<p>I might throw Columbia in the mix. I really kind of got that vibe on campus, and I think their approach is very intellectual. The Core really creates a common learning experience early on, so all students are able to discuss those topics together. All the freshman might have to read Aristotle, for example, so that is something they will all share outside the classroom.</p>
<p>What is intellectual to one is not going to that for another. Ask conservatives about Reed and they will not consider it intellectual at all.</p>
<p>So what criteria would " conservatives" use?
Time & intensity spent in class/out of class on class topics?
Time & intensity spent reading/discussing related material?
But @ Reed it doesn’t count?</p>
<p>I’d shorten the original list to Reed, Swarthmore, UChicago. There are, of course, intellectual discussions that go on late into the night at almost any good school, but that collective sense of “we’re just so intellectually intense, aren’t we?” kind of scene, I’d narrow it down to those three.</p>
<p>Is this a list for students to avoid or for employers to avoid?</p>
<p>My reason for starting the thread is that my son is involved in a summer enrichment program with a brighter cohort of students than he has ever worked with before. I had a long talk with him last night, and he is really enjoying the non-stop intellectual stimulation. So it got me thinking about what schools were most likely to offer that experience.</p>
<p>I think he’ll find that experience if wants it at almost any selective college where the typical students stats are very high.</p>
<p>Berkeley
Michigan
Duke
Chicago
One of Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Smith or Wellesley </p>
<p>This list will save you time because it represents the USUAL outcome for ANY question on CC, at least when not restricted to the Ivy League. The answers are NEVER more than speculative, misguided expressions of individual preferences, and amount to NOTHING more than popularity contests void of any substance. </p>
<p>And, if this was actually a serious --albeit naive-- query, I offer my apologies.</p>
<p>^^I am not entirely sure that I agree with that statement. There is more to the intellectual culture and climate that just high student stats. The SAT ranges for BYU and LSU are virtually identical–but they are hugely different. Brandeis and Reed? Middlebury and Claremont-McKenna? No, there is more to the equation than that.</p>
<p>My idea of non-stop intellectual stimulation is discussing work outside of office hour. I spend every minute of my day at work being fully consumed and making major decisions on behalf of my firm, the last thing I want to do when I have some spare time is to re-hash what happened at work. I think D1 feels the same. She is so intellectually challenged in the class room and amount of school work outside of classroom, the last thing she would want to do when she has sometime off is to engage in any more intellectual discussion about “proving zero is really zero.”</p>
<p>Look at the bottom of this thread. This topic has been discussed 4 or 5 times already.</p>
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<p>If this is the standard, I certainly would include St. John’s College. </p>
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<p>Swarthmore story: my friend went on a tour with his son. The tour guide casually mentioned that weekends were great there, “because it gives us a chance to read from the reading lists of our friends.”</p>
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<p>One thing several years of looking at admissions results on CC should teach you is that there is heavy overlap between the groups of students who apply and who are accepted at HYP. They may end up with slightly different student bodies, but the similarities will be much greater than the differences.</p>
<p>After my daughter’s freshman year at Harvard I asked her whether the kids there were “regular kids” or did they live in some alternate intellectual universe from that of more ordinary smart people? She said they seemed like ordinary smart people about 90% of the time but these weird, wonderful conversations and arguments keep regularly breaking out. To illustrate she said a bunch of kids from the dorm were sitting around watching a Red Sox game on TV when suddenly an argument broke about the policies of 19th century Austrian political leaders and how that helped lead to WWI. The incredible thing was all the kids in the group already had well-formed opinions on the topic. Or another time when someone found an ad for women’s underpants that were available with an image of Jesus on the front. The immediate question that occurred to these kids was not simply why, but why did the manufacturer choose a 6th century Byzantine-style representation of Jesus?</p>
<p>I don’t know if that is the type of intellectualism the OP is looking for or whether that is intellectual at all, but it sure makes for a lot of interesting discussions.</p>
<p>If the question is whether a student can enjoy intellectual conversations with intellectual friends – yes, I believe that can be enjoyed at a great number of schools where smart students congregate.</p>
<p>If you’re looking for an “atmosphere” then sure there are differences. That was my point.</p>
<p>First the OP wanted the atmosphere, then went on to say his/her child enjoyed the intellectual company of bright students at the summer program. Two different things, not mutually exclusive. But the latter can certainly exist in abundance even in a school where the students, brilliant as they are, are less self-consciously identified with that aspect of themselves. In fact, most elite colleges are more well-balanced in their institutional “personality” than Swarthmore, Reed, and UChicago, but the students are not less intelligent or less intellectually stimulating.</p>
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<p>There IS indeed more to the equation. Unfortunately, as wonderful as CC is for most questions about the application, the type of question you posed will NOT get a meaningful answer. For starters, very few people can offer valid comparison between more than two schools --and this assume that they attended two schools. If you dig deeper, you might get a more comparison that are based on hearsay from the children. However, what you will get is simply an answer based on individual definition of what intellectualism is or simply preferences and perceptions that are hardly based on personal KNOWLEDGE of the schools. </p>
<p>The reality is that one can find deep intellectual conversations in a GREAT number of schools. Does want really believe that students attending Chicago are de facto deep intellectuals while students at Wharton are mostly robotic wannabe I-bankers? Does MIT corner the market for “intellectuals” in Boston? Is Columbia the only Ivy that recognizes the value of the Great Books? Is Swarthmore a bastion of intellectualism and is it THAT different from Haverford? </p>
<p>In the end, the issue is not that it was a bad question to ask; it simply is beyond the collective integrity and knowledge of CC to offer you a valid answer.</p>
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<p>I should have said some conservatives rather than all, just as Peperdine would invoke a negative reaction from some liberals. Intellectual to some is being in agreement with their position, that having an opposing view means that you do not have intellectual capacity to understand the facts correctly. </p>
<p>I think that is a wrong attitude, but I have seen it some people exhibit it on CC and in other forums. Reed from what I hear attracts a variety of deep thinkers and to me that is intellectual. What I was pointing out was others may not consider that so. Words like Intellectual are themselves subject to interpretation. I remember seeing a post on CC where the poster wanted school with a LAC with a lot of smart people but he had ruled out Reed as it was “too liberal”. I cannot find that posting, but my recollection of that posting lead to my response.</p>
<p>To elaborate on what Xiggi said, the most productive questions on CC are the most specific questions. For example, if you ask “what is a good college”, you’ll get a thousand meaningless suggestions. If you ask, what is a good college, in a mid-Atlantic suburban location with emphasis on diversity and a moderate drinking culture, then you’ll start to get specific answers.</p>
<p>I actually think the OP has a valid question in the context of her son’s experience. Perhaps a more enlightening (or certainly interesting) way to approach the question would be to ask for suggestions of elite colleges that are NOT intellectual. You might be surprised at the number of schools where students and alums pride themselves on not being an “intellectual” college. That list would probably tell you something.</p>
<p>Or, you could just visit and see if everyone is wearing backwards baseball caps. :)</p>
<p>xiggi–</p>
<p>You are probably right about the integrity and mindset of the cc community. On the flip side, however, the distributed intelligence research probably would predict that there is perhaps no more valid way to formulate such a list. No objective measure captures it, and no single individual’s experience has the necessary breadth.</p>
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<p>That’s the difference – “intellectuals” never tire of engaging in intellectual discussion. Doesn’t mean that they never stop though. Funny, I had a discussion the other day with a young person the other day about what an intellectual actually is. My H thought it was someone who read a lot, I think it’s someone who thinks a lot. The difference between a scholar and a philosopher maybe. No specific schools to suggest but it might help your son more to think in terms of personality/temperament rather than intellect. I think others are right in that there’s a range in most highly selective liberal arts schools.</p>
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<p>Exactly. The students at Harvard and other elite schools are outstanding–but I have difficulty thinking of Harvard as</p>
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<p>while I think that St. John’s College, for one, fits OP’s standard very well.</p>
<p>Yale absolutely belongs on the list, and has a more intellectual atmosphere than H, P, or S. It just does. That’s not the be-all and end-all, of course, but it is a fact.</p>
<p>Oberlin on the other hand . . . my daughter had a number of friends there, and considered going there herself. She spent a lot of time there. She does not think it is intellectual at all right now. I think Williams, Pomona, Carleton are all better choices for that slot. (St. John’s, great books – sorry, I think that is fundamentally anti-intellectual, albeit with an intellectual veneer.)</p>
<p>Really, though, this is a silly exercise. You can find lots of intellectual peers, and intellectual communities, at dozens, hundreds of colleges. Michigan is gigantic and has frats and professional football, but you could fill Swarthmore four or five times over with the intellectual kids there. They’re not the only people around, but so what? Even at Swarthmore and Chicago – where, by and large, intellectuals of various stripes ARE the only people around – everyone is well aware that the world is a lot larger and more diverse than their dorm.</p>