In the last year of data, Northwestern had a somewhat lower average net price, but it looks like up through the last finite reported range ($75001-$110000), Chicago was actually lower. Then Northwestern did better in the $110K+ final range.
I have no big takeaways from that, other than that this seems to confirm that even if Northwestern is more generous on average, Chicago might be better for at least some range of families.
Several of my kidâs friends have told me that Chicagoâs summer offerings for high schoolers are much more difficult and ârealâ than those of any of its competitors. This would imply that doing well in one or more of them would be an indicator of future success as a full-time student there. As such, a little admissions boost would make sense, at least to me.
Something is always omitted in any discussion of Chicago admissions - the special character of the school, with its famously intense education, rebarbative student body, and gritty neighborhood. It is more important there than elsewhere to select kids who embrace these things, will flourish and not be miserable. Admissions officers need every bit of help they can get to identify those kids. Anyone who doesnât believe this about the school will see in its admissions regime only such spurious motivations as recruiting full-payers, juicing the numbers, playing hardball with parents, and so on. But these are the accidents, as Aristotle would say, not the Final Cause.
I offer as anecdotal evidence the experience of myself and a long-lost high school chum. Many years ago we managed to get ourselves admitted to Chicago without ever laying eyes on the place and knowing little about it. We arrived to start classes only after a 36-hour bus journey from Texas. Thereafter it was a tale of two distinct experiences. I loved everything from the very beginning, but what I loved - the seriousness, the intensity, the grittiness - he hated. Four years later I left sorrowfully and with much reluctance. He, a very smart guy, transferred out at the end of first year. I donât doubt he went on to get the education that suited him elsewhere. Perhaps he ended up feeling about that other school as I felt about Chicago. Câest la vie. But an enlightened admissions policy, I suggest, would have been better at figuring out in advance which of us would fit the mold. A batting average of .500 is good in baseball, not so good as a college retention rate.
The Final Cause of a Chicago Admissions policy should be finding kids who will flourish at Chicago. Q.E.D. There are many arrows in that quiver, but one of them would surely be the privileging of those who select Chicago ED. Having some real experience of the place in a summer program just multiplies the effect. And as for communicating that information to prospective students, well, if itâs true, why not say so?
That would make sense to me too. Perhaps this summer program gives U of C an opportunity to test out student performance, a hedge against high school grade inflation.
Well, Merriam Webster agrees with Siri. You may have been trying to be funny, but your original post, and this one, is more evidence of why I donât like the Chicago vibe.
I understand perfectly, Cinnamon. Schools are defined as much by who hates them as by who loves them. Chicago detractors usually veer between those who say itâs really just a school like any other, so whatâs the big deal, and, those who, to use a term of art, say itâs a rebarbative hell-hole. Chicago boosters are more likely to agree with that second category of detractors, except they turn the value judgment on its head. Itâs part of the Chicago style of faux-deprecation embodied in that famous slogan about fun coming there to die, etc. I expect to see a tee-shirt sometime soon that says something like âAt Chicago you can be your rebarbative self.â Second City, after all, was invented on this campus. Anyone who doesnât have a taste for the edgy and the sardonic ought to avoid the place. There are plenty who do, and the point is to find them.
Greetings, Catcher! The search should always be for the word that fits the situation perfectly, whatever the syllabic content. If Shakespeare and Milton could do it, we can!
@31fan , âupstandingâ doesnât seem like quite the right word for an admissions policy, but Iâll settle for it if it describes procedures that are effective in netting the keepers and excluding the other fish in the pond. Thus, if any kid is deterred from applying to Chicago for lack of information about how the waitlist there operates, then Iâd say that particular policy is doing its job.
@admmda , I didnât use the word âuniqueâ and would never commit the solecism of âmore unique.â Nor would I say that other schools do not have cultures of their own, none of them completely unique but each with its special character. Chicago has such a culture, one that either appeals or doesnât. If you value it, you want it to persist and flourish, and you want admissions policies to reinforce it accordingly. Rebarbativeness isnât everyoneâs cup of tea.
Could you recast your ârebarbativeâ line using other words? Youâre doubling down on it, but ⊠I canât fathom what youâre actually trying to communicate, based on standard dictionary definitions of rebarbative as ârepellentâ and âirritatingâ. Unless thatâs what youâre actually going for? In which case ⊠okay?
The word comes from the French expression of going beard-to-beard. In English I think toe-to-toe would be the equivalent. Iâm taking it to mean a certain argumentative quality to the discourse.
But then again Iâm not privy to the special-ness of U Chicagoâs culture
In Hyde Park itâs Jimmyâs Woodlawn Tap, a venerable institution that has witnessed the resolution of every conceivable philosophical and political problem of our era. It would be the right place to get good and rebarbative.
