<p>I think there’s this tug between Chicago as a hermetic liberal arts school (think: St. John’s College, Reed) and Chicago as a world-class institution. In reality, Chicago is both, which is great for me, because I wanted to attend both.</p>
<p>Zimmer seems too keen on pulling the school in line with the Ivy League. I like the idea that the school is getting more street cred, and more and more students are calling Chicago “their” school. It’s easier to call Chicago “their” school when it matches up very comfortably with the Ivies on paper and people talk about it. However, I think he wants to morph the school into an Ivy League in that he wants the school to be known not only in academia, but also as a hotbed for pre-professionals. (The former is much more universally desirable than the latter, and if we could convince students that we prepare for professions just as well as any other top school, we could get more applicants, etc).</p>
<p>If that happened, though, in that the school stressed preprofessionalism alongside academia, I would no longer want to attend. One of the reasons Chicago appealed to me was that you DIDN’T go SPECIFICALLY to get a job-- you went to experience the school, and if you wanted a job, you got one. To me, college is college, a job is a job, and the two have little to do with each other. I don’t mind going to school with students who have professional aspirations, but I want to go to school with students who want to learn something outside of their intended major and career path. Chicago’s core anchors you down that way.</p>
<p>(A neighbor’s son got into a prestigious med-school-guaranteed undergraduate program and expressed an interest in minoring in philosophy. “What is he going to do with that, read Descartes to his patients?” my neighbor asked me).</p>
<p>And when I mentioned that the Chicago got me more street-cred than Harvard, I think it was a function of the kind of program I was applying for (an enrichment program for gifted students). In that context, Chicago could be seen as a more appreciated degree because it more explicitly indicates a love of learning and a commitment to academic pursuits. Chicago students tend to actively seek out educational positions and grad schools, though, and do well with even the most competitive programs. Chicago doesn’t do as well as most Ivies with professional school placement, though. However, I’m hesitant to put the school at a fault without seeing what kinds of students are applying to professional schools. Most of the top students I know continue on to get MA’s and PhD’s instead of professional degrees; the top students I know who are going on to get professional degrees are going on to the likes of Harvard Law School and one received a major scholarship to UMich’s med school.</p>