<p>hyeonjlee - at least when I was at Chicago, “careerist” was certainly a taboo word. More than any other school, Chicago peddles scholarship - its the chief coin of the realm in Hyde Park. Where else would you get a school with t-shirts that say, “that’s great in practice, but how does it work in theory??”. </p>
<p>Chicago continually goes through upheaval when it adapts with the time (e.g. in the late 90s, when it broadened the core to include classes covering stuff not in the western canon). </p>
<p>Traditionally, Chicago always scoffed at producing politicians or oil barons or rowers. Chicago, the hutchins-era acolytes believed, was for academics, and academics alone. At least when I was at Chicago, there was a peculiar elitism present at the school. This is evidenced still by murmurs of what Obama is doing. Professors say, not so tongue in cheek, that Obama is on a “leave of absence” to pursue one of the “maybe 2 or 3 jobs” more critical than a teacher at the U of C. </p>
<p>At least when I was at Chicago, there was a kind of academic dogma present at the school: that scholarship and learning matters more than anything else. It was why, at convocation, only professors were allowed to give the speech, and President Clinton was apparently rejected the first time he wanted to come give the grad speech at Chicago. Outside of the econ majors, everyone wanted to be a poet, a physicist, or wanted to transfer to Harvard or Yale. </p>
<p>Again, it was an unparalleled learning environment, and it did indeed make me a better writer and a more discerning reader. (While these posts may indicate otherwise, my writing was atrocious before I went through the Chicago gauntlet.) At the same time, I don’t know if people on this board really know what a cooky place Chicago was back in the day. I actually think the Tucker Max interview in the Chicago Maroon (that I linked above) summed it up pretty well. </p>
<p>It’s why I think many recent Chicago graduates are happy with where the school is going. It’s also why you didn’t see a huge outcry or NY times op-eds after Chicago went to the common app.</p>