<p>If you look at weatherunderground.com temperature records for this year you’ll find that between Jan.1 and Feb. 6 the temperature was barely above freezing only for 3 or 4 days and not in a row.</p>
<p>My mid-Atlantic son found the cold “bracing,” though he was thankful for his balaclava ($8 at Kohl’s). He was also thankful for boots when the duct tape on his sneakers got too wet to hold his shoes together. As for the cold – he didn’t mind. Even living on the outer reaches of campus, it’s a 10-minute walk to the opposite end, and by the time he climbed four stories to his HUM class, he was overheated.</p>
<p>I’m starting to get way off-topic here.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if this was a fluke, but when I visited in late March this year, Cobb Hall was a bit of an oven. I can see how it’s possible to be overheated after climbing stairs in that building.</p>
<p>And as a Midwesterner, I can attest that the temperatures this past winter were a bit brutal compared to usual. Hopefully it won’t be as bad this year.</p>
<p>Above all, no matter what anyone says about Chicago winters, I doubt that anyone dies of frostbite from walking to classes. People somehow survive the winters in Siberia, and I’m guessing they’re a bit chillier than the ones in Chicago.</p>
<p>JbV - haha yes no one dies, and everyone gets through the winter. Students from areas outside the midwest and New England should be aware of the strength of the Chicago winters though.</p>
<p>My New England son found his first winter in Chicago quite a bit brisker than the ones at home. The wind and the chill were significantly greater than what he had been accustomed to. As a highly weather/sunlight sensitive person, he (and we) had been somewhat concerned about how he’d survive winter quarter with his psyche intact. In the end, though, his experience was that he loved his first year at school so much that even the weather didn’t really bother him.</p>
<p>Not to get off the topic of the brutal winter weather in Chicago, but I was wondering what other colleges are somewhat similar to UChicago, other than Swathmore?</p>
<p>Well, depending on what you mean by “similar”, the most obvious ones are Columbia and Reed, and to some extent the University of Rochester. St. John’s College because of its Great Books program, but really that’s a lot of difference. Rice. Carleton and Macalaster. Yale and Harvard, Brown its curricular opposite but not so different in feel and passion, and in a different way Dartmouth, too – similar in being an outlier, and therefore attracting students who are not quite fungible with other colleges’ students. Among public colleges, various honors programs, certainly including Michigan and Pitt. New College of Florida. Toronto and McGill.</p>