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]