<p>My son graduated from Chicago. He was also admitted to Reed and a couple other LAC’s (Williams, Carleton). For him, the main appeal of Chicago, beyond its “intellectuality,” was Chicago the city. He’s a huge baseball fanatic, and his current job is in fact writing about and doing statistical analysis on baseball: <a href=“http://www.baseballprospectus.com%5B/url%5D”>http://www.baseballprospectus.com</a> ). And he liked the city in many other respects as well. After visiting, he thought Williams too isolated and too jocky; he never visited Carleton but would have checked it out directly had he decided against Chicago, to which he made his first formal visit on “accepted student’s day.” He visited Reed a year before, accompanying me at an alumni college affair (read the classics for a few days), and he liked Reed’s overall environment but I think he wanted a bigger city and, of course, a “major league city.”</p>