Trip report: Bates, Bowdoin & Colby

jmmom
Tue, 25 Jul 2006 17:52:58 +0000

Further reflections on the competitive environment thing: there is an excellent discussion on this issue in a Johns Hopkins University thread here on cc. JHU is one of the schools often tarred with the “cutthroat” label.

[url=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=205512]cutthroat[/url]

Several students there had insightful observations about internally-generated desires to achieve vs. competitiveness between/among students vs. cutthroat atmosphere.

I am quite suspicious, personally, of stereotypes of schools as cutthroat - having never seen it myself in some very competitive schools. Doesn’t mean that kids don’t suffer depression/stress etc. But due to competitiveness from other kids? I question it.