<p>I didn’t interpret the OP as saying our hypothetical person “had no safeties.” I just think the safeties may be appreciably less satisfying.</p>
<p>Look, I wouldn’t ever want to go to a party school. I’d be miserable and dispirited. I know me. Maybe that’s a weakness on my part; so be it.</p>
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<p>Join the club. I would hate going to a party school while going for my undergrad degree. </p>
<p>IMO, parties are better saved for when one is done with college. :)</p>
<p>Moreover, if one needs a taste of a party school…or just a taste for fine dining on the cheap, organize a group of likeminded classmates and go crash some parties at a party school or a well-heeled white-tie affair. The filet mignons are quite delectable. :D</p>
<p>I think it’s good to be able to appreciate what others bring to the party, and it’s also good to be in an environment where others appreciate you have to offer, too.</p>
<p>Ok, another idea: How about the Kierkegaard Society? </p>
<p>And if anyone can make hide or hair of the discussion, please let me know. I bought Amy Laura Hall’s book based on her Ph.D. thesis on Kiekegaard, on the basis that she is a clear and amusing writer. I thought, “At long last, I will understand Kierkegaard!”</p>
<p>Nope.</p>
<p>Hey, cobrat, that’s a sub rosa Viking incursion (#303).</p>
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<p>You’re right: I missed Howard. Howard would be a reasonable choice. I have no idea what their policy is on accepting white students these days, and no idea on their policy regarding giving white students their full ride scholarships. I would certainly understand if they were reluctant to do so, given their mission. (Or at least their former mission.)</p>
<p>Sue, without doing research on all of the schools on that list, I know that they offer a few full ride scholarships. I also realize that those scholarships are incredibly hard to get. I don’t regard JHU or Duke as a safety, much less whatever merit scholarships they give. The U of C, where S was accepted, didn’t offer him one of their very rare big merit scholarships. Remember, we are looking for safeties here: certain to get in and certain to afford it. The chances of getting big money with a 0 EFC if you have high stats are probably better applying to highly-selective schools that truly meet need without significant loans than depending on something like that.</p>
<p>No filet mignon for me this morning. I’m getting ready to head out on a run. Take care, all! :)</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. It could be inspired by the Goths, Huns, Vandals, Xiong-Nu, Mongols, Jing/Manchu, Ivan Boesky/Gordon Gekko, General William Tecumseh Sherman & his army, Animal House’s Deltas, PCU, OR the Vikings!!!</p>
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<li>Despite Southern protests/hatred about his “March to the Sea”, the consensus was that for the time, its purpose was meant to destroy Confederate logistics/supply lines. A goal which is well within the legal bounds of war…especially in that period.</li>
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<p>lol, cobrat #309.</p>
<p>Actually, with regard to Deborah T’s post, I think one might meet like-minded students while running on or near campus. At any rate, most of the runners that QMP knew were also pretty serious students.</p>
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<p>Sorry, but this is a stretch. Are we talking about most very smart kids or the tiny 0.01 percent again? It astonishes me how much time on this site is spent wringing our hands about these very special and fragile geniuses who can only thrive in a narrow range of conditions.</p>
<p>I agree with dadx3. Plenty of exceptional people come out of so-so programs. Not all professional football players come from powerhouse high schools in Texas, nor is it accurate to say that the worst oboist in the best high school orchestra is better than the best one from a school no one’s never heard of. My daughter is a dancer. We do not have top-notch studios in our community (there are some good teachers, but nothing on par with what you would find in a larger city). No one studio has a large number of great dancers, and performance opportunities are limited. Yet every year kids get scholarships to prestigious summer intensives and apprenticeships at professional companies. Many go on to dance in college. The bottom line is, people make the best of what they’ve got. And I think it is a testament to people’s resourcefulness and purposefulness when they can excel even without the roads being paved with gold.</p>
<p>It seems to me the whole parent/parent cafe threads on this site serves a pretty elite audience: those who plan to send their kids to college. ( I don’t usually read any of the other parts of this board.) Then we have degrees of eliteness: USNW rankings and the rest :eek: In the midst of that someone objects when we want to discuss a tinier “elite” group than the “regular elite” group? I don’t really see the problem. Especially if the discussion is where any group is best served academically. Because, in most cases, I think college is mainly about academics. Social life should be pretty much the same all over imho</p>
<p>Except - I was really concerned about lgbt comfort level when one of mine was applying. As you can see, since I’m not the smart, my arguments tend to fall apart.</p>
<p>I think the disagreement on this thread centers around how one defines thick and the world is divided between smart people and numb skulls. Let’s go back to Hunt’s athletic example. How absurd does this sound: I am a student athlete at Missouri. What’s my social tribe? Other division 1 student athletes at Missouri. No one else can possibly relate to a student athlete except another student athlete. No ordinary student is nearly as serious, focused, dedicated-pick your word- to athletics as another student athlete. Well there are 500 student athletes at Missouri out of 33,000. When the student athlete goes to the cafeteria he would have to speak to 65 people before he could find a member of his tribe. How dispiriting! Maybe the student athlete should walk over to the athletic complex and find one of the 500 people. Similarly, maybe the academic should find the activities/organizations that attract smart people. How many people do you need to have a tribe?</p>
<p>Further, if you expand the definition of “tribe” to include students that participate in intramural athletics at Missouri your tribe gets substantially bigger. Sure, they are not as dedicated as student athletes but they share a common interest in athletics. The same is true with academics. There are people who are knowledgeable and passionate about certain topics or subjects. They may not have the top scores or GPA but they can still contribute in a meaningful way on certain topics. They are not numb skulls. The world is not neatly divided in to smart passionate academics and parties who could care less about their education.</p>
<p>So, seriously, suppose that one is at a big school with a relatively low density of students who are absorbed in intellectual issues, and one would like to meet people who are interesting to talk with, about some of the topics mentioned by cobrat. My suggestions are admittedly limited. How would one go about that?</p>
<p>I think PG’s advice is basically, “Go someplace else, with a higher density of intellectual students.”</p>
<p>If that’s not practical, what do you suggest? </p>
<p>I think this question is related at least somewhat to the thread topic, because it could make the difference between liking the school that winds up being the safety, and not having a safety, because one doesn’t like the available options. Also, I would actually like an answer to it.</p>
<p>“The world is not neatly divided into smart passionate academics and partiers who could care less about their education.” Agree. And I’ll bet that even most of the kids at Northwestern like a good party now and then! And I’ll also bet that most of the kids at Mizzou have been known to actually crack open a book!</p>
<p>There are intellectuals at party schools. There are philosophy majors and Classics majors at the schools on the Princeton Review “go here to get wasted” list. There are even intellectuals and people with a rich and robust literary mindset at third tier community colleges.</p>
<p>Is that so hard to believe?</p>
<p>No, it is not hard to believe at all. That’s the whole point!</p>
<p>@sevmom: exactly.</p>
<p>I am curious (and this might be a subject for another thread in the cafe) about how people find their “tribes” as adults? Seems to me that most of us here lead rich lives full of interesting people we have met at work, through our kids, in the neighborhood, or through shared activities. In any setting, there are people we like and people we don’t…people we click with and people who rub us the wrong way (or at least leave us feeling indifferent). I think social engineering for our young-adult kids is a little ridiculous, to be honest. They, like us, seem to be able to figure it out.</p>
<p>No one is doubting that kids at NU like to go to parties (have you met my son?) or that kids at Mizzou crack books. No one is doubting that there are intellectuals at party schools and at third tier comm colleges. Please – no one is painting the world as black and white. These are all shades of gray here. </p>
<p>It’s interesting to note, however, that there is often a lot of discussion on here about characteristics of student bodies as a whole – Harvard leaders, Yale artsy, Princeton sociable, Duke fratty and sports, U Chicago quirky, Penn pre-professional, and so on and so forth – even when these differences are really at the margin and there are more similarities than differences if you gaze from 1000 feet high. </p>
<p>Yet all of a sudden the overall seriousness of purpose and intellect of the student body is a no-no to discuss or have an opinion on or to prefer one type over another? </p>
<p>Why is it ok (for example) to say “My kid prefers U Chicago over (insert X) because there’s a higher density of the quirky-intellectual type there and he wants to be surrounded by that” but not ok to say what we’re saying here?</p>
<p>QuantMech:
For larger, residential schools there are usually clubs that cater to specific populations. Even at some of the larger community colleges/ CSUs (CSUs are the California equivalent of directionals) there are many organizations that cater to certain intellectual interests.</p>
<p>At smaller commuter schools this may be more of a challenge. I’m much less familiar with how the extremely intellectual students cope at these places since I’m from a region where the CCs and commuter schools are larger than many flagships, so maybe they just try to take the hardest classes possible?</p>
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<p>I am sure I am not the only person on CC who was a high school brainiac-type who had friends / connections with the smart kids but not so much among the average kids.</p>