<p>Is Chicago a school that prospective students enhance their chances for acceptance by visiting to demonstrate interest?</p>
<p>i would think so. they weigh the essay a lot and recommend an interview. they certainly seem to asses prospective students holistically. they also have a low matriculation rate which looks for ugly for college rankings. </p>
<p>i plan to show interest in the college through emails, calls, and a visit/interview to help and i suggest anyone who really wants to go there do the same.</p>
<p>I just went thru the application process with chicago this year. I think they have a self esteem problem. They so want to set themselves apart from Harvard, so they push the "Quirky", life of the mind angle. You have to write great "Quirky" essays, show interest and then beg, and beg and beg. My long essay was a fictionalized narrative rather than a first person point of view statement and I think it was pretty good. I got accepted and then they offered me NO grant money and they were were uncommunicative. I'm going to Oberlin....... and I know Oberlin wants me as much as I want Oberlin. true love.</p>
<p>D didn't interview, wrote an essay which showed her love of history and personified an inanimate object and their discussions. We did visit, and she was accepted. Received some FA, and went to accepted student's weekend. Where Adcoms were very personable, FA dept was not. We needed more $, but was not forthcoming. In fact, in the FA presentation, the presider even said that many of the parents feel the FA package is insufficient, but that even if we appeal it, we will find that they were right in the first place. Many parents I sopke to there that weekend, were disillusioned with the FA dept. D is attending Amherst.</p>
<p>"They so want to set themselves apart from Harvard, so they push the "Quirky", life of the mind angle. "</p>
<p>Spiker, do you really know either institution? If you did, you'd know why your statement is so far off the mark. Chicago has no problem distinguishing itself from Harvard, or from any other school. Chicago's problems are several fold, and not due to product differentiation:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>It is one of few schools that emphasizes a common core that accounts for a large part of the undergrad curriculum.</p></li>
<li><p>It is not as grade inflated as some of its peers.</p></li>
<li><p>It's students have a different definition of fun than kids attending most other schools (hint: fun does not revolve around drunken parties, even though they exist.)</p></li>
<li><p>Even though it has a decent endowment, it is not a wealthy institution. And a good part of its revenue goes to unusual places. For example, it spends over $60 million a year in charity medical care. This has a direct impact on its ability to offer financial aid. Although it practices need blind admissions and claims to meet all demonstrated need, it, like many others, relies heavily on rather draconian federal/institutional methodologies to determine need, and uses loans a lot. Chicago will never be able to compete with schools like Amherst in the fin aid department, but many others cannot either. Try Brown, for example.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>What does Chicago offer? Faculty involvement. Opportunity for undergrads to take high level courses. (My D, who finished her first year, is taking a grad level seminar this summer). Contact with grad students early on (outside of TAs.) etc. etc. Other schools do the same, but many don't do it as well.</p>
<p>Newmassdad - Can you comment on how your D feels in regard to safety on campus and in the surrounding area?</p>
<p>My daughter just completed her first year at UChicago. While the surrounding area is not the best, she has never had any frightening incidents. However, she does employ caution, such as not walking alone at night. Also, you cannot enter her dorm without an ID card, so she feels quite secure.</p>
<p>By the way, she loves UChicago and has never doubted her choice. She attended one class last year in which she was the only first-year and was among just 3 undergrads, with the rest grad students. So that was a good experience.</p>
<p>Thanks Sillystring.
What is the social life like? And how does your D like the quarter (or is it trimester?) system?</p>
<p>twinmom,</p>
<p>My D is rather fearless in Hyde Park. She plays sports in Washington Park with others on weekends and evenings (long daylight days, of course), going there by bicycle. She rides through the community after dark (including hours that worry me as a parent). She's taken the bus to the subway to go to the northside at a variety of hours (as do others...). If she or a friend have ever even seen something "sketchy", I think she would have told me, and she has not.</p>
<p>Thanks newmassdad. I do have some concerns about the neighborhood which need to be alleviated!<br>
Are either of your girls in the sciences? How do they like the academic calendar there?</p>
<p>twinmom,</p>
<p>My D is indeed in the sciences - biology, trending toward immunology at this time. </p>
<p>Regarding the calendar, she has no complaints, but does not have anything to compare it to. Chicago starts late, but ends by early June, so it has not been too bad.</p>
<p>My daughter has not complained about the calendar, either. I think they just adapt. It seems like mid-terms come quite quickly so you have to be engaged in your classes from day one. On another thread, some non-Chicago students were saying that the material studied in three quarters at UChicago is that same as what is studied at other schools in two semesters. My daughter has not found that to be true, as she has had several classes that began and ended in a single quarter. So the time given to master material is shorter. I hope that makes sense. </p>
<p>As for safety, you at some point you just have to go by faith -- or by whatever you call it. Really, there is no guarantee of safety at any college.</p>
<p>Re: Spiker's comment</p>
<p>Chicago does seem to want to distinguish itself as quirky. Witness its "uncommon" application and its relentless use of "life of the mind" in its marketing materials. </p>
<p>It is certainly a first-rate institution with a very impressive faculty -- and I'm suspect it attracts purer, more hard-core intellectuals and fewer hyper (over?) achievers than HYP. </p>
<p>Still, the institution is battling a "grind" reputation and I think kids looking for a fuller college experience (meaning a social life, not drunken orgies) may be scared off -- legitimately or not.</p>
<p>As for OP question: From what I saw, showing interest counts for a lot. My s. had a wonderful interview there (said it was the most intellectally engaging conversations he's ever had) and was accepted -- even though he had lower stats than a friend who was deferred.</p>
<p>Mchs - I assume he decided not to attend?</p>
<p>Would it be fair to say that Columbia is along the lines of Chicago (though not as quirky?)</p>
<p>Applicants who don't want to do the weird essays at Chicago can always submit a more conventional one. My son did that, and he got in. Of course when applying for the "merit" scholarship he did do one of the Chicago specials.</p>
<p>The adcom says that one reason they ask for unusual essays is that it helps to identify students who really want to attend Chicago. Another reason is that the essays are less boring to the readers. I don't know whether essays end up being less boring after a reader has seen many hundreds of them each season. And given Chicago's low "yield," I'm not sure the essays do all that much at helping the students to "self-select."</p>
<p>But no doubt Chicago is a great school, and my son got a terrific education there (and on his junior year abroad in London).</p>
<p>Ok I admit i check in on the threads with a star..... I thought chicago's relentless life of the mind thing was like being stalked by a cute girl with low self esteem. after a while I felt like "ok, look look, your'e a great school... but we don't have to get married do we???"
Univ of C was fsort of familiar to me in that you can see the campus from my grandparents' high rise windows in Hyde PArk. I'd driven and walked thru the campus many times. And have been to the Oriental Institute soooo many times....</p>
<p>Chicago was a stretch for me not an ivy fall back..... i had really good scores and recs but so so grades (ADD tip-off) ..I think my essays were good and different but I think I blew my interview when I visited (I got into an argument with the interviewer and forgot we were having an interview.) I stayed on campus and had a great time.. the kids were smart and funny but not the "life of the mind" uber-nerds of the marketing materials... they were just like the other smart funny iconoclastic kids I met at Oberlin, BAtes and Bowdoin.. but I was seduced...week after week.... Chicago really wanted me, and I emailed back...... and I was checking the web site, and I emailed back..and little messages in the mail, and I wrote back....and emails and I replied....maybe I WAS like the intellectual, "quirky" kids in the brochures...my mom went to Harvard ...my grandmom went to Chicago...maybe....and the minute I was accepted.....BAMM it was clear I'd never get to second base.... Chicago expected my mom to pay up as if she made a million bucks. And the friendly notes, emails calls, messages stopped. A formal appeal fell on deaf ears. The whole Chicago wooing and dumping thing was one of the strangest experiences of my life. No girlfriend has led me on like that and then treated me so mean ....so far.
I guess my fifth paragraph summary is , you wouldn't marry a girl if you thought she didn't really really really like you....and you wouldn't spend $200,000 and 4 years of your life for a car on the basis of quirky brochures and emails. Test drive and spend a lot of time kicking the tires.</p>
<p>Spiker,</p>
<p>So how was Chicago's fin aid offer any different from other schools? FYI, of the fin aid offers my D received, Chicago was no different from Columbia, Penn or CMU, give or take rounding.</p>
<p>I have yet to hear of one fin aid office that is noted for being warm and fuzzy. All us parents go through a degree of shock when the reality sinks in of what our kids qualify for. We've all done the calculators, and think somehow OUR case will be different, that with the greater detail of the full package, the fin aid office will see how something we're spending on is essential etc. Yea, right. </p>
<p>I interpret your story to mean you marry for money. Good for you. Not all of us do so, did so.</p>
<p>Spiker, </p>
<p>I've known a couple of other people who decided they couldn't afford to attend Chicago. But I don't think that was because Chicago was more miserly in its finaid than comparable schools. Some people just don't accept the idea of going into debt, or they don't accept the calculations that finaid offices make about how much they can afford to pay. Fortunately, for most students there are cheaper alternatives than attending a major private college or university.</p>
<p>(BTW/ I think test-driving your future life-time partner isn't a bad idea -- but I'd never recommend kicking her tires.)</p>
<p>I applied to 6 colleges, one a smallish nearby state honors college (out of state for me but still affordable) as my safety. 4 smallish LAC's (about 40-42k fees for the LAC's) and U of Chicago (about 46k combines fees) I got accepted to all 6. one school didn't return any aid package at all so they were out. Univ of C offered me the Stafford and Perkins, but no grant leaving the family contribution around 40k. (impossible) and the other 4 assesed the family finances similarly. I got about 6000-7000 as a merit grant at the state school plus the stafford and perkins loans and work study. and at the other 3 private LACs I got the perkins and Stafford znd work study and then they added grant money to make the family contribution around 20,000 across the board. So it seemed Chicago figured the family finances completely differently. My mom made a spread sheet so we could compare as the paperwork came in. My parents are divorced but my dad is contributing 1/3 of the family contribution each year. they are both underpaid design professionals not making a whole lot. believe me were all going into debt. I just dont want to have a huge debt going into grad school when my folks probably won't be paying.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you! Seems you're making out okay.</p>
<p>I may be reading something into this that's not there, but it seems to me that a lot of applicants "step down" from what might be their first choice school for the sake of getting a larger financial award. Sometimes that step brings what a school will call merit money; sometimes it brings what they regard as basic need-based finaid, but in fact they're only going to come up with that kind of package for "preferred" candidates and not for everyone (which means that in fact the award is partly merit based). I think your calculations regarding grad school are sensible, unless you're possibly thinking of a PhD program in which case if you're any good you will get close to 100% of your way paid for.</p>