Chicago vs. Columbia

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
21

<p>I think that you're in a good position regardless of what happens.</p>

<p>If you get into Columbia and go, you'll like it. You could play the game of "Well, would I have liked Chicago more?" and then you'll turn into a CC wench like yours truly. I play the hypothetical card with schools like Reed and Carleton all the time, even though I love my school.</p>

<p>I also know a lot of "Chicago" kids in my school who don't end up choosing Chicago, but rather Brown/Columbia. It's a regional bias and preference for the familiar and accessible. You're not going to make friends with everybody no matter where you go, so even if a lot of the kids are "boring" (UIUC), "snobbish" (Columbia), or "aloof" (Chicago), you will still meet a lot of awesome folks.</p>

<p>My other thought is that perhaps one of your major roadblocks is the way in which you go about making friends. I don't mean to say that in an "you don't have friends because you're a loser" kind of way, but rather that for me, at least, sometimes it's hard to go out and meet new people, and I need to force myself to have new social experiences with new people. Many Chicagoans I know felt socially lost here until they found their group... one of my friends found that group in a club, another in a fraternity, etc. If you're graduating the year feeling a little iffy and lost, you're not the only one. I'm sure a bunch of kids who are at Chicago feel similarly, because they haven't found their groove yet either.</p>

22

<p>Hmm, I dunno, I swing dance, I'm on a classical fencing team, I'm in small classes (one of them is 10 people, the honors physics section), and I'm not really a shy person, I've got no problem just going up to random people and talking/getting to know people. I honestly think that I've met enough people of all walks that I can be a fair judge of what your typical U of I Chambana student is like. Of course there are exceptions, of course I <em>have</em> met some interesting people, but those I have gotten to know feel the same way I do about UIUC. And not all, or even most, of them are underclassmen - I've met quite a few upperclassmen like me, who wish they'd had the conviction to transfer out earlier.</p>

23

<p>Goshamoosy,
Chicago has contra and swing! w00t!</p>