompts and the “life of the mind” mantra did not put him off at all, and even attracted him–until he got to know the school better.</p>
<p>Mummom: S1 (math/CS type) turned down MIT for Chicago. We know of a couple of other current students who also made the same choice.</p>
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<p>How is this for more straw? </p>
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<p>Post 80:</p>
<p>Yes. :)</p>
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<p>That is a slice of life, valid for its limited experience and even more limited academic focus, but not to project beyond that. (Unless your S was such a curious investigator that he made it a point to travel to different classes, observing/auditing, whatever, and noticed in other fields than pre-med, and from people of various backgrounds, most or all students were test-focused.)</p>
<p>If I knew how to do one of those “rolling eyes” smilies, I’d put one here. Mummom, I have no inferiority complex about Chicago at all, massive or otherwise. I have a “complex” only about people who like to bash particular schools, and willfully misread what’s being said about them, at every opportunity. (Unlike some people, I won’t speculate about motive) I know very well how good Yale is. I went there, and have followed events there rather closely over the years. But I also know how good Chicago is. What sometimes appears to be defensiveness is simply a reaction to offensiveness. People wouldn’t feel a need to “protect” Chicago if others didn’t attack it. </p>
<p>All I can tell you about Chicago’s reputation outside the world of people generally familiar with college admissions is that every single time anyone’s ever asked me where my son goes to college, and I tell them, the reaction has been identical: “Oh, he must be really smart!”</p>
<p>Which he is. </p>
<p>PS: I hope you enjoyed having one of your posts made fun of at Gawker.</p>
<p>Well golly, I hope when people ask me where my S goes to college, and I tell them, they don’t say “oh he must be really stupid!” Because, after all, he is smart…he got into Chicago afterall. :)</p>
<p>I don’t know what “Gawker” is–is that a life of the mind website that I’m too clueless to be familiar with?</p>
<p>Seriously, I think your S sounds like a great kid, Donna. The more you talk about him, the more I think I would like to meet him. My S enjoys singing show tunes with his friends, after all. 
I don’t understand why you tend to be so defensive about his “quirkiness” and about his school. Don’t most really smart kids have a hard time fitting in in high school? Is Chicago the only place these kids can find a place? I sure hope not, for their sakes.</p>
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<p>In our neck of the woods in Texas, we’d give it another name, but in this sanitized forum, I will call that a … whole sack of horse manure. </p>
<p>You are clearly entitled to your opinion, but not to your own set of facts. In recent weeks, there are have been a number of threads regarding Chicago --from the Ivy reject debacle thread to the a couple about essays and prompts. </p>
<p>No amount of relentless regurgitating of that specious argument will make it become true. The threads are still there … in all their glory! Do yourself a favor and go click on the threads and also on the participants’ scoresheets. Perhaps, you’ll stumble onto the early “attackers!”</p>
<p>It’s a rather silly general “lifestyle” website that is mostly entertainment news, but had a story about that admissions essay that Chicago publicized – which they liked – and quoted your post and a couple of others criticizing the essay, basically as being from uptight parents. In fact, the writer seemed to think all the parents on CC are insane for spending so much time there!</p>
<p>My only point about what people say when I mention Chicago is that contrary to some opinions, it does seem to be rather well-known among the general college-aged population. Including people who’ve probably never heard of CC!</p>
<p>Xiggi, what you say never makes much sense to me – there’s obviously some sort of serious disconnect there, so I guess we must live in different universes – so I won’t even bother trying to understand your post. What I also don’t understand is why you and others with no connection to Chicago even bother reading threads about it. I don’t spend a lot of time hanging out at threads about schools I have no connection with.</p>