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]