Very interesting recent comments of a UChicago student

hebegebe
Fri, 26 Jan 2024 12:20:37 +0000

aquapt:

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…

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.

I’ve written about this before:

In my family, we have an A/B comparison between Harvard and UChicago.

Harvard CAN BE demanding, and offers some classes that are known to be some of the hardest undergraduate classes anywhere, such as Math 55 and Physics 16. But these are all optional, and it’s quite easy to get through Harvard and get a high GPA with very little effort. Now, most Harvard students do choose to challenge themselves in their areas of interest, and take it easy elsewhere.

On the other hand, UChicago IS demanding. There is really no way to hide from the extensive core, and a comparison of curriculums revealed that UChicago often covers as much in a quarter as Harvard covers in a semester.