Like the ever-present Mohn, I did not attend Chicago; my spouse and I both went to Yale (a few years after Mohn, I infer–incidentally, Mohn experienced a Yale that was an intellectuals’ paradise; my spouse and I did not). My kid is going to Chicago because we all discerned that Chicago was different from Yale, Princeton, Harvard. If we are wrong–if there are no important differences between Chicago and the Ivies–then why on earth should one go to Chicago? If the kids and the experience to be had are all meaningfully the same, then one is not choosing between a more intellectual and learning-for-learning’s sake environment, on the one hand, and Ivy name recognition, social cachet, and potential advantages among certain employers and professional schools, on the other. The logic of Mohn’s position is that one who chooses Chicago isn’t getting anything that is different (or better); one who chooses Chicago is at best getting the Ivy experience without the Ivy prestige. (From all the debate about whether Chicago students are disadvantaged in the YLS/Goldman/McKinsey contests, one clear fact emerges: It sure doesn’t hurt to attend Yale or Harvard as an undergraduate). Even if prestige and admission to YLS isn’t important to a student or his/her family, why would a kid forgo those things to attend Chicago? Again, I think that there are meaningful differences–and that the prestige bestowed by the Ivies makes them academically and intellectually less serious undergraduate institutions. But if I’m wrong, then why would a kid throw away “prestige” and cachet, even if he or she values those qualities only marginally, for no meaningful advantage?