Anyone with any objective views about Chicago, please??

unalove
Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:47:11 +0000

Ammarsfound, I understand how you came away with a feeling arrogance on our part, while I agree with corranged that I don’t find the student body arrogant about their position in the USNWR food chain.

If you want to look at schools where students are bitter about not getting into Yale and Harvard, look no further than Penn, Dartmouth, Brown, and Columbia. If you want to look at schools where students are angry about not getting into Penn, look at Yale. Almost nobody gets into every Ivy League they apply to, especially if they apply to all of them (one girl I know came close-- got into every one except Brown-- and is now at Chicago. She didn’t come out with this information herself, but rather a mutual friend told me).

When I visited other schools, I felt that those schools were arrogant about the fact that they got in and others did not, and that somehow they were markedly better people for having the opportunity to spend time at such an elite school. At Chicago, most kids have found their own pathways to the school, beyond Fiske or any other college guides, and remain adamant about the quality of the school in order to save face when others sneered and ask why, if you’re so smart, you’re not at an ivy.

That was my experience, at least. Given my grades and EC’s, I was sitting in the Harvard/Yale seat at my school. I was the one who always did the readings and was always thinking about them. Anyway, while others expected me to apply to Yale or another ivy, I felt like I was defying expectation when I applied to Chicago. (I realize, in retrospect, that it was hardly a rebellious thing to do, though at the time it felt rebellious). As a result, I came up with an elaborate way to defend the school and my decision to go there, even though admissions was “easy” and “nobody there has any fun, it’s the kind of school where you go only if you have to,” and that whole defense deteriorated by the time I arrived on campus.