<p>I should add, since I originally wrote a paragraph to this effect but cut it out before making my previous post, for conciseness: I know from my time at Stanford long ago, and from the slight knowledge I have of recent undergraduates there, that there are plenty of intellectual college students at Stanford. In fact, the recent undergraduate I know best is currently a PhD student at Chicago, and he is and always has been as intellectual as all get-out. </p>
<p>Back when I knew a lot more about daily undergraduate life at Stanford, the issue wasn’t that no one was intellectual; it was more that intellectualism was a kind of minority sub-culture practiced behind closed doors. I don’t know what undergraduate culture is really like now, but this editorial sure makes it look as though nothing has changed. </p>
<p>I understand that, as zenkoan says, the student editors may not represent what the real culture is. On the other hand, they have to reflect at least part of the real culture, the part in which they participate. This isn’t an editorial that could appear in The Maroon (or any number of other college papers, for that matter). The Maroon has its own goofy stuff, often, but it’s goofy in different ways than this.</p>
<p>Chicago and Stanford (like Chicago and Harvard, Yale, Brown, etc.) have much more in common than not, and the similarities between their students and their cultures far outweigh the differences. That said, I think this editorial gives a glimpse of a real difference in “feel” between Stanford and Chicago.</p>