U. Chicago Students Repulsed By Idea of Being More Like Ivies
Students at the University of Chicago are furious with the school for considering a switch from its beloved "Uncommon Application" (sample question: give a definition of your "he'lade," or "Place Having Everything Right," relating to the Kwakiutl tribe of British Columbia) to the humorless, Soviet-reminiscent Common Application, that generic form you can fill out once and mail to 298 schools.
It's a complicated issue, balancing school character and tradition with the need to remain competitive with other elite universities in today's hypercharged admissions climate. But the U of C kids are waging their side of the battle with pure Ivy-trashing abandon, so naturally we side with them.
If students are going to attend a rigorous institution, the students say, they should be able to handle a rigorous application. "If you are smart and don't want to work hard, then go to Harvard, or better yet, go to Brown," said Roger Fierro, a senior who is chair of the Prospective Students Advisory Committee. ...
"I cannot express how much the Uncommon Application meant to me during the soul-destroying ordeal of the college application process. Please don't let our goddamn Ivy League penis envy force a move that would infinitely diminish the school in the eyes of current and future students," wrote one student. ...
In an editorial called "Who Wants to Go to UPenn, Anyway?," the student newspaper, the Chicago Maroon, wrote that the students fighting the change feared that the university could become a "generic elite private university." ...
Long live the Uncommon App! More Ivy slurs! Crescat scientia; vita excolatur!
[Via Chicago Students Rally to Be Uncommon @ Inside Higher Ed]
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December 1st, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Zing! But really, they have a point. Who wants to go to a generic elite private university when you can go to a generic elite private university filled with sexually repressed virgins and closeted homosexuals? It’s like Yale with a smaller coke problem.
December 1st, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Are we taking some heat from UChicago? You mean the UChicago where the only thing to go down on you is your GPA? You mean the UChicago that was founded according to Alternative Historian Howard Zinn to train middle management for its founding Robber Baron? You mean U (I can’t believe it’s not like in the Ferris Bueller Movie) Chicago?
If you want to be smart and have a good time go to to Harvard or better yet, go to Brown.
I think the uncommon application needs to ask a truly uncommon question about UChicago: In 500 words or less, define the word “fun”.
December 1st, 2006 at 2:08 pm
I think the very fact that they’re fighting so hard to preserve their “uncommon application” shows that they’ve already succumbed to “Ivy League penis envy” and are merely trying to prove otherwise.
December 1st, 2006 at 2:09 pm
I love how the UChicago students themselves cheerfully proclaim that at Uchicago, “fun comes to die.” Oh, and apparently “squirrels are prettier than girls.”
But the Uncommon application questions do sound pretty interesting. Far better than the standard “there is a limit to what scores and evaluations can tell us blah blah blah.”
December 1st, 2006 at 2:24 pm
You guys are really good at Latin!
December 1st, 2006 at 6:53 pm
If you want to be a miserable pretentious douchebag, go to U Chi.
Oh, and Brown doesn’t use the common app.
December 1st, 2006 at 8:30 pm
I think it’s cool that the Chicago students are passionate about their school and what makes it unique.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:07 pm
I applied to UChicago and enjoyed the Uncommon Application. I also really like the mishmash section in Princeton’s app and wish they hadn’t switched to the common app. However, UChicago students have a huge chip on their shouler. I always thought of them as an Ivy League safety school, so I wonder how many of their students had been rejected by Ivy schools only to go to UChicago and be fed propaganda that it is so much better/intellectual than Ivy League. There’s more to being unique and smart than wearing black, smoking, and discussing philosophy at dinner. Though, their Great Books core seems cool.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:34 pm
i found chicago’s essay questions to be incredibly pretentious. they all prompt the applicant to rhapsodize in vague, spacey terms on The Meaning of Life or The Nature of Beauty or whatever. forgive me for being so soulless if i just want to tell you why i want to go to your school.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:52 pm
There is so little that distinguishes between the quality of these schools that what really matters is whether or not this or that one is the correct fit for you. Getting bent out of shape over prestige seems pointless. All of these schools are prestigious for some reason or another.
December 1st, 2006 at 10:54 pm
sure, there is no reason to get “bent out of shape” over prestige. and you have to find the school that’s the “the correct fit for you.” and apparently Chicago is the “correct fit” for kids who just can’t get into the ivy league.
December 1st, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Ivy Leaguers such as yourself, however, belie the same insecurity exhibited by the idiotic rants of U Chicagoans, Stanfordites, NYUers, Dukers, and the like when you overemphasize the notorious selectivity of Ivy League schools. It just sounds like you’re a tad bit worried that other institutions might be catching up with us.
December 1st, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Go to an ivy L. school, get immersed in contradiction, and come out confused. I wonder why I see Princeton, Harvard, Yale professors switch-off to teaching at ChicagoU then back to their Ivy positions. Is that a slap in the face to ground-roughage(s) or does this say that CU is admiral?
December 1st, 2006 at 11:41 pm
I loved the Uncommon Application. I agree that it is a bright point in the wasteland that is the college application process, and no schools applications seem quite as souless and meaningless than the Ivy apps. I love Yale, but I agree with the kids from UChicago: keep the (yes, pretentious) crazy essay questions, keep the funny looking forms and odd font, keep the Uncommon App uncommon.
December 1st, 2006 at 11:41 pm
I loved the Uncommon Application. I agree that it is a bright point in the wasteland that is the college application process, and no schools applications seem quite as souless and meaningless than the Ivy apps. I love Yale, but I agree with the kids from UChicago: keep the (yes, pretentious) crazy essay questions, keep the funny looking forms and odd font, keep the Uncommon App uncommon.
December 2nd, 2006 at 5:39 am
I couldn’t agree more with those trying to save the uncommon application.
UChicago needs to change a lot… like every other $200,000+ institution in this country there are a lot of students with valid social critiques ranging from outrage at the survey questions on the application to disgust at the reading selection in core classes. America’s best and brightest go to UofC to learn how to stand up against tyranny and oppression. We have a long history of activism. From Sit-ins to blogs, we have effectively shown the plebians what intelligent people get fired up about. This is what matters to us.
Only after we save the eccentricity of the uncommon application can we possibly tackle less pressing matters such as the lack of racial diversity, prescence of urban crime and violence, and the evergrowing threat of militarism.
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:22 pm
“we have effectively shown the plebians what intelligent people get fired up about.”
Holy crap, are you for real? get over yourself.
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Do they not teach you what irony means at Yale?
December 3rd, 2006 at 1:08 am
The Uncommon Application is rude, in a good way.
December 3rd, 2006 at 3:34 pm
It’s telling when a school’s pride is the application. Who cares if you switch to the common app? Don’t you have anything else of which to be proud?
December 4th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Is there a reason you included a picture of the Chicago Theological Seminary in a post about the University of Chicago? I mean, it is very close to campus but still.
December 4th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Hey, if you UChicago kids didn’t have ivy envy, i believe you wouldn’t be reading this blog… which is all about the ivy league. so, uh, chillax a bit. you go to a good school too. get off ivygate and ignore what the mean ivy kids are saying about you.
December 5th, 2006 at 2:55 am
roflcopterz. Let UChicago do whatever they want. Everyone knows UChicago is where fun goes to die.
I almost went there myself.
December 5th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
I know a lot of people enjoy reading news on trainwrecks like Britney Spears or Lindsey Lohan. Doesn’t mean they want to be them.
Also, I didn’t know about this website until it linked to my blog.
Alec Brandon
the-editors.blogspot.com/
December 5th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Ahem, LindsAy Lohan.
April 29th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
From above: “It’s telling when a school’s pride is the application. Who cares if you switch to the common app? Don’t you have anything else of which to be proud?”
Yeah, more nobel prizes than your institution.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:50 am
yeah sorry you are wrong actually. Columbia: 82, UChicago:79.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
From http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/01/10/josephStiglitz_nobel_2001.html :
“Overall, 63 individuals who have taught or studied at Columbia University have won the Nobel Prize since it was first awarded in 1901, including 21 current or former faculty members who have won the prize for work done while at Columbia.”
Then again… on a page dated October 2004, Columbia’s Office of Public Affairs (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/special/nowin.html) states:
“Seventy two persons who have taught, conducted research or studied at Columbia University have won the Nobel Prize since it was first awarded in 1901.”
Maybe Columbia would win more prizes if somebody there could figure out how to count. Either way, your count of 82 seems rather optimistic. Prhaps your alma mater will reach 82 by 2050 though — so chin up!
May 1st, 2007 at 12:35 am
82 seems to be from Wikipedia. But the link supporting that is broken. And I couldn’t find a recent link at Columbia. (You’d think they’d update the PR page.)
But who cares about number of prizes? The way it is counted is ridiculous (basically, count any association ever). Prize count would make you think Oxford was an also-ran compared to Columbia or Cambridge.
I was more surprised by the comment’s indication that “CC’09″ is the same person as “You have to be kidding”. But I wouldn’t get worked up about her posts; she missed the point. I just hope we continue rejecting applicants like her. We can do without the posturing, intellectually shallow, follow-the-herd mentality that she displays and that this site seems to document extensively.
May 15th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
I heard that ivy league professors suffer from delerium that makes them give up their teaching professions to their TA’s so they can take vacations in hawaii….i dont know..that’s jus what i heard