U of Chicago: 19,306 applications up 42 percent

<p>Donna, I hope you are enjoying your condescending tone! </p>

<p>Fwiw, you do not need to defend your choices of threads on College Confidential, and you do not need to defend yourself for having such a very narrow choice of subjects that interest you. </p>

<p>And, fwiw, it so happens that some of us have spent many years discussing issues that go well beyond our alma mater. And, in some cases, others have found such contributions to be positive and helpful. </p>

<p>Why don’t you try it sometimes?</p>

<p>PS And, perhaps, just perhaps, you might consider what was the general intent of this thread and who started it.</p>

<p>Well, why wouldn’t I be condescending to someone who chose to compare what I said to a sack of horse manure? That’s the kind of response it deserved. Especially when I hadn’t said anything remotely like that to you. </p>

<p>The fact that you started this thread (which I apologize for not realizing) doesn’t explain why you like so much to be snarky about this particular school.</p>

<p>And believe it or not, you may think of yourself as a “big macher” around here, but you don’t know everything. Some people have, in fact, apparently found my contributions to CC to be “positive and helpful” at times. Even if you consider my choice of subjects that interest me to be “very narrow.” And I do know exactly what you’re talking about this time. Suffice it to say that I happen to disagree with your characterization and think it’s sadly misconceived.</p>

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<p>Anyone who is seriously parsing the rankings at that fine a level is just a total tool. We’re talking within the narrow range of top schools, all of which provide excellent educations, and someone who is seriously making a decision between schools of that caliber based on a difference in rank of several points isn’t smart enough to deserve that level of education.</p>

<p>xiggi, I SAID “and never the twain shall meet.” Did either of those posts suggest that there was nary an intellectual to be found on Ivy covered campuses? </p>

<p>Apparently drawing the distinction between</p>

<p>College A: XXXXXXXXXX and College B: XXXXXXYYYYY</p>

<p>gets misinterpreted – quite deliberately as:</p>

<p>“Oh, I guess you must be saying that
College A: XXXXXXXXXX and College B: YYYYYYYYYY.”</p>

<p>Neither of the posts you quoted suggest the dichotomy that you and others claim has been said.</p>

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<p>Actually, I think the defensiveness is coming from the gang that thinks that every mention that Chicago is a haven for life-of-the-mind intellectuals means that the speaker is simultaneously saying that no one at any other elite college could possibly be elite material. Look at the other thread on this – people were sure to point out that “just because my kid chose not to apply to Chicago based on the quirky essays doesn’t mean that he or she wasn’t Chicago material.” Why the desire to make sure that “smart enough to be Chicago material” is stamped on your kid? If he or she wasn’t interested, then great, fine, different strokes for different folks. It’s only a meaningful desire if you think that “smart enough to be Chicago material” is a designation you desperately want your kid to have.</p>

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<p>I think those ranking points may have a pretty large influence on some. I read somewhere that for students accepted by both Harvard and Yale greater than 3 of 4 choose Harvard. Is there that great an academic difference? I doubt it. Yale must have a good number of Harvard rejects. Somehow I doubt they or their parents lose much sleep over it. Just like those in other schools who have had similar outcomes.</p>

<p>I have to disagree with you, PG. The insistence that somehow a different, and in context, “better,” “more pure” student chooses Chicago over Ivies, is a concept that originated only from those associated with UofCh. It’s unfortunate if you don’t like ideas opposed (because you may not agree that they are being asserted in the first place), but I know I am not alone in my perception that such was being asserted. I received both PM’s and emails about that very identical perception. </p>

<p>In any case, I’m hardly “desperate,” and as I said on another thread, I hardly need my own intellectualism, or that of anyone in my family, validated or invalidated by U of Ch. applicants (or for that matter, by Ivy applicants).:)</p>

<p>As to why I post about it: I post about a lot of things I am not personally or emotionally invested in, but which I am intellectually invested in. I oppose faulty assumptions, inaccurate equations, and illogical conclusions, including when they are repeatedly inferred despite attempts at overt clarification & open discussion. (If one dares on CC to have an open discussion about such things, you see exactly what happens: reaction and denial on the part of those who initiated such a line of reasoning in the first place.) Call me stubborn to continue to oppose unsupportable definitions & categories, but it was beginning to be a non-issue again (in the 3-way conversation being shared by marite, JHS, and myself – and even a few others chiming in) until you once again strongly objected to such clarifications. Really, it was peacable. </p>

<p>It would seem that you are the one possibly most invested in the subject.</p>

<p>Ah, the constant bickering.</p>

<p>Chicago produces more PhDs per capita than ANY school in the Ivy League. Now, why would this be unless Chicago students were more academically-oriented? Obviously, Chicago has always been a more academically-oriented school (almost brutally and certainly unnecessarily so); how many Ivy League schools lack engineering departments?</p>

<p>The point is that those not on Chicago’s side of the argument think that their opponents’ attitudes are pretentious. The conversation on this thread and on the Nondorf/Rohan e-mail thread seems not to be an argument over quality. It’s whether or not Chicago supporters are arrogant. Which is a dumb thing to argue about.</p>

<p>For my own part, it’s not my view that it’s a matter of “arrogance.” It’s my view that it’s a matter of inaccuracy. Big difference.</p>

<p>I haven’t plowed through this whole thread but my immediate conjecture when I saw the thread title was that so many prospective students saw the on-line battles about U/Chicago that they decided it was <em>the</em> chic place to apply to, giving the applicant an air of a certain je ne sais quois. The life of the mind was just a potential bonus.</p>

<p>I can appreciate how annoying the Chicago “life of the mind” shtick must appear to the rest of the world. Years ago, this was a brand identity that insiders kept more or less to themselves. Chicago was a relatively outlying school full of former dodge ball targets so if that’s how we chose to think of ourselves, nobody else paid it much heed. So I thought, anyway. I guess now we’re in the Internet age, so those inside conversations have become a little more public.</p>

<p>Personally, though, I never thought of that identity as one that particularly distinguished Chicago from Ivy League schools or top liberal arts colleges. I used to think it distinguished us from some of the large, state universities with which Chicago often was confused, schools with big-time sports programs and active Greek life. Furthermore, Chicago years ago had, and I would assume still has today, many very career-oriented undergraduates (including what seemed like a large plurality of pre-med students, students in 5 year Bachelor-to-MBA tracks, pre-law, etc.) Of course, the school does have its own body of lore; for better or worse, it does tend to build on the “life of the mind” theme (which inevitably suggests there are people who don’t live that life.) I think the college might benefit by building up a Fine Arts contingent, like what you find at Wesleyan or Oberlin, to lend a little balance without completely abandoning the image it cultivates.</p>

<p>“…for better or worse, it does tend to build on the “life of the mind” theme (which inevitably suggests there are people who DON’T live that life.)”</p>

<p>“I think the college might benefit by building up a Fine Arts contingent, like what you find at Wesleyan or Oberlin, to lend balance without completely abandoning the image it cultivates.”</p>

<p>Very sensible.</p>

<p>I thought that Chicago has a first rate-Art History department, associated with the Art Institute?</p>

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<p>Ouch… Must you be so brutally honest and remind us all of nearly forgotten traumas of childhood?</p>

<p>They misstated the SAT range in USN and it’s significantly higher than the actual. The correct range would probably drop them 2 spots which doesn’t seem to be much but the misstatement makes the student body look “smarter” than all others except HYP. Maybe it’s just correlation between the surge and the misstatement, not causation. But it still made me wonder. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Art History and studio art are birds of a different stripe. Anyway, the next major building slated for construction is the new Art Center with super-groovy theater and studio art spaces.</p>

<p>(I suspect that the desire to be “like Wesleyan or Oberlin” isn’t what got this off the wish list and on to the priority list. I think the model here starts with “Y”. Actually, it could start with anything, since dozens of universities have better theater and art facilities than Chicago. The actual production of art always sounded like the kind of thing that was fine and good in practice, but how would it work in theory?)</p>

<p>*Tant pis pour eux *, as they say, because one of my fondest memories was being taught studio art by the late Ed Paschke. How many art professors appear on billboards next to Michael Jordan and become celebrities in their cities? The street between the Art Institute of Chicago and Millennium Park was named after him posthumously. </p>

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<p>One person’s “more pure” is another person’s “self-limiting,” I suppose. What’s so inherently superior about being <em>only</em> intellectual / life-of-the-mind?</p>

<p>JHS:</p>

<p>Interesting about the theater part. The D of a friend of mine was not a very happy camper at Chicago (a classics major) and was thinking about transferring. Then she found theater off-campus and became much happier. She’s now in grad school at Yale.
I knew a Harvard undergrad who was nominally an econ major–and a very good one, at that. But his real vocation was putting on plays and musicals.
It’s only recently that Harvard has accepted to teach music performance as opposed to history and theory. Another young friend was not allowed to practice the harpsichord so had to make his own arrangements. Luckily for him, Boston is the capital of early music in the US so he was able to learn from some of the top names in music.
I’ve been amazed at how much on their own students who are serious about music or the theater are at H–maybe that accounts for the proliferation of organizations.</p>

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<p>Thank you. I am not insane. (Because in my mind, quaint and old-fashioned as I am, the practical definition of a university is the pursuit of the life of the mind. So naturally the logical assumption is what to name these supposed non-life-of-the-mind institutions? – all those without the title of University of Chicago? mooniversities? tooniversities? booniversities? gooniversities? runiversities? or looniversities?)
:)</p>

<p>I love “tooniversities.” Funny, epiphany!</p>