Sell Me on UChicago, Please!

Cue7
Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:54:41 +0000

getmoreveggies and OP:

Regarding whether UChicago has more “weird” (and less “normal”) students, especially vis a vis peer schools, I think it’s helpful to take a macro-look at the college. Please note, for a college of ~5500, UChicago currently offers 17 sports teams at the DIII level. Compare that to say, Princeton or Yale, which offer close to 40 teams for a smaller college population (both P and Y have around 5100 undergraduates) at the Division I level.

So right there, there are very meaningful differences in numbers. Maybe 7% of UChicago’s population play varsity sports at a relatively low college level. In contrast to that, maybe 15-20% of Yale or Princeton’s student body play varsity sports at a very high level. Y and P also have more robust, serious intramural and club sports programs.
Additionally, schools like Y and P are more likely to admit students for reasons other then academics (for hooks such as legacy status, alumni development reasons, etc.).

So, when you put it all together, the cultures at these schools are still pretty distinct. This is why UChicago probably still resembles MIT more than it resembles Princeton. MIT and UChicago probably take at least 85% (or more) of the class based on intellectual merit. At Y or P, unhooked intellectual merit probably only account for ~60% of the class.

I apologize if I’m generalizing about athletes but, especially at the D1 level, being an undergraduate athlete generally means that one pursues a certain endeavor (basketball, football, whatever) with probably equal zeal to one’s academic pursuits. Athletes very naturally then, tend to group together a bit (not all athletes, but a good number).

At UChicago, this pool of like-minded students is much, much smaller, and also forms a significantly lower percentage of the overall student body. This isn’t to say that Yale and Princeton don’t have very quirky, nerdy, students (they certainly do - look at their avg. SAT scores). This is, rather, to say that the percentages of “types” of students are very different at UChicago and many of its ivy league peers.

All this being said, the UChicago athletic community is probably still (as it was in my day) very tight knit. The vibe is probably different when the total size of the group is ~350, as compared to say, ~750 at peer schools. Personally, as the college has increased significantly in size, I thought it was time for UChicago’s athletic offerings and perhaps participation level (maybe moving some sports up to DI), to increase. This hasn’t happened yet, though, which demonstrates that the school is still focused on taking a higher percentage of the class for purely academic reasons. This decision cuts both ways.