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<p>Ah, but Berkeley is at least its sister city in early music, if not its equal. Berkeley’s early music rocks.</p>
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<p>Let’s suppose this were true – no, not that only “better,” “more pure” students chose Chicago over Ivies, but that the set of Chicago-boosters as a whole (including parents, alumni, and students) all felt or truly believed that Chicago, and only / uniquely Chicago, was the place for these students, and indeed they scorned the Ivies (etc) for being preprofessional, and so forth. </p>
<p>How would that affect you and / or your children who are studying at Ivies and similar schools? What would be the consequence?</p>
<p>Let’s drag in a school that hasn’t been discussed here – MIT. No one can argue that MIT doesn’t attract strong, extremely smart and capable students. And no one can argue that MIT doesn’t have a strong preprofessional contingent – I mean, it’s an engineering school for heaven’s sake! </p>
<p>Even if Chicago were to put on its website and marketing materials and hang a big banner on its campus saying “We’re the only place where the intellectuals go, we’re not one of those sorry preprofessional places” do you think the MIT community would much care? I would imagine that they’d just sort of shrug their shoulders and say, “Hey, you go your way, and we’ll go our way. You’ve got your mission, we’ve got ours.” They certainly wouldn’t feel compelled to “prove” that their students were Chicago material, or that they’d win cross-admit battles, or that “we are so TOO intellectual! Are too!” </p>
<p>So why the reaction from the Ivy communities being represented on here? Why isn’t there the self-confidence that says, “We know that we have great intellectuals and life-of-the-mind type students on our campuses – so what do we care if you guys think you’re the only game in town? We know you’re not, and that’s good enough for us.”</p>
<p>It seems to be that it only seems problematic if you think that Chicago’s marketing of itself is going to siphon away some of the best and the brightest who might otherwise go Ivy – which seems in contradiction to the “they should really change their marketing materials, they’re turning off some students” thread. </p>
<p>Look, if you really believe that the marketing message is pretentious and off-putting, and you see them as a competitor for the same students, then wouldn’t you want them to continue that message? Let them “turn off” some really bright kids – hey, better pickings for Harvard and Yale.</p>
<p>To me, all of this anti-Chicago stuff has a distinct air of slapping down someone perceived as uppity and too big for their britches. God forbid Chicago should be so presumptuous as to dare to compare itself in quality to the exalted Ivies! </p>
<p>Or, to the extent it comes from people who aren’t associated with Ivies, it has the air to me of “they aren’t any better than we are! Who do they think they are, getting all this attention when we aren’t!”</p>
<p>Nobody seems to criticize H, Y, and P for being arrogant and pretentious. Which they undeniably are, and long have been. You want pretentious? I got the current issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine in the mail today. There was a little piece about how J. Press sells “clan scarves” with different color stripes, one pattern for each of the 12 residential colleges, modeled after similar scarves they apparently have at Oxford and Cambridge. Now, <em>that’s</em> pretentious!</p>
<p>But Chicago presents itself as the academic equal of many (perhaps any) of the Ivies? Outrage and demands for proof follow. </p>
<p>When I was at Yale, 35 years ago, we all sincerely believed (and I still think we were correct) that Yale offered a far superior undergraduate education to Harvard’s. (So did people I knew at Princeton.) Mostly because the teaching at Harvard was supposed to be so bad – comparatively speaking – and everyone knew people at Harvard who did nothing but complain about it.</p>
<p>I suspect that people at Yale still believe that’s the case. Somehow, I don’t think it results from a massive inferiority complex. And I have a feeling they don’t get slammed here for it, either.</p>
<p>I think there’s also been a major failure to understand the point of all the “life of the mind” business, and a stubbornly illogical insistence on interpreting “our students are intellectual and quirky” as “students at the Ivies aren’t.” No matter how many times people repeat it, it doesn’t follow. What it means to me is not that the Ivies don’t have innumerable students like that (since I know they do), but that Chicago is <em>not</em> full of certain types of students that the Ivies pride themselves as having, and have always prided themselves as having. And I don’t mean future doctors, lawyers, and business school students. I mean huge numbers of Leaders. Athletes. Leader-Athlete-Scholars. Children of politicians. Young actresses from Jodie Foster to Natalie Portman. Northeastern preppies, who still, I believe, exist at H, Y, and P much as they did in my day. Suave 18-year olds who act like they’re 40 and join the Tory Party or the P.O.R. (if it still exists) in the Political Union. Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key. Mory’s. All of that. </p>
<p>That, to me, is what “life of the mind” implies. That <em>we</em> don’t necessarily have some of what the Ivies have. Not that exactly the same types of students don’t exist at other places, or that the Ivies don’t have what we have. </p>
<p>So, Chicago tries to put its best foot forward. Big deal. The obsession some seem to have with slapping them down under the guise of “correcting inaccuracies” is what strikes me as defensive.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Actually, people hyping Yale compared to Harvard get accused of having an inferiority complex all the time here. For some reason, it doesn’t generate the passion that the University of Chicago does.</p></li>
<li><p>I think Mory’s died, or is dying. (Everyone used to be a member of Mory’s. You weren’t? It wasn’t exclusive or anything. The Fence Club or St. Anthony Hall would have been better examples.) I’m pretty sure the Party of the Right is still around, and still insufferable.</p></li>
<li><p>I was thinking about this thread, and realized that absolutely no one on any side of whatever issue there is – I’m not sure about whether there really is one – had ever exactly expressed the position that the people on the other side found objectionable.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Among the things I believe no one participating has actually said, or even meant to imply:</p>
<p>Chicago is better than [your favorite high prestige college]</p>
<p>[Your favorite high prestige college] is better than Chicago.</p>
<p>Chicago is the only place where the life of the mind is honored.</p>
<p>[Your favorite high prestige college] doesn’t honor the life of the mind.</p>
<p>Chicago is full of nothing but HYP rejects.</p>
<p>Hardly any Chicago students were rejected by HYP or other Ivies. Why would they even apply there?</p>
<p>Chicago students are smarter and more intellectual than any other college’s students.</p>
<p>Chicago students are maladjusted losers.</p>
<p>Students at [your favorite high prestige college] are boorish, materialistic drunks who are trying to score high on the LSATs, score some grade-inflated As, and cash in. And destroy third-world countries.</p>
<p>Chicago alumni don’t have professional degrees, not to mention a few third-world countries on their consciences.</p>
<p>Chicago isn’t a special place, with its own character and spirit.</p>
<p>[Your favorite high prestige college] isn’t a special place, with its own character and spirit.</p>
<p>The two colleges aren’t fundamentally similar in most respects.</p>
<p>The student body at one couldn’t hack it at the other.</p>
<p>Anyone sold out by picking [your favorite high prestige college] over Chicago.</p>
<p>Half the students at Chicago don’t wish they could sell out, too.</p>
<p>JHS:</p>
<p>I agree with your list. There has not been a categorical put-down of any college, but there’s definitely a whiff of it. </p>
<p>I was thinking about overt and less overt intellectualism yesterday and remember reading an anthology of reminiscence “My Oxford” (which was quickly followed by “my Cambridge”)
In both volumes, famous alumni recalled their undergraduate days not as periods of soaking up knowledge but as a series of transgression (boozing, breaking curfews, playing pranks on the powers-that-be). The idea was not to be seen to be studying or to be labelled–quelle horreur!–“studious” and thus ineffably middle-class.
Chicago students seem to revel in being studious aided by a common curriculum which makes it possible to overtly discuss what they are learning together. At Harvard, which does not have a core curriculum (the one it had was grossly mislabelled, even though, in the end, students probably covered the same materials as Chicago students), students were much less likely to discuss what they were learning in their different courses over meals and to come together either as part of blocking groups or common EC groups. The studious part was performed either in isolation or as part of some small study group meeting in someone’s room or lounge.
I wonder whether the images that linger on about HYP and Chicago have to do with current realities or about the different class make-ups of their student bodies in times gone by. More and more it seems to me, the student bodies in various schools resemble one another both in their origins and in their aspirations. But perceptions change far more slowly.</p>
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<p>Two examples of non-Chicago institutions at which students have a common curriculum which makes it possible to discuss overtly (sorry - reversing the split infinitive ;)) what they are learning together:</p>
<p>Secular: Columbia’s Core (Great Books)
Religious: St. John’s (Great Books)</p>
<p>I do agree, however, that:</p>
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<p>The crux of it, though, is whether a common curriculum in itself makes an institution “more intellectual,” or “attracting more of the true, hard-core/whatever students” than institutions without that common curriculum.</p>
<p>Peer learning is very valuable and very important. It is one reason why most Ph.D. programs require “residency” as an aspect of the program: it’s an acknowledgement of the importance of immersion and intellectual collaboration or influence. So again, some students may prefer to postpone this more intense phase of their educational development, which makes them no less intellectual than if they chose to do that during their undergrad years. </p>
<p>It’s also important to mention that both Yale and Princeton have additional humanities seminar programs which differ slightly from each other and which are by invitation. Those consist precisely of common curriculum focusing on primary sources, small discussion groups, and are rather intense and demanding in their standards and output. Are they 4 years long? No, but they are designed for the quite intellectually inclined.</p>
<p>For whatever it’s worth relative to the original post, I was not surprised that U-Chicago’s numbers were up. D never asked for information from the school, since its stats are signficantly higher than her numbers. D is a truly great kid, but she isn’t the kind of student that you would expect to come to the attention of a school like U-Chicago (no varsity letters, national merit qualifications or high-profile awards, hasn’t written a book, etc.) Her most notable accomplishments have to do with her care for a degeneratively ill parent over many years, plus hundreds of hours of volunteering in a hospital and for an organization connected with her parent’s illness on her way to a nursing career. </p>
<p>D received very frequent mail from U-Chicago inviting her to apply over the last months, some of which looked like a personal solicitation. A U-Chicago representative visited our high school, which is ranked as one of the top schools in our state. D even received a postcard before that visit, encouraging her to meet with the representative. Her friends who are lower in stats didn’t receive the mailings, so I am even more puzzled about how U-Chicago identified D as a prospective applicant. </p>
<p>Multiply this personal attention by the number of students who may also have been identified by the school, and I can see how some students would figure “They seem interested in me, so why not apply?”</p>
<p>neonzeus - completely OT, but I sure hope I get a nurse like your daughter when/if I need one. She sounds wonderful.</p>
<p>re 126: St John’s (assuming you are talking about the one located in Annapolis and Santa Fe) despite the name has NO religious affiliation.</p>
<p>I stand corrected.</p>
<p>Originally, I always thought that was true. On more recent investigation, with the frequent mention of God in the curriculum/discussion, I jumped to the wrong (reverse) conclusion. Sorry about that!</p>
<p>However, back to inquiry & intellectualism, note this on their navigation bar:</p>
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<p>(I do not have a S or D at St. John’s.) I think some posters want to assume this is some ego-trip on the parts of those who disagree with various assumptions, premises, definitions, when in fact there are people raising issues that do not have students at Ivies nor students at Chicago. </p>
<p>Assume nothing.</p>
<p>epiphany:</p>
<p>My take is that the level of studiousness is the same whether it’s overt or not. The “elitist” feel is in the appearance of effortlessness (as in the case of Oxford–the book appeared in the late 70s, by people who had attended it 10-20 years earlier; it’s a different place now, just as HYP are different).</p>
<p>I don’t know if my S discussed Kant with his roommates. He surely did when he came home on break and we asked what classes he’d enjoyed! When he was at math camp (working on psets all night, six days a week), the main topic of discussion seems to have been Monty Python.</p>
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<p>I’ve cut off your sentence, but I think you make a very fair point. In general, I think the “elitist” feel is in the appearance of effortlessness – in all aspects of life, whether it’s work or play. I think that’s the thesis statement for a very interesting discussion of whether schools that attract earnest students that are highly known for a high level of work (MIT, Caltech come to mind, but there are of course others) can ever truly get to “elite.” I mean, they are certainly elite in terms of what they offer and their selectivity, but going to those places isn’t part of the “elite lifestyle” if you draw it much more broadly. The upper classes don’t aspire to have the kids go to MIT and work like dogs, even as they recognize that MIT is, obviously, an outstanding school – because they don’t <em>have</em> to have their kids work like dogs. Better they go to Yale or Princeton and enjoy the camaraderie and hi-jinks of the eating clubs where they make connections that will open doors and make life easy and effortless.</p>
<p>There’s a whole discussion of privilege that underlies this. And to the extent that Chicago applicants come or don’t come from privileged backgrounds the way that HYP <em>historically</em> did may play into it.</p>
<p>It’s interesting that there is an image of Chicago students as less privileged. On this one my perception may be skewed because of where we come from, but my sense is that there are TONS of privileged kids at Chicago. In part because of the historically not-so-great financial aid, and in part because until the last few years it has been the back-pocket quality option of scores of prep school college counselors. As I have noted before, 5 out of 24 kids in my daughter’s 4th grade classroom wound up there, plus 2 more from her former private school class (but a different 4th grade), and 2 from her ballet class. That has to tell you something. When I meet parents there, they are often parents who sent their kids to private schools.</p>
<p>I do think there may be a difference between the students who come from the East or West Coasts (relatively privileged, elitist) and those from the Midwest (less so, but not exclusively). Also, because people don’t dress up or flash a lot of wealth, it doesn’t give off the aura that places like Penn or Princeton sometimes do. But if Chicago was ever a proletarian, blue-collar kind of place, it sure doesn’t come across that way to me now.</p>
<p>I don’t think of Chicago as a proletarian, blue-collar kind of place (nor did I ever). And I totally get that there’s a certain amount of privilege baked into a) a school that isn’t as able to provide FA as HYP, and b) the ability to even follow the-life-of-the-mind (as opposed to getting that nursing or engineering degree which supposedly turns into cold hard cash in hand the day after graduation, unlike those fancy-schmancy classics majors).</p>
<p>I was musing out loud on the concept of where the sons and daughters of privilege wind up, and the criteria of those choices. Is it to get the best education, to immerse themselves most deeply, to work hard, to play hard, to rub shoulders with other sons and daughters, to acquire leadership opportunities. Somewhere along the line, HYP stood to serve as the markers of privilege. But do the privileged <em>need</em> to be the hardest workers? (And no, I’m not saying kids at HYP don’t work hard, so don’t accuse me of that.) Is it “elite” to be blatant about being a grind or seeking out explicitly rigorous opportunities? Has it become more or less so over the years, and how does the rise of Chicago fit into that?</p>
<p>As I said, perception lags well behind reality. I never thought of Chicago as “blue collar” but more middle-class, with the middle class values of hard work, as opposed to the old elite that used to send its sons to HYP (and I mean “sons”). I think that right now, in terms of socio-economic backgrounds, the student bodies at top universities are more or less interchangeable owing partly to spillover effect, partly to the fact that these universities have become more national rather than local and to the fact that all have been seeking to attract students from more diverse socio-economic backgrounds.</p>
<p>PG:</p>
<p>It’s more a question of appearances than reality: like ducks furiously pedaling under water. At the old Oxford, it was seen as “awfully middle class” to be seen to be studying. But the very distinguished alums who contributed to My Oxford did study–when no one else was looking. I remember in particular the contribution of Antonia Fraser who had just published another of her acclaimed biographies. She wrote about was climbing over the wall of her college because she’d partied late somewhere and the gates were closed.</p>
<p>An interesting side note is that for the first time Chicago had the most applicants from a state other than Illinois. This year California took the honors, perhaps it has something to do with the perceived mess at the UCs.</p>
<p>No, I never belonged to Mory’s. I knew anyone who wanted to could hang out there, but it really was not for people like me and my friends.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, I actually belonged to the P.O.R. briefly during my freshman year at Yale. We used each other: I found the members fascinating and extremely entertaining to hang out with (because they were so marvelously strange from my point of view), and for them I was an extra vote on procedural (certainly not substantive) issues. I used to wear a McGovern button to meetings, and nobody complained.</p>
<p>So Yale still gets accused of having an inferiority complex regarding Harvard? Interesting. (And obviously false, because Yale is clearly better!) But I’ll bet that there aren’t a lot of non-Harvard people, who have no direct interest in the issue, who attack Yale people for that. </p>
<p>Perhaps Midwestern WASP preppies aren’t as distinct as the Northeastern type, because my son hasn’t noticed their existence as an identifiable group. Most of my son’s Midwestern friends apparently come from middle-class families. And some from poor and/or completely dysfunctional families.</p>
<p>I’ve just been informed that a lot of the surge in U/Chicago applicants are “silent” applicants…mistakenly attracted by a prospective “life of the mime.”</p>
<p>^LOL - it took me a minute…very funny. Thanks for the chuckle.</p>