<p>I could copy+paste my epic PM to JHS on the subject, but I’ll spare you. Congratulations. I hope that your daughter loves it here. She will certainly come out of it a well-educated citizen. (I like to support people in their decisions. I may not advocate for them in the beginning, but after the decision is made, I tend to do a 180. :))</p>
<p>Yes, a wonderful choice! </p>
<p>And I bet we’d all like to see that PM.</p>
JHS
May 16, 2007, 9:27am
23
<p>Here it is, in relevant part:</p>
<p>
I hope that your son likes the U of C. Mini will tell you that it’s a stupid decision to spend more money for a comparable school. I do think, though, that the U of C offers a unique experience that cannot be copied at another school. I don’t have much to compare my experiences to. I know a little about my friends’ schools and a little more about the colleges my sisters, brother, and parents attended. I do think that Chicago is different. The U of C offers–and requires–a cohesive education that emphasizes comfort and facility with a variety of disciplines and thought processes before allowing students to move into more specific subject areas. It really teaches students how to think about and examine different areas. The seminar-style discussions at the U of C are far superior to many classrooms at other schools. Discussion results in students who are able to speak confidently, as well as listen and respond to different opinions. Students get to know professors without having to “suck up” in order to get noticed, and classmates get to know each other well because they get to know how each person in the class thinks. Further, every class involves a myriad of opinions. With one professor, you get one take on a subject–two, if you decide to think for yourself. With discussion classes, I get to hear questions and opinions that would never cross my mind, and my own points are questioned and challenged. This isn’t even touching on the actual texts taught in a core program with a “great books” component. I believe that a founding like the undergraduate program at the U of C (or St. John’s, the Program for Liberal Studies at Notre Dame, Columbia, etc.) can’t be boiled down to $X in eductaional opportunities, as Mini would say. You simply cannot match the education here at the vast majority of schools in the world. Having the ability to think and question as well as a knowledge of great and influential texts is enriching in a way that shouldn’t be quantified by dollars and cents.</p>
<p>I’ve thought a certain way, that you characterize as an Aristotlean logic (makes me think I should have read the middle section of Nicomachean Ethics that I skipped), since birth, as far as I can tell. I’d blame it on growing up with three lawyers, but my father’s “logic” and my own have never gotten along all that well. Students at the U of C go about thinking about subjects in slightly different ways. It’s interesting because in class you get to hear people’s reactions to the same question; the differences don’t just lie in their particular points but in what kinds of points they come up with. </p>
<p>Anyway, I’m rambling. I had two interviews for two completely different things yesterday (including Fundamentals: <a href=“http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_08/FNDL.pdf[/url] ”>http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_08/FNDL.pdf</a> , which I think is just about the coolest major ever created), so I’m still in a bit of a talking mode, if you will.
</p>
<p>I’ll add by way of background that my son, after some agony, turned down a substantial scholarship at a peer institution because he really, really loves Chicago, so welcome to the club. I have another child there already, so I am familiar with what the students are like, and I agree with a lot of what corranged said. Chicago may not be perfect or quite as unique as people say, but it does guarantee that you are part of a community where a voice like corranged’s is characteristic, not an outlier, and that’s pretty special.</p>
<p>I’m not so sure about Fundamentals, though. It smacks a bit of the last remnant of Straussianism at Chicago.</p>
<p>Thanks, JHS. A friend’s D is now attending MIT (full freight) vs. Olin (free tuition); we aren’t the only ones that do this, LOL.</p>
<p>You are perhaps too kind, JHS, but thank you.</p>
<p>Son’s friend turned down free tuition at Boston College and Princeton (not sure if he got any money here) for Michigan (in state tuition).</p>
<p>You and your daughter made the right decision.
<p>do you want to go where fun goes to die, or where fun goes to protest the war?</p>
<p>Come on Sam, no need for subjective comments like that.</p>