I have completely fallen in love with UChicago: its quirkiness and intellectual atmostphere, the campus, the students (I follow the campus’ Yik Yak and love to scroll through their posts; this may sound extremely creepy but it’s actually quite popular for people to follow the Yik Yak’s of different schools), and even the dorm system which has houses like Harry Potter! I would give up almost anything in the world for a chance to go. Unfortunately, their high selectivity and competition make me doubtful that I will even have a shot at being waitlisted, let alone accepted. Thus, I am forcing myself to consider other colleges of the same academic caliber and atmosphere for more realistic goals. Are there any colleges similar to UChicago that are in urban settings with the same type of quirkiness and charm? Obviously I understand that an aesthetic campus and fun housing system are rather trivial in comparison to the academia of the school but I would love to attend a college that has everything I’m looking for but with better chances for acceptance.
I currently have a unweighted 4.0 GPA, though as I’m a sophomore I assume that my GPA will sink to a 3.9 or 3.8 by the time I apply for college. The classes I take are fairly rigorous–nearly everything that is possible to be taken as honors or AP is taken as honors or AP. I participate in student government, Key Club, Junior Classical League, and co-founded a club at my school advocating for gender equality in which I am a board member. Sadly I do not play any sports (though I plan to play tennis in the spring, I doubt that I will ever be good enough to make the varsity team) or play any musical instruments (though I did play the piano for five years as a child). I’m sure I’ll range with an SAT score at least above 2100 and an ACT score above 32.
You are only a sophomore and I think you are on the right track. Keep your GPA and shoot for 34 of ACT or 2280 of SAT. No sports is not a deal breaker IMO.
Urban only. Maybe a touch less selective although think you are on a great track. And depending on your interests. I’ll exclude schools with a big tech reputation. Brandeis (Boston), Emory (Atlanta), Reed (Portland), Wesleyan (Hartford), Swarthmore (very near Philadelphia), Haverford (near Swarthmore), Claremont McKenna (LA).
I’d really like to pursue a career in the medical field so I’m not sure if liberal arts schools are really for me? I’d like the feeling/atmosphere of a liberal arts school but…not a liberal arts school? I don’t even know if I’m making sense here. Ideally I’d like a top university school on par with the Ivies with reasonable acceptance rates but…I don’t think such a school exists. Would NYU possibly fit my description? My knowledge of college (rhyme!) is far less learned and comprehensive as of the members of CC forums.
collapses to ground and begins to sob in desperation
@tupac4 Tufts and William and Mary sound like a good fit. They’re quirky, slightly easier than UChicago, intellectual, and with a liberal arts feel at a university.
We visited 25 schools last spring and summer and I think Chicago is sui generis. Swarthmore might come closest. Of NYC schools, Columbia much more than NYU.
Chicago is a liberal arts school. Its undergraduate program is similar to what you would find in many LACs. The same is true at most elite universities, at least in their arts and sciences schools (for those that have different schools).
If your goal is to be a physician, it’s silly to exclude liberal arts colleges from consideration – many good liberal arts colleges have strong basic science programs and are very successful at preparing students for medical school. Research opportunities are harder to come by, but there’s less competition for them, too, and the colleges often bend over backwards to make certain their students get the experience they need to be top candidates. The colleges all are committed to strong science and math programs, and are much less competitive admissions-wise compared to research universities of similar statute for science-oriented applicants.
(This isn’t medical research, but a kid I know very well was a computer science major at a top LAC. The college gave her funding to work in a top laboratory at an Ivy League university over one summer, and she continued participating in their research and writing remotely after the summer ended. She got exactly the job she wanted when she graduated, working alongside people from Harvard, MIT, CMU, and Stanford. My nephew at a different LAC got interested in a field for which the college didn’t have competent faculty. They hired a well-known professor from a university in the area to supervise his research, fully funded the research, and then gave enormous financial and nonfinancial support to a new program he started based on his research.)
The mix of urban and intellectual at Chicago is hard to duplicate, except at colleges with similar ridiculous admissions rates (like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia). Johns Hopkins is worth looking at. So is the University of Rochester, which has consciously modeled itself on Chicago as it restructured itself over the past 15 years or so. And Rice, which is strong in sciences and has a very good residential college system. People have already mentioned Reed and Swarthmore, which are both a little suburban but with good access to a city, and which both have intellectual cultures similar to Chicago’s.
I think Macalester in Minneapolis and University of Rochester fill most of what students considering UChicago are loooking for in an academically challenging environment, but are less selective.
I meant to mention Macalaster, too. But it’s in St. Paul, not Minneapolis. For those who care.
Two other places to look are Canadian public universities University of Toronto and McGill University – two world-class universities located in the middle of vibrant, international cities. They are both way bigger and more bureaucratic than Chicago, and they educate a much wider range of students, but because they are the premier universities in Canada they get their share of top Canadian students plus a good number of U.S. students and other internationals, so the best students are as good as you could find anywhere. Toronto has a longstanding residential college tradition, with some of the colleges being quite distinct (and a good way of shrinking the university a bit).
Maybe a little off topic, but how important is playing an instrument or being on a varsity athletics team compared to having a killer essay and good reccomendations for UChicago? :((
Playing an instrument is a nice little plus factor, but nowhere near as important as essays and recommendations. There are lots and lots of kids who play instruments at Chicago, and I imagine lots and lots of kids who play instruments left behind in the waitlist or reject piles. Unless, that is, you play your instrument so well that you have an agent and concert bookings, or at least an admission to Curtis . . . in which case, it’s potentially more important than essays and recommendations, but you are probably going to focus on other colleges, because UChicago doesn’t have the kind of music community that someone like that wants.
Being on a varsity athletics team is also a nice little plus factor, but nowhere near as important as essays and recommendations. There are lots and lots of kids at Chicago who played varsity sports in high school (and lots who didn’t). However, if you are good enough to be recruited to play your sport on a varsity team at Chicago, that’s probably more important than essays or recommendations, too, provided the Chicago coach is willing to go to bat for you.
CMC was mentioned above as like UChicago. I have to disagree – CMC is strongly pre-professional. Doesn’t really have that “life of the mind” vibe of UChicago.
When I applied to UChicago a couple years ago, I was very self-conscious of the fact that I had played neither a sport nor an instrument in high school. During the application process, I became so self-conscious of that fact that I wrote my UChicago extended essay in part about my inability to play a musical instrument, a lack which I explained stood in contrast to most of my friends who were avid performers. I had other things going for me (test scores/GPA, competition awards, essays, and probably teacher recs) but in short I was entirely an academic academic applicant, and things worked out.
To agree with the above posters, playing a sport or instrument only matters if 1) you’re recognized for it through awards or such, or if 2) it’s demonstrably integral to who you are, as shown through essays and recs. It probably also helps to indicate that you would continue playing your sport/instrument in college, perhaps at a club or intramural level, but that’s less significant than the other two. Since playing an instrument or sport is a serious time commitment for most people, it would help to show through your other ECs that you’ve been keeping yourself busy in the time you haven’t been playing a sport or instrument. Not necessarily a laundry list, but perhaps one or two other things you take seriously (such as volunteering, another club or sub-varsity sport, a part-time job, etc.).
@JHS Do you have a source supporting the idea that URochester has consciously modeled itself on UChicago? I don’t doubt what you say based on what I know about URoch, but I would love to read more on the topic.
@ramboacid My source was personal discussions with Tom Jackson, the transformative president at Rochester, and an old somewhere-between-acquaintance-and-friend. But I’m sure he wasn’t letting me in on any secrets, and there are articles about it.