<p>The open curriculum schools, yeah?</p>
<p>momrath - I’ve heard that Dartmouth is very test-driven, given it’s quarterly academic system.</p>
<p>Definately Chicago.</p>
<p>Chicago would be at the top of my list too.
Chicago is not simply another “Cornell” or “Dartmouth”, it attracts the purely intellectual type to the college and that is the person who would typically enroll.
I’d also say definitely a lot of the liberal arts colleges.
Swarthmore struck me as very intellectual. People are very chill about grades there.</p>
<p>Chicago
Reed
…the rest</p>
<p>I think there are plenty of colleges that have an intellectual bent, with lots of students who love learning–i.e., Chicago. However, I do think there are a few schools with unique programs that pretty much appeal ONLY to kids who are interested in learning for its own sake. The prime example is St. John’s, where there are no electives and no majors.</p>
<p>Another way to look at these schools, like Hunt’s remark about St. John’s, would be to think about how many challenges the school puts in a student’s way before he or she receives that diploma, or also to think about the disincentives for students purely interested in a job after graduation.</p>
<p>For Chicago, these disincentives are (or have been) many. </p>
<p>–We have our unofficial slogan (“Where fun comes to die”), and while most discerning customers understand that there’s no way that’s actually true, it scares off a lot of people.
– We have bizarre essay questions.
– We don’t have pre-professional programs.
– We’re not a good sweatshirt or bumpersticker school (Northwestern and Nortre Dame beat us in that regard in our region).
– We have a small varsity sports program.
– We have a core curriculum.
– We don’t give out easy A’s. (I wouldn’t say we have deflation, but I do think that Chicago students generally work harder for lower grades than students at other schools).
– We don’t have many fraternities or sororities.
– We don’t have a social food chain-- there are no aspirations to rise to the social “elite” of Chicago. Maybe the closest thing we have to the social elite is, like, Model UN club and their parties. I’m not even kidding.</p>
<p>Have to add William & Mary. Prob the most intellectual public school in America.</p>
<p>Here’s another secret: People can love learning for more than one reason - because it will contribute to their professional development AND because they love to learn. A lot of these discussions seem to forget that.</p>
<p>Sure, the core curriculums at Chicago and Columbia are ripe w/ classics, i.e., intellectual fruit, but I challenge anyone to find a curriculum more challenging/intellectual than St John’s College (except St Thomas Aquinas which equals SJC, but is off almost everyone’s the radar). Forget the 486 credits needed to graduate Cal Tech which is yet another aspect of intellectual endeavor…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>MIT’s. MIT’s curriculum would make toast of a lot of students who enroll at St. John’s. Caltech’s too.</p>
<p>I disagree with the poster who discounted Ivies as “intellectual” because they are too full of grade-grubbers. This may be true for some of the Ivies, but others (Yale, Brown, Columbia) are much more intellectually driven and tend to lack a pre-professional feel. I can tell you from first-hand experience that students at Yale are not competitive at all, and tend to value learning for the sake of learning!</p>
<p>tokenadult, Granted the curriculums at Cal Tech and MIT are more challenging (so take that word out of my previous reply), rather I am focusing on the OP’s: Most intellectual schools (i.e. Where to Learn for Learning’s Sake?) where SJC fits the bill best.</p>
<p>The OP wrote, </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m interested in this issue, myself, as I posted a thread much like this back on 21 January 2007. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/291251-intellectual-colleges.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/291251-intellectual-colleges.html</a> </p>
<p>Then I wrote, </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I had a lot of the same colleges recommended to me that I see recommended in this thread. </p>
<p>There have been other threads on this issue, before and after mine. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/722-colleges-intellectual-atmosphere.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/722-colleges-intellectual-atmosphere.html</a> </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/388488-intellectual-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/388488-intellectual-schools.html</a> </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/357134-colleges-genuine-intellectuals.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/357134-colleges-genuine-intellectuals.html</a> </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/210351-best-intellectual-atmosphere-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/210351-best-intellectual-atmosphere-schools.html</a> </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/148209-intellectual-universities.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/148209-intellectual-universities.html</a> </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/96719-campus-intellectual.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/96719-campus-intellectual.html</a> </p>
<p>I have a certain intellectual curiosity about why small liberal arts colleges are so overrepresented in such threads compared to larger research universities. I have the impression, based on real-world experience, that a lot of students at research universities are curious and like learning for the sake of learning.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think it’s because the LAC’s don’t have as many attractions as universities (generally speaking) outside of academics. Universities have big-time sports, business schools, engineering schools, lots of school spirit, sweatshirt/bumpersticker value, big parties… the LAC has academics. When we’re talking Penn v. Oberlin or USC v. Wesleyan, those differences really come out.</p>
<p>How about smaller specialized engineering/science/tech schools? I think it’s absurd to claim students attending those schools don’t do it out of love of learning.</p>
<p>Why should it matter if I read Chaucer or Leibniz in my spare time? To state one is a more intellectual pursuit than another is preposterous.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A good point. That’s why I asked, last year, “At what colleges do students try experiments, read books, or write papers that aren’t even assigned by their teachers?”</p>
<p>unalove, I hope you didn’t mean to say what you said in post 35; the notion that engineering schools fall outside the realm of academics makes for a pretty restrictive notion of academics. Math and science seem pretty “academic” to me.</p>
<p>I think the perception that LACs are the only place to find students who learn for the love of it is due to concentration effects. While most of the students at LACs may fit that mold (although I’m not convinced all those pre-law students really are intellectuals), there is no question that a significant number of students at large universities don’t take an interest in “big ideas” outside of the classroom. However, that certainly doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of intellectual students at the large universities, it just means they aren’t filling up every class.</p>
<p>I agree also with jessiehl’s post up above that there is no reason to make the assumption that a student who learns in order to prepare for or advance a career does not also love learning for its own sake.</p>
<p>maybe now it’s the appropriate time to bring up that PhD production list? i dislike how people try to rank programs based on that. but i think it’s a good reflection of the “personality” of the student body.</p>
<p>Reed
Oberlin
Kenyon
Bard
New College of Florida
UChicago
Vassar</p>