<p>I took a look at the OP's hosting history and... well...I think the only way to say it is that he is a borderline retarded prestige-whore, who, ironically enough, didn't get into the prestigious college he is championing. </p>
<p>He has a personal vendetta against Chicago, and even though he is a troll, he has invested an uncanny of time and effort into doing so. I suspect he was rejected. That often happens as Chicago is far less forgiving than any other school on the essays. My condolences to the OP on the rejection; you can try to apply next year again, this time as a transfer, though unless you improve your writing skills I doubt you'll make the cut.</p>
<p>The only reason I rose to Laker's bait is that his ignorant insistence on being a HYP groupie resonates just a little in most of us and a lot in many of us. I am beginning to use this site because I have Ds who are in the market. My first is at Emory and my second is a junior and knee-deep in this sometimes ridiculous process. Eldest loves Emory. She did not consider HYPS for reasons of her own. Second D is looking at Ivies and some eastern liberal arts colleges, but she is openly a little uneasy about the pretense level she saw in some of her tours. I have to confess I am a little susceptible to the prestige factor, though I know my children could receive first-rate educations at public Us like UW-Madison or UMich. For that matter, I truely believe they could attend other, barely known public universities and receive fine educations and accomplish everything they set out to accomplish afterward. </p>
<p>I think we are becoming more sophisticated consumers of higher education, and this web site is an indication of that. I also think our children have a pretty good sense of what will make them happy once they have a chance to see what the options are and learn more of the pertinent facts. It is we parents who seem to be most prone to believe that our children's options should begin and end with someone else's top-ten list. </p>
<p>Lakers is a fool, but we share some of that foolishness more than we like to admit.</p>
<p>I agree, Bennie. My parents never went to college and my guidance counselors were usually useless when it came to actually "guiding" a student in their college application process (we only had two or three for about 1700 students at my public school). So I made several mistakes when I applied senior year. Five of my applications were ivy league, and the remaining three were "safety" schools that really weren't all that safe, in retrospect, and which I never allowed myself to even like all that much. I wasn't as strong an applicant as I'd thought and was rejected by all schools but the three "safeties". I matriculated at Boston University last fall and, mostly, things have been fine, but I've never been in any state of bliss here because of the hectic environment and lack of academic challenge, which I believe are legitimate reasons for wanting to transfer.</p>
<p>At the beginning of the year, I couldn't let Harvard go, so I applied to it as one of my three transfers. It's taken me this long (until a few weeks ago) to realize that the apparent prestige of a school just doesn't mean much in the bigger picture. I know that anything I can say now would be pure speculation, but I honestly don't think I'd take Harvard's offer, even if they accepted me. </p>
<p>But that strange hankering to go to a "top school" is still in me. I applied to Cornell, Chicago, and Harvard -- rejected from Cornell, almost definitely rejected from Harvard, but I've been accepted to Chicago and I plan on making it home. </p>
<p>If I could do the entire thing over again, I would have skipped HYP and looked toward more liberal arts colleges, and I would have allowed myself to fall in love with less selective institutions. </p>
<p>If you'd asked me where I wanted to go to college in 7th grade, I would have said Harvard or Stanford because those were the only two names I'd heard in a family that didn't have much college experience. My grandmother always spoke of family friends who were going to Harvard or Brown or Yale. It was all I was aware of, and I guess it must have stuck through my high school years. </p>
<p>This is such a poorly written post and I apologize for it. haha</p>
<p>rainman -
I attended BU a LONG time ago - I think that it has improved since then, but I believe that you find Chicago a great deal more inspiring. Congratulation on your acceptance and best wishes for a wonderful fall.</p>
<p>Bennie -
"I have to confess I am a little susceptible to the prestige factor, though I know my children could receive first-rate educations at public Us like UW-Madison or UMich. "
The Harvard name does have enormous cache, perhaps more for our generation than our children's. However, when my son was looking Harvard also had Larry Summers - so off went Harvard from his long list. </p>
<p>It sounds like D2 will come up with a good list to fit her needs if the pretense part is obvious to her. Hope that you enjoy the process with this one, too!</p>
<p>I think alot of people fall for the Ivy cliche. Overall, I truly beleive that a student has a better experience, Princeton Review Number 1 for undergraduate experience, in fact, at Chicago. Compare Harvard students to Chicago students and you're comparing people who want to learn vs. people who think they're better then others. College is about the pursuit of knowledge, and at UChicago, everyone knows everyone else is smart there's no need to flaunt. Students help each other out and refuse to fall into Harvard's "Im better then everyone else because I got to Harvard" mold. Even If I had gotten into another Ivy, I would have easily given it up to attend an institution so uncommon and interesting. I don't fit into the Ivy mold, I'm uncommon, I'm a UChicago student.</p>
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Compare Harvard students to Chicago students and you're comparing people who want to learn vs. people who think they're better then others.
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</p>
<p>I would not expect to hear such nonsense from a UChicago student. You are uncommon alright, but please, do not attempt to extrapolate your rationalizations to the rest of the UChicago student body. They are way smarter than that. I am not quiet sure that just because you are uncommon you are a UChicago fit.</p>
<p>I think the official Harvard acceptance letters come with holograms to prove authenticity... see, all you have to do is get in, after that it's a cakewalk.</p>
<p>
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see, all you have to do is get in, after that it's a cakewalk.
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I don't like Harvard, but even I know better than to say something like that. Hanna, for example, has said that her classes at Harvard were literally twice as hard as her classes at Bryn Mawr- which is certainly not a walk in the park either.</p>
<p>Top schools all have wonderful things To offer. There is not one scale we can use. My son turned down Brown and U. Chicago to attend Williams. Prestige did not figure into his thinking. He did not even apply to HYPS so we do not know what his fate would have been. Both Brown and Chicago were very hard to turn down because he loved all three schools, even though they are so different. His reasons were purely "fit" related; no objective criteria were employed. Had he had only the choice of Brown and Chicago he says he was more drawn to Chicago. I'm sure he will have things to regret about not having the Brown or Chicago experiences. However, that is the way with choices. It certainly is not true that either Harvard or Chicago is better than the othetr in all respects, even leaving the prestige factor out of the discussion. These are all exciting, dynamic environments. Having said all that, the valedictorian and saluditorian of his class are both going to Stony Brook, whereas two lower ranked classmates are going to Princeton. They are certainly not "smarter" than the Stony Brookers, nor was money the only factor. With Brookhaven National Labs so close by (and parents who are physicists) both felt they would have the best research opportunities in physics at S.B., especially since each worked on an Intel project and had already begun research with S.B. faculty. As I've said on other posts, college is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, but if we are truly confident about our own views and choices we don't need to denigrate others' choices.</p>