Columbia Wannabe?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>(cross-posted from Columbia boards)</p>

<p>Hi–</p>

<p>I’m a current student at UChicago, and after reading this article in the Chicago Maroon, I was absolutely baffled:</p>

<p><a href=“http://maroon.uchicago.edu/online_ed...sions-process/[/url]”>http://maroon.uchicago.edu/online_ed...sions-process/</a></p>

<p>This year, about twice as many students applied to Columbia as did Chicago. On paper, the schools are nearly identical: both are in major cities, both are known for a rigorous education, both have extensive core curricula based in the Great Books tradition, both have similar sizes grad/undergrad, and as of right now, both have the same rank on USNWR, which is the holy grail of colleges for many students… it seems as though every student who applies to Columbia should also apply to Chicago, and vice versa.</p>

<p>But why do you think that’s not the case?</p>

<p>Do you think it’s the Uncommon Application that turns kids away?
The antisocial reputation?
The slogan “Where Fun Comes to Die?” (Which appears on t-shirts and sweatshirts that promptly sell out as soon as they go on sale?)
The reputation for an intense workload? (I’m sorry, kids, the Iliad is the Iliad, going to Columbia won’t make reading it and writing about it any easier!)
The weather?</p>

<p>Seriously, what is it?</p>

<p>(I’ll be honest: I considered Columbia seriously, but I ended up not applying a) because I’m from New York, b) because it’s a popular destination for graduates from my high school and I didn’t want to see too many familiar faces on campus, and c) I didn’t warm to the physical setting. Those considerations were small, but it was enough for me to send in my deposit to Chicago the moment I was accepted EA).</p>

<ul>
<li>my response after some deep reflection on the subject-- do you agree with my conclusions?*</li>
</ul>

<p>So a few theories… (yes, I’m a little too curious about this issue)… if any of these resonate with you/ if you have anything you can share to help me out, that would be awesome. Really awesome. Might even help me get some sleep!</p>

<li><p>Columbia is in New York City, and New York City is a fantastic place to be.</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia is an Ivy League school. Who doesn’t like Ivy League schools?</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia’s application is not particularly difficult to fill out.</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia appeals to both arts and sciences and engineering people.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>So there are four pretty major reasons why a student might apply to Columbia. Chicago, on the other hand:</p>

<li><p>University of Chicago is in-- guess where-- Chicago. Chicago is only the third-biggest city in the country, and actually, the school is in Hyde Park. It’s on the South Side. Boo. (In all honestly, HP is not any worse of a neighborhood than 116th and B’way-- it just has this unshakable reputation of being a bad, bad place).</p></li>
<li><p>Chicago is in the midwest. Its athletic conference is known as the Nerdy Nine (Chicago, Emory, Brandeis, WashU, NYU, CMU, Rochester, Case, and one more I can’t think of). Chicago, along with Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, Amherst, Johns Hopkins, and every other amazing school you know of that’s not one of the Crazy 8, will always gripe about the fact that they’re not in the Ivy League, or that they’re just as good, etc. It can be hard to convince people of that.</p></li>
<li><p>Chicago’s got an “Uncommon” Application. Even though you CAN use your common app essay if you come up with a prompt for it, a lot of people get turned off by the wacky, student-inspired questions. I wrote my uncommon essay about strings (no joke), a lot of past students have written about Wednesday (as in the day, not the Addams family character), a giant tub of mustard, or a confrontation between Lord Voldemort and Monica Lewinski. If you have fun thinking about these crazy things, you’d be great for Chicago. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are so many people who like to think about these crazy things.</p></li>
<li><p>Chicago has a narrow(er) appeal. Check out our boards-- prospies are CONSTANTLY concerned that Chicago will hack apart any chance they have of a future, that it will eat their soul, etc. etc. And no engineering per se, but a fantastic physics department. No business, either, but a top-notch economics program and one of the best graduate b-schools in the nation.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Yes? No?</p>

2

<p>post this in the chicago forums if you wanna get answers</p>

3

<p>thanks for the advice-- I didn't do that because I felt I already knew what a Chicagoan would say about Columbia and Chicago. The person I'm really looking for in helping me answer this question is somebody-- a student or a parent of a student, who applied/ is considering Columbia and didn't apply/ isn't considering Chicago. The argument I tried to make was that the schools are extremely similar to one another, and that if you like one, you'll probably like the other.</p>

<p>The second part was my own breakdown of what students/parents might say. I don't know if those suspicions are correct or not, so I'm querying the "general public" of CC for some answers.</p>

4

<p>I think most of your postures about why people would apply to Columbia and not UChicago are correct. Personally, I applied to Columbia and not UChicago for similar reasons to why you applied to UChicago and not Columbia (I was waitlisted at Columbia, btw). I'm from the Chicago suburbs, and there would likely be kids from my school at UChicago, plus I want to leave the Midwest. </p>

<p>For whatever reason, UChicago does have a reputation for being a...tough, I guess, place to go to school. The anti-social stereotype is quite prevalent...fair or not, I think that gets a lot of people (it got me, I'm not going to lie). Plus, where to some the Uncommon App thing is endearingly quirky, to others--well, at least to me--it comes across as slightly ridiculous and pretentious. About this time last year they were absolutely bombarding me with mail, and for me at least, they oversold. To me, Columbia is a very straightforward school, and yes, their application reflects that. </p>

<p>For the sake of transparency, however, I do have to say that my father biased me against UChicago a while ago, so it didn't really start out with a clean slate.</p>

5

<p>It's because Chicago's uncommon.</p>

<p>They'll be taking the common app soon, though. But even so, their admissions (and app) focus on being uncommon, on quirkyness -not everyone's comfortable with that.</p>

6

<p>Cool, thanks for the input. Chicago does have this major complex, I'm not going to lie, but I think it lies more in the administration (and when I say "administration," I really mean "President Robert Zimmer") than it does in the students who go here.</p>

<p>(Who am I to say anything! I got into Chicago EA and sent in my deposit the next day! I am the student who said no to every other school I could have gotten into and yes to Chicago!)</p>

<p>Chicago's reputation seems to exceed any real evidence. The funniest part about it, is that for students looking to study at Columbia, the Iliad is the Iliad, Karl Marx is Karl Marx. Going to Chicago will not make these readings any harder for you; going to Columbia will not make these readings any easier for you.</p>

<p>We all also know how easy it is to find what you want to. If you come and visit the school and expect to see anti-social behavior, you'll turn a blind eye to frat row, and anybody you see walking around and laughing (!) and you'll single in on that one person you saw studying in the corner and draw all sorts of conclusions. I feel the same thing must happen at schools like Penn and Duke, where visiting students look for the popped collars, ignore the kids in sweats and jeans, and conclude that everybody cares about they way they look.</p>

7

<p>and yeah, but I believe they are keeping the uncommon questions.</p>

<p>Am I the only person who noticed that the uncommon app gives you a freebie, though, in which you create your own prompt and can slide your common essay right in? I mean, if the other questions aren't your thing, you can always just use your regular essay. I remember I was ****ed off at NU's application, because I thought that all of their prompts were trite PLUS I couldn't use my own prompt!</p>

8

<p>It's simple, friends don't let friends apply to Chicago.</p>

9

<p>and why not?</p>

<p>(as it's pretty clear, I'm a Chicago student and I have gotten many of my friends to apply or consider the school)</p>

<p>which leads me back to the other point of reference-- I'm willing to consider that Chicago is a difficult school (it is, I'm not going to lie), and that it limits its appeal by having a Core curriculum. (Also, I understand that Chicago's acceptance rate is a bit inflated-- because we're EA and don't have any binding decision plan, we have to admit more students to account for the EA accepts who don't end up coming).</p>

<p>But that's why I bring Columbia into play. If you're taking a serious look at Columbia, check out their reading lists for Core classes and tell me that Columbia isn't where fun comes to die and Chicago is.</p>

<p>I'm aware that Chicago's pool is self-selecting, and the same things that turn students off from the school is the same thing that attracts students to it. Is it possible that a significant portion of Columbia's application pool is saying, "I want New York, I want Ivy League, and I'm not going to care right now that the school has a Core?"</p>

10

<p>I applied to Columbia and not Chicago because I wanted to stay in the Northeast. That's all I can tell you.</p>

11

<p>Yeah, a lot of students like to stay within driving distance of their school. A lot of Chicago students are from the midwest and probably didn't consider Columbia as seriously for the same reason.</p>

12

<p>I think Chicago's "fun goes to die" and intense reputation dissuades many prospective applicants.</p>