My Abbott story speaks both to the individual and to the institution. The University of Chicago faculty has never particularly considered it their responsibility to get their students into medical school, or law school, or investment banking jobs, but they do consider it their responsibility to help students go as deeply as they can into their academic fields. The students Chicago attracts tend to take the faculty up on that, and the social system of the College validates students wanting to learn more.
To some extent that’s true of every university, and I have plenty of stories about what the faculty at mine did to help me, for no reason other than I was a student who wanted to learn and was willing to work. But I think it’s more mainstream at Chicago, less extraordinary and more part of everyday life.