<p>“UChicago would have a lock on the quirky intellectual kids (none of HYPSM are as quirky and fiercely intellectual as the UofC),”</p>
<p>For starters, it’s ^ an obnoxious statement. In addition, it lacks credibility. What a bunch of absolutist nonsense. People who say these things have either zero DIRECT acquaintance with a significant sample of enrolled HYPSM students, or almost zero. Pontificating in either direction, for or against, the “most selective schools” is useless and without substance. I do understand that some UChicago students fancy themselves as “fiercely intellectual” in supposed contrast to what they imagine (or wish) were true of Ivies, but it’s fancy. Superiority complexes are unattractive and largely manufactured, no matter the object or the source, and people of any age who participate in such put-downs embarrass themselves. </p>
<p>Perhaps a better way of saying it would be - “U Chicago would have a lock on the kids who perceive themselves as being and/or are explicitly attracted to a school which positions itself as being for quirky intellectuals.” You can’t argue that U Chicago hasn’t carved out that niche positioning for itself, which is <em>quite</em> different from saying that you can’t ever find any quirky intellectuals at any other top school. </p>
<p>Anyway, I never get why the hate for U Chicago’s “quirky intellectual” positioning. Anyone who is attracted by it is free to apply, and anyone who doesn’t care for it is free not to apply, and no harm no foul either way. </p>
<p>And the larger point that PurpleTitan was being made is that despite what the denizens of Non-Flyover Land might think, really and truly it is not necessarily the case that HYPS are automatically at the top of everyone’s pecking order just because they may be at the top of the pecking order in some places. I think some of you on the coasts really just have a hard time accepting that the extra sheen of HYPS is a whole lot sheenier in some places than others. </p>
<p>What I meant to say was “UChicago would have a lock on the quirky intellectual kids (none of HYPSM were perceived by those I knew to be as quirky and fiercely intellectual as the UofC)”.</p>
<p>Happier now? I swear, I wonder sometimes if some people on CC wear undergarments that are several sizes too small for them (and it’s not such a great reflection on their alma mater that they seem to come from a few select schools. . . .).</p>
<p>"What I meant to say was “UChicago would have a lock on the quirky intellectual kids (none of HYPSM were perceived by those I knew to be as quirky and fiercely intellectual as the UofC)”.</p>
<p>The same holds. The PERCEPTION is merely a judgment based on ignorance, and nothing else. (Or a judgment based on hope or self-flattery.) I’ve heard this same “perception” for 10 years now on CC, and for 10 years it has been false.</p>
<p>“I wonder sometimes if some people on CC wear undergarments that are several sizes too small for them (and it’s not such a great reflection on their alma mater that they seem to come from a few select schools. . . .).”</p>
<p>Not I. And I make no apology for insisting on semi-accuracy and the semblance of evidence when it comes to such broad generalities about enrolled students at particular colleges. There are some brilliant students at some state U’s. I don’t necessarily meet them daily, but I do meet them from time to time. They choose to go a state U for a variety of reasons, sometimes having to do with a specific program. One such person I know has held an envious position at a prestigious East Coast school every year since he graduated from a state U in my region. Another person I know has a very high IQ, graduated from Smith several years ago, and is now pursuing a graduate degree at this same state U.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are brilliant students at U of Chicago, just as there are at HYPSM, not to mention Columbia, Penn, & others - many of whom I know personally. However, anyone, I repeat, of any age, who relies on “perceptions” and impressions, which are subjective, often based on rumor, and often ego-enhancing, is characterizing himself or herself by stating such unsubstantiated perceptions, and that characterization is not positive.</p>
<p>“I think some of you on the coasts really just have a hard time accepting that the extra sheen of HYPS is a whole lot sheenier in some places than others.”</p>
<p>And some people in the middle of the country mischaracterize people on both coasts. </p>
<p>Look, the people most enthralled with HYPSM are not “from” either coast but FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY, especially 2 certain countries. (Gee, I long for the old CC when you could do things like bold, italicize, and underline instead of all caps.) Those people have a hard time accepting that there exists any university of any “worth” other than those 5 (even though almost none of them graduated from any of those 5, yet they are wildly successful in their careers), and they also seriously believe that every candidate to such schools, no matter the academic profile of the student, has “an equal chance” at acceptance because it’s all just an irrational, random lottery built on chaos, whim, and mystery. Unreal.</p>
<p>@epiphany. . . you’re not helping your cause, but at this point, I think it’s a lost cause.</p>
<p>However, I’m curious: how would you determine accuracy (or semi-accuracy or whatever) on subjective terms such as “quirky” or “intellectual”? For something to be deemed inaccurate or semi-accurate, do you not need a way to measure such a thing? So how are you measuring quirkiness and intellectualness?</p>
<p>And what do brilliant students at state U’s have to do with anything that I said. </p>
<p>And finally, get over yourself. I find your little spiel to reflect quite poorly on you, myself. If you care, I can tell you the reasons why.</p>
<p>I don’t have a “cause” to help. The comments were made by YOU, not me. You threw down the gauntlet about people you have never met. You’re the one who has a serious need to get over herself, not I. And apparently you don’t understand how it works when someone makes an unsubstantiated statement about strangers on other campuses. It’s on that person, not on the person arguing against a random “absolutist” supposition about who the heck some non-expert believes is an intellectual, to provide some kind of credible evidence for that supposed intellectual quality. Not rumor. Not your private wish or opinion. Something verifiable such as some kind of report or investigation by a disinterested party, not a partisan, into the intellectual curiosity and capacity of student bodies on different campuses. To date, and in the 10 years I’ve been on CC, there has been no such objective comparison forthcoming. No, I don’t care to hear your objections to my responding to you on a public forum, but I’m sure you’ll provide them anyway, just as you privileged us with your unseemly stereotypes about just who you believe has any intellectual worth and who does not. Have a nice night. </p>
<p>What larger point? Actually I see no point at all! </p>
<p>Well, it is extremely easy to accept that there is a world beyond HYPS and that there are plenty of schools who might offer great possibilities for the so-called intellectuals. Just as it is easy to reject the claim that Chicago might have a lock on such students and see it as a hyperbolic and foundation less statement. The fact that the people who claim to be intellectual profess to favor Chicago is a mere self fulfilling prophecy that might be ego flattering but still entirely subjective. </p>
<p>Again, this entire discourse is undermined by the absolute lack of definition of what an intellectual is supposed to be at 17 years old. Is it a gifted student? A quirky but competent one? One who likes to quote Proust but cannot count? One who can ace any calculus test but cannot use punctuation? A recent version of Pic de la Mirandole? Or simply one who finds describing a jar of mustard enlightening? Or someone who leaves you wondering where they learned so much in so little time? </p>
<p>The reality is that it can be ANYTHING. And that people use the term without any discernment. </p>
<p>I agree, xiggi. And it’s too bad when people waste so much effort trying to “prove” something that is really an acknowledgment that they believe there’s something to “defend” in some large categorical way, positively or negatively, about an entire student body at any given time on Campus A or B. Who the hell cares? Certain PROGRAMS, certain academic opportunities, certain faculty (and their consistency) are known by various employers and graduate degree programs to provide what those employers and graduate schools seek. Those particularities cut across many different institutions (& types of institutions) in many different localities. Just because Wharton at Penn is excellent does not mean that the business programs at UMich, Boston U, and Santa Clara U are not also excellent. The industries local to the latter might in some cases prefer to hire those graduates instead. </p>
<p>The University of Chicago is apparently quite a haven for students who seek a career as an academic, for example, which we assume requires intellectual substance. However, not by any means do all or even a majority of undergrads who aspire to become professors necessarily end up as professors – there or anywhere. A student may subjectively identify as “an intellectual” and even prosper enormously from the environment at UChicago but still not cut it eventually, yes, intellectually, when the rubber meets the road.</p>
<p>Conversely, a simple enrollment ticket at HYPSM is hardly a guarantee of intellectual vitality, whatever Stanford’s supplemental prompt assumes. It also does not mean that there are fewer or no students of intellectual substance at any of those 5 schools than at Chicago. The entire premise is a FALSE dichotomy based on sheer partisanship and worthless speculation. I have personally met many intellectuals at those 5 schools and 2 other Ivies, as I have met a couple at Chicago as well. There is no verifiable contrast that can be drawn.</p>
<p>A note to Pizzagirl:
It has not been my experience, among the parents and students I deal with professionally in this business, that those families who are most obsessed with the supposed “superiority” of HYPSM (or, even, haha, with colleges on The Magnificent List even “lower” than that, as ridiculous as that sounds) over any supposedly unmentionable school are doing so based on a belief of “superior intellectual quality.” No. They are desperately fixated on 5 (or 10) schools because deep in their hearts they believe the planetary alignments will be altered if said students do not matriculate to one of those schools. They’ll even “deign” to consider Chicago, just not – God forbid – Boston U (oh, the horror), RHIT (I guess the Great Unwashed), any Woman’s College (a disappearing act), etc. Should their child be “relegated” to a non-top 20 school, it’s ploughing fields for them. Trying to reason with such people is futile; opportunity will be temporarily but long-term lost if the top 10 schools cannot be accessed, and permanently, fatally lost if the next 10 are not reached. That’s what we’re dealing with here, largely. I think that 15 years ago those who created the most frenzy about “name” colleges on the coast were of a different mindset and origin, perhaps more focused on traditional notions of prestige as those had been understood and promoted, and seeking enrollment for that reason. It’s just a different brand of irrationality today, but largely, it’s not necessarily about assumptions of a GREATER academic product, but assumptions of LESS financial doom and failure. Either way it’s irrational.</p>
<p>Epiphany- excellent analysis. But I would add that as a corollary (or defense mechanism, or something else I cannot name) the myth has also taken hold that the difference between Yale and University of New Haven is merely “marketing”, or some shoddy yield protection device in their application process, or some other veneer that only a prestige %^&* would care about.</p>
<p>Substitute your own pair of neighboring universities.</p>
<p>This crowd refuses to admit that there can be actual and substantive differences in the academic offerings or mode of intellectual development between a so-called “prestigious” and hard to get into (statistically) college, vs. a more vocationally oriented, high admissions rate, less well funded and somewhat limited in its academic resources, type of environment.</p>
<p>I think one is swimming against the tide with either crowd. Either someone (perhaps not US born and educated) mistakenly believes that going to CMU instead of MIT or Rice instead of Stanford or Vanderbilt instead of Penn is going to mean a life of manual labor and food stamps… or someone (usually US born, “self made” or gone to college on the GI Bill at whatever Directional was most convenient) mistakenly believes that the “bells and whistles” at Yale (libraries, archives, hundreds of grants and fellowships available to undergrads for foreign travel and study, field work in dozens of departments all open to undergrads, museums, rare book collections, award winning faculty for BOTH teaching and research, etc.) is just “marketing” or some kind of fairy dust.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s about the kid and not the college. Some kids will go to Southern Connecticut State and blow the cover off the ball, excel at everything they touch, and emerge a superstar. Some kids will go to Yale and spend four years at frat parties and taking selfies of themselves doing dumb things.</p>
<p>But swimming against the tide trying to convince either crowd of a more nuanced reality.</p>
<p>@epiphany you still can bold and itlaicize and underline text. It’s just more tedious since you have to insert the code by hand instead of just highlighting it.</p>
<p>It may have been selection bias, but my son though the kids at U of C were substantially more serious than those at the other colleges he visited. (Not HYPM he didn’t get into any of those.)</p>
<p>I would just point out that marketing can affect reality. If you successfully use marketing to attract better students, then you have better students. If you use marketing to attract quirky intellectuals (self-styled or otherwise), then you will probably have more students of that sort. Why this should get people upset isn’t clear to me.</p>
<p>It’s possible for peers to part of the solution rather than the problem. My daughter attends a school that a friend–after visiting–recommended as a perfect fit for her. It may have happened anyway, but the thoughtful suggestion was no unhelpful. </p>
<p>Hunt- yes, but caveat emptor. I’ve recruited for new college grads at both the “old” U Chicago and the “new” and I must say that the percentage of the class which is highly pre-professional doesn’t seem to have changed a bit. The kids who want to major in math or econ so they can get a good job were at the old U of C (investment banking) and the new u of C (hedge funds or VC’s to fund cool tech start ups).</p>
<p>You can “market” quirky intellectual all you want, but there is nothing to prevent the kid who shows up at Chicago filled with a thirst to learn to decide that what he really wants out of life is a paycheck.</p>
<p>The actual percentage of “thirst for learning” kids in America has likely not budged since the 1940’s. What has changed is the internet (kids in Omaha and St. Louis can learn about colleges without having to leave home), debt tolerance (higher for some families, lower for others), and of course, admissions/fin aid policies (Princeton is Coed! Growing up in a homeless shelter is a hook! Pell Grants! We kinda/sorta aren’t systematically trying to keep out Asians and Jews!)</p>
<p>I’m being somewhat glib but you get my point. Chicago has ALWAYS had a hard core group of intellectual students there for the joy of learning. Talking about it more- and using it as a point of pride- likely doesn’t change the mix of the student body all that much. At the end of the day, the number of kids in America who are excited by Chicago’s tippy top Classics or Near Eastern Studies departments isn’t going to expand at a rapid clip just because the U does a better job marketing them.</p>
<p>Epiphany - PurpleTitan is not a UChicago “defender.” Indeed, I suspect his heart lies with their crosstown buddy (clue: purple). Nowhere did he suggest that indeed UChicago was “better” or for “smarter kids” or that conversely few to intellectuals attend other schools, whether HYPS or state u. He was merely commenting that UChicago has carved out a niche positioning of quirky intellectual. No one is saying they hold the exclusive patent on the concept, simply “if that’s your cup of tea, come check us out.” I think it is oddly defensive and protest-too-much to “defend” other schools as also having intellectuals. Of course they do. And I’m really not sure what the fixation of certain immigrant cultures on HYPS (which is also a truth) has to do with anything. </p>
<p>It was more a commentary on the assumption that HYPS dominate the wish lists of the smartest kids. From my vantage point in the Midwest, I don’t see that at all, and I do not see any notable exaltation of HYPS over other top schools like there is elsewhere. That’s all. </p>
</p>