We hear a lot in this forum about rankings, prestige, and the happiness quotient of student life. At Chicago the emphasis has always been elsewhere. This was confirmed to me in the comments made to a question on reddit posed by an admit who self-described as “a low income student coming from an underfunded public high school.” The questions were the perennial anxiety-making ones: What is student life like, will I fit in, will I be able to do the work? This produced a bonanza of interesting answers both as to the class-demographic aspect of the question and to UChicago culture generally. In effect answering the latter question answers the first one: Wealth and class aren’t the significant features of student life; learning is an equal-opportunity challenge to everyone. The answers were the same as might have been given at almost any time in Chicago’s history. Here’s an excerpt from an especially fiery and cogent one, very expressive of the ethos I as an old alum well remember and proudly embraced:
"So the choice you have is this:
You can embrace the challenge and enroll, because you want to get your ass kicked, because getting your ass kicked is good, getting your ass kicked is the whole point. You can embrace the suck, because against all odds, you have earned the opportunity to feel like an idiot in the presence of some of the brightest minds on the planet. You won’t be the best! You will feel good if you can hold on to the middle of the pack, because the pack is excellent.
Or you can take the more cautious route, which better preserves your ego and your current sense of self. You will be the exact same teenager with whatever mix of sloppy received wisdom and half-baked ideas in your head on your first day at Chicago as on your first day at Easy University. At the end of Chicago, you will be a very different person. At the end of EasyU, you may not be."
The writer admits to overstatement and makes some of the usual caveats. However, he or she was pretty clearly speaking from the heart, and I was cheered by the many other commenters who seconded these thoughts. And most of all by the response of the student who asked the question: “Your comment made me shed a tear. I want to get my ass kicked!” That’s the whole UChicago spirit summed up in a single phrase.
Of course we have no way of knowing if that post was really made by a UChicago student
Their statement is an example of how Chicago is a fit school, and definitely not for everyone (which I know you know!)
I’ve known students who have been successful there, and others not so much. One of the most brilliant kids I’ve known (like Mensa member at 10) went there and their ‘sense of self’ was completely destroyed (they did well academically)…and hasn’t come back in the decade since they graduated.
Per the students we know there, this is accurate. “Ass-kicked” means 2-3 Bs, though, and they DO feel as though its hard(after having all As in HS ) , but it’s not like the average is Cs.
The feeling that everyone is so smart and you have to work hard and are surrounded by brilliant profs and peers is not unique to UC. It definitely describes other super-elite schools as well, specifically the ones my kids attend(Penn, Duke). Very similar descriptions are used by the schools themselves, particularly in “preparing “ the parents to deal with the negative texts and calls that commonly come in October of Freshman yr at both. Uchicago reportedly has similar sentiments shared on parent pages/parent programming. There is a culture of talk-about-the-misery among a subset of elites, which seems to be more prevalent in subset of majors, and UC culture seems to embrace that feeling. I actually think embracing the mindset of getting one’s a$$ kicked and creating an expectation of such is much more healthy than not talking about it and pretending everyone is ok while silently suffering. The latter campus culture happens too, and doesn’t help IMO. Kudos to that poster for being real!
Excellent obervations, @Mwfan1921 and @2Devils . I would second the point that what makes for success at this school isn’t simply intelligence qua intelligence. I believe the necessary additional ingredient is a capacity to accept the painful and humbling aspect of learning things. Plato said this long ago. At many other very good schools the pain is attenuated by many other diversions and sources of self-esteem. At Chicago the diversions don’t quite do the trick.
I wonder whether all that rigor at UChicago included learning about choice-supportive bias. This student has literally no idea how easy EasyU would really have been, or who they would have become had they gone there. These assumptions about students at all/most other schools are lazy, self-serving, and unworthy of the elevated intellect this student claims to have developed at UChicago.
Not to say there isn’t a point being made here, about why a student might choose to embrace the challenges and costs associated with attending UChicago. But the glib dismissal of the availability of challenge at other schools is distasteful and hints that the true value they find in their school is merely about feeling superior.
What interests me in the student’s statement is less its objective truth than what it tells about the ethos of the school - what students think the experience there should be. I doubt there are many other schools where students claim as a virtue for the place that it’s where you go to get your ass kicked. That’s a statement of value. Other schools make a point of valuing other experiences. Of course people, including many who wouldn’t touch the place with a barge pole, have been saying this sort of thing forever about Chicago. Must be something to it, though it does get up the nose of many.
No doubt there’s something to it. It’s not unlike the way “IHTFP” is bandied about with pride at MIT. And it absolutely is good for students to understand the ethos, although unfortunately many 17yo’s aren’t equipped to know whether an “ass-kicking” experience would optimize their intellectual and emotional development, as compared to other styles of intellectual exploration. This is just a weird blend of valuing the experience, and dunking on everyone else. You can bet that students at, for example, Harvey Mudd, are experiencing every bit as much of an “ass-kicking,” but it’s rare to hear this kind of tone when they speak about it.
I was thinking the same thing. I think that both MIT and Chicago (and Caltech and probably Harvey Mudd) are only a good fit for students who know that they want to work that hard for four years. Do you want the challenge?
Now, 50 years later, there is one thing that I learned at MIT that did not occur to me at the time and that I think applies just as much to U.Chicago: I learned that I could do it.
Today, with the Internet, students are far more likely to be going into this with their eyes wide open, and with at least some idea of what they are signing up for.
The provocative bravura of the student’s post obscures a serious point. I could get all solemn and say that it’s the satisfaction that comes of learning hard things and of being with others who also want to do that. Training the mind can be as humbling and painful as training the body, perhaps more so inasmuch as the aches and pains are of the psyche, not merely the muscles. That’s not going to appeal to everyone, of course, no more than some other hard and painful activities - climbing cliff faces, training as an opera singer, enduring boot camp. The mystery to me is that while we understand the appeal of these latter activities, even if they’re not for us, we have a hard time understanding the intellectual version of them. Socrates noticed that a long time ago.
My question was to the group as to why when someone posts about University of Chicago we get an advertising pop up for the University of Chicago. Makes me think like these are AI bot post baits… CC can do better than that.
I’ve seen this happening for years. I’m guessing UChicago has paid for their ad to pop up whenever their school is tagged. It’s very much in line with their aggressive marketing and recruiting strategy.
I think that detracts from College Confidential being a forum for open discussion (and criticism) by members of one or another college. Advertising by colleges on College Confidential should not be allowed.
Like other free service websites, CC relies on advertising to continue providing free services.
IMO, it’s a good place for colleges to advertise to reach potential students and parents…just close out the pop-up if it’s not for you. I’ve been getting that UChicago one for at least a year (when clicking on UChicago threads) and when the ad pops up, I close it.
On the great pop-up debate I would hazard the guess that someone in Admissions made the assumption that most people clicking on the UChicago cc forum were demonstrating some level of interest in UChicago and might want more info. Historically, the place was a well-kept secret, something Nondorf and company decided to change a few years ago, not entirely to the liking of this particular alum. However, to the extent that the pop-up faithfully guides any interested parent or potential student to more accurate information about the school’s culture than merely where it appears in the rankings and other prestige-odometers, well, that’s worthwhile.
Of course, not everyone who visits the Chicago forum wants to know more about the place. Quite the contrary in some cases. So it goes.
I agree with this completely. Just between our two kids, one decided (correctly) that UChicago was a perfect fit for her, and the other decided UChicago was not a great fit (I think correctly as well). Both had the other’s college as #6 on their preference list.
This was not the reason our daughter chose UChicago. Instead, it was because she (and we parents) hoped she would flourish there.
We parents learned long ago that she performed her best when much was demanded of her, and tended to slack off a bit otherwise. When she was learning how to swim, she made little progress with the gentle coaches, but made rapid progress with the coach that threw her in the deep end and demanded laps. In high school she paid most attention to, and enjoyed, the hard instructors. By the time she was a high school senior, she realized this about herself as well. The colleges at the top of her list were all known for being demanding.
And she absolutely did flourish at UChicago, and found out just how much she was capable of. That is also part of the UChicago experience, for the right student.
