<p>You can laugh if you’d like, but in my opinion and from my research, Yale is considerably less elitist than its Ivy counterparts - which puts it at only “extremely elitist” as opposed to “god-like”.</p>
<p>Actually, I tend to side with applicannot. In my highly unscientific opinion, Yale, of the big three, has a less “prep” feel. I know this because I live in ole joisey and I find princeton oppressively preppy, so many popped collars…But that aside, Yale, in the grand scheme of colleges, is probably more elitist than it isn’t.</p>
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<p>tk21769, I understand the trap of subscribing to colleges wholesale who market themselves as unconventional. Actually, I think at my two top colleges right now, UChicago and Reed, their curricula are very traditional, great books of the western canon and all, but their students tend to be what appeals to me. On the other hand, schools with atypical approaches to teaching, like Colorado College, I haven’t really looked into as much. There’s a broad scope of schools that tend to fall under the header “unconventional”; I suppose then, that what I’m really looking for, is an academic-centric college or university. </p>
<p>LasMa, thanks for the link, I hadn’t come across this list.</p>
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<p>In that case, Chicago and Reed are 2 great picks, though every school mentioned here has good-to-insanely-great academics. C & R rather self-consciously place academics (not extracurriculars, sports, internships, etc.) front and center. Each has a distinct academic culture with a lot of community dialog and historic lore about how they do things and why.</p>
<p>“You can laugh if you’d like, but in my opinion and from my research, Yale is considerably less elitist than its Ivy counterparts - which puts it at only “extremely elitist” as opposed to “god-like”.”</p>
<p>It’s hard to tell which one of the IVYs is the least elitist/prep, but I would easily say not Yale or Princeton based on my opinion and research. Maybe Brown or Cornell.</p>
<p>^ Between Brown and Cornell, I’d definitely say Cornell is the least elitist. Cf. old Ezra’s vision of “any study” (I can’t remember the quote right now). Brown is artsy and unconventional… in an elitist/rebel-prep way. (My personal impression from visiting campus and the people that I know who attend/will attend.)</p>
<p>But of HYP, I think Yale is (relatively) the least elitist.</p>
<p>“I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” - Ezra Cornell</p>
<p>Dude was awesome.</p>
<p>tk-- I’ve read research which basically details why even the semester long course is a bad idea unless the concepts used in that course will be used again in subsequent work. Basically, spending the same amount of time on material spread out over a longer period of time increases retention greatly compared to compressing the same information into fewer weeks.</p>
<p>I’m not surprised to see that study because even 14 weeks is basically too short to expect any serious amounts of retention.</p>
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<p>I think a lot of what makes the place seem artsy and unconventional is RISD, actually. Or at least that was the impression I got from the campus. I’m not sure Brown really lives up to its reputation in that sense, it seems like every other dime-a-dozen Ivy (I kid, I kid, I’m not even getting into an Ivy). It didn’t really impress me as much as UChicago, but then again, I spent my summer learning Attic Greek there, so, yeah, I’m biased…</p>
<p>I visited Yale today. It was kind of overwhelming, so I got some pizza and left after walking around for about 15 minutes. Then I drove 2 and a half hours home. :D</p>
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Those schools have “academic” cultures.</p>