<p>Am I the only person who’s sick of hearing that a school MUST be intellectual because the poster came a across a person associated with the school with whom they had a conversation about a topic deeper than the weather? Just because you meet a kid who’s smart (and you have a non-superficial conversation with them) doesn’t mean that the entire institution is teeming with intellectuality. That’s faulty logic, imo.</p>
<p>For me intellectuality means a sincere interest in ideas, their nature, expanding one’s own knowledge base, finding ways to usefully implement those ideas. I.e. not seeing the college experience as a solely means to an end (e.g. grad school, high paying job) but actually enjoying the journey and attempting to transform one’s thinking.</p>
<p>University of Chicago
Swarthmore (I’m biased but I doubt it’s out of place here)
MIT
Deep Springs
Harvard</p>