@HydeSnark said:
" Is [UChicago] the same school as it was 30 years ago? Probably not. And it probably won’t be the same school 30 years from now. But I think the same is true of any school."
Do you really think this is true? Ask some of your friends at other schools to talk to alums who are in, say, their 40s. Ask the alums if they think Brown is very different now from how it was in 1990, or if Princeton feels markedly different now than it was in 1990. I went to one of UPenn’s professional schools, and whenever I talk to alums, they say things like “It still feels like Penn.”
I don’t think the changes are radical at Chicago, but there are probably more subsets of students (fratty types, fairly serious athletes, very committed pre-professional types, etc) that I simply didn’t see in my day. They are molded by the Chicago experience somewhat, but as more and more of these changes hit, the climate is probably a little different.
Interestingly, when my Chicago friends go back for reunion, they always talk about how “corporate” the school has become. It’s gone from being wonky intellectual all around (including poor planned reunions that mainly become book clubs) to having a grander, more polished feel. The current students seem a little more polished too (note, this doesn’t say much, but you have to remember that Chicago’s gone from being a bootcamp/punishing experience to being “merely” hard - that’s a big change!). Professors talk about admin pressures to grade inflate as well, which certainly wasn’t the case in my day. (Google Jonathan Hall Chicago Maroon grades - you’ll find the article discussing current pressures to inflate grades, so that undergrads can get into good grad schools.)
So, all in all, Chicago’s probably seen the most cultural shift. This isn’t to say it’s the polar opposite of 30 years ago, but it also hasn’t resolutely stuck to a certain course, a la Brown or Northwestern or Duke.