<p>I think Cue7 has an interesting reflection on what makes Chicago a little different from other schools, but I don’t think that there is a “conspiracy theory” to keep eggheadedness at those schools to a minimum, but rather the kind of student each school tends to attract. I say this because I have friends who are unrepentant eggheads who attend or were admitted to both Dartmouth and Princeton. Their extracurricular profiles reeked strongly of academics and of not much else.</p>
<p>This is a hard question for me to answer personally, because I never seriously entertained the thought of going to an Ivy and didn’t end up applying to any. Why not? For me, I perceived an air of self-satisfaction, bordering on snobbery, at the schools I visited, I didn’t feel at home at any of the campuses I visited, plus I didn’t want to walk around and for the rest of my life have a brand name stamped on my forehead. </p>
<p>Had I gone to an Ivy, I’m sure I would have realized that my concerns were relatively unfounded, but the schools I found most appealing for academic and social, and location reasons were not Ivies.</p>