<p>You forget, though, that there is a reason that these institutions have that amount of applications. Their prestige does not emerge from a vacuum and neither did that of the University of Chicago. All of those universities have had their fair share of amazing faculty and students that have earned them that prestige. They want to go there because they want to learn with the best of the best, and they want the best education that they can possibly get. They want to have opportunities to collaborate with some of the best faculty in their intended field, or to prepare them best for graduate school. What is four years of struggle to a lifetime of being able to realize your potential due to the doors opened for you in your undergraduate years (it is true, though, that these universities do not necessarily do that for all fields though)? </p>
<p>Why does it matter that for four years of your life you ‘fit’ into the university you went to if the consequences of going there instead of somewhere else actually worsened your life (aka being less prepared for your field and then quickly falling behind everyone else or lacking the credentials needed to do something you wanted)? Is a kid who, with his personality and intelligence, fits with a community college but decides to go to a semi-decent state school instead making a bad decision? Surely he is not if he can make it through the years at the state school.</p>
<p>Regardless, why do you care so much about “fitting” with the school? Is there some ideal student, some ideal conception of a human being, that every single student that applies is compared to? Surely not, otherwise there would be no ‘diversity’ to be talked about. I would rather hear the conversation between a poet and a physicist as opposed to one between two physicists. I would rather hear the conversation between a more pragmatic person (focuses more on the practical side of things) and a more academically-inclined intellectual as opposed to one between two intellectuals. Just because someone doesn’t ‘fit’ into the ideal student of the university doesn’t necessarily mean that the university is a bad fit for that student nor that the student is a bad fit for the university. Rather, it is a potential opportunity for the university to accept a slightly different applicant because they don’t want good students, such as this one, to be turned off from their university because they don’t feel as though they ‘fit.’</p>
<p>It seems that you’re also making a mistake in that you’re assuming that from the get-go the people applying to those schools aren’t a fit for UChicago. They can not be a ‘fit’ for everywhere else, but be a ‘fit’ for Chicago (I would assume that they are intelligent if they are attempting to apply to all those places, and they may be or will become (perhaps even over time) more of the ‘intellectual’ nature as opposed to more of the ‘practical’ nature. </p>
<p>I must say, though, that I agree with you (finding out that Chicago was in the top 10 in the rankings was just an add-on to my love of it), but was merely attempting to defend the other viewpoint. Hopefully since you seem to love the University of Chicago, you get in and enjoy your time there. I, too, would love to go Chicago but there are probably many more applicants who are so much better than me that basically praying at this point. And regardless, I would need financial aid to go there (which I’m most likely not going to get), but I’m wishing for the best. I, too, wish they would revert back to their old selves so that I would have more of a shot, but hey things don’t always turn out the way we want them to. And also, I apologize for this long post and for not reading over it to make sure there weren’t any errors.</p>