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<p>If you’re okay getting low grades in classes you’re not going to work for but be asked to take, then sure, maybe this is a fit. </p>
<p>At the same time, why are you thinking of wasting time and tuition dollars, as well as another deserving applicant’s seat, applying to a college where you don’t see yourself engaging in small discussion classes? These are unavoidable here, and I (as an alumna of a certain vintage) always looked forward to going to classes where students would be active in participating in discussions and caring about the material. Are you going to be “dead weight” in those classes? That wouldn’t be fun for you or for your classmates.</p>
<p>And perhaps this is my old-age arthritis setting in, but to assume that Brown, Duke, and Dartmouth is “easy,” social," or “work hard/party hard” in a way that the University of Chicago is inherently not is a vast oversimplification of all of these schools’ cultures and communities. Any time you bring 5,000 or so active, bright, and interesting 18-22 year-olds into a relatively confined space, many different things happen.</p>