Colleges similar to UChicago?

JHS
Wed, 18 Nov 2015 14:55:38 +0000

Columbia gets mentioned along with Chicago, but I don’t quite get it–think it has more to do with the fact that they are lumped in as the high SAT/non-tech schools that finish just outside the money in the HYPS sweepstakes.

That, and it’s the other such university that (a) has a compulsory core curriculum for all non-engineering students that accounts for about a quarter of the credits required to graduate, and ensures that all freshmen have huge overlaps in what they are studying and all upperclass students and alumni have a strong common frame of reference, (b) is located in the middle of a megacity, (c) has significant strength in graduate and professional programs, and (d) does not have significant strength in athletics. That’s a lot of important similarity.

I agree, there are plenty of more subtle, but no less important differences, too. I completely understand why you suggest Williams; I think its intellectual tone is very close to Chicago’s, even if every other thing about it is utterly different. (My Chicago-loving kids used “Williams” as shorthand for “Don’t even suggest I look at it.”) But it’s a little silly to deny that Chicago and Columbia are going to appeal to lots of the same applicants, in a way that, say, Brown or Duke (or Williams) don’t. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help high school seniors very much to suggest they apply to Columbia in case they don’t get into Chicago. And Williams isn’t much better as a backup.