@Vandy93 All one must do is read the school’s own publications (Hustler) and other documents (strategic planning documents, departmental websites, etc) or talk to friends who attend much like I do about other schools. It isn’t that difficult to a) formulate your own perspective or b) demonstrate many other’s(who are part of the school) perspective of the school when this stuff is so easy to research for those who seriously want to know. I wish prospective students would learn how to do it. Hell, I wish I knew how to do it when applying. As in, not buying the hype that brochures and the tourguides feed to us about these elite schools and searching deeper to find out things for ourselves. It turns out to not be as hard as one would think given that these places have pretty strong media presences internally and in many cases, externally.
For example, if I wanted to learn at least a little something about what is happening at Duke or the concern of Duke students, hit up the Duke Chronicle. It may tell you, for example (by amount of articles and their content) that students and faculty have constantly been concerned about intellectual climate versus peers (over a period of decades this appears to be a concern worth constantly writing about and even forming a task force on). If you’re like me, and want to find out how highered works, especially at the types of institutions we went or go to, it just isn’t that hard (even Chronicle of Higher Education can lend a lot of insight typically from faculty or administrative perspectives). If I want to learn about the Chicago, you can hit up the Maroon (I think? Maybe not) and it may tell you that in their new admissions scheme, many alumni and students there before the application and SAT score boom are concerned about potential differences in atmosphere and attitudes toward learning it might cause. Dartmouth, hit them up and find out that they (mainly their new leader) are SERIOUS about issues concerning Greek life’s dominance, alcohol consumption (sounds kind of old school huh?), and what it means for academic rigor there (I think the same thing is happening at Emory, but it is a tad more subtle though it is in internal press. A “Greek task force” for example…one that doesn’t have any Greeks on it at that 
. Asking for problems). Again it just isn’t as hard as one would think to find out about things on one’s own. And if you have friends or acquaintances you keep in touch with at these places (mine are mostly at Duke and WUSTL and a couple at Vanderbilt), you can get another insider perspective. It was always cool to compare academic work (as many of my friends were also STEM majors) in classes we were taking. It was…all over the place naturally.
Anyway, with some serious research (which I guess prospective students or parents won’t find time for), you’ll find that most selective schools seem to deal with the same issues as others except that they basically use each other as benchmarks and comparison points.
I don’t just stick to my scientific research. I have many other interests obviously and they include education and teaching (always thought I wanted to teach at a college/university, but the more I see even at elites…I begin to question this. Maybe aim for a teaching college?). Naturally I would want to know why students choose certain colleges, certain majors, and attitudes toward learning/school work as that would in theory influence the way I decided to teach a class (I like the idea of teaching with intellectual rigor, but it looks like a painful hassle almost anywhere. Definitely wouldn’t do it if I were tenure track).