Prestige of UChicago

JHS
Sun, 25 Apr 2010 10:58:19 +0000

Phuriku, fundamentally I don’t understand your position. Let’s say you love the University of Chicago and think it’s perfect. (Not exactly a common sentiment among Chicago undergraduates, but a simplifying assumption for this argument.) Fine. What is your second choice? What other universities or colleges offer 95%, 90%, 80% of what Chicago offers?

Now, of course, answering that question requires you to say what exactly it is that you love about Chicago, what you think it is. And there are some people who would answer that question with Reed, or Swarthmore, or St. John’s, or one or another of the Claremont Colleges. But I would argue – rather strongly – that the institutions that most resemble the University of Chicago are the Ivy League ones, especially Yale, Columbia, and Harvard. Sure, there are things about each of them that differentiate them from Chicago, but the similarities completely swamp those differences, which are primarily those of style. I don’t see how, being intellectually honest, a student can want to go to the University of Chicago and not be at all interested in at least a few of the Ivies, except for people who live within easy driving distance of Chicago and don’t want to go farther than that for college.

Of course, I completely understand the reaction “Why should I put myself into that weird lottery if I don’t have to?” That’s rational. But that’s different from taking a collegiate Sherman Oath: “I am not a candidate for admission, and if admitted I will not enroll.” Apart from issues of whether it is futile to apply, a couple of those colleges ought to be among the top choices of most Chicago students.