<p>One thing I haven’t seen discussed (then again I haven’t looked too hard) is how selective UChicago’s graduate schools are. Since they have top programs in many fields you would assume that the quality of graduate students is better than most and then there are about 10k of them for 5k undergraduates.</p>
<p>J’adoube: I’m sorry if this is derailing, but I wanted to ask a related question. Does attending UChicago for undergrad make it easier to get into their grad schools (ie eco/booth/physics)?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Grad student headcounts are a little misleading. There are three or four different types of students that show up in the grad student counts: high-powered professional students (medicine, law, business), not-as-high-powered professional students (divinity, social service), academic PhD students (some of whom, in their thesis-writing years, may not even be living in Chicago), people pursuing a terminal master’s degree that is essentially PhD-application prep. In any particular academic department, it’s not like there are two grad students for every undergraduate – although in small departments that may well be true. For example, in Economics, a huge department, at the end of last quarter there were 177 grad students and 642 declared undergraduate majors. In Sociology, grad students outnumbered undergraduates by 2:1; in Germanic Studies the ratio was 3:1; in Slavic Language and Literature the ratio was 1:1. Which department has undergraduates who complain about grad students? The one with the lowest ratio, not the ones with the highest ratios.</p></li>
<li><p>Nevertheless: Chicago’s graduate programs – almost all of 'em – are outstanding and attract great students. That’s part of what you go to a research university for, the association with great students like that. (The terminal masters students are not teaching classes or TAing them; they are the other people filling seats in upper-level courses.)</p></li>
<li><p>Whether being a Chicago undergraduate helps or hinders you in applying to a grad program varies a lot from school to school and department to department. Some departments strongly discourage applications from their undergraduates; others don’t. The professional schools have lots of Chicago alumni, but maybe somewhat fewer on a percentage basis than, say, Harvard Law School or Harvard Business School has Harvard alumni. People grouse about it sometimes.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I have to agree with much of what the OP said… I’d even add to it. I like UofC but it has major drawbacks.</p>
<p>My advisor has no other connection to the University other than being an advisor. He’s just a grad student at Loyola. He understands absolutely nothing about UofC. He has missadvised me more than once because he didn’t understand the core fully.</p>
<p>UofC flat out lies to prospies. I was told most of the classes were taught by professors, I’d say from my experience (without going through the cc to determine exact stats) I’ve had about 25% of my classes be taught by profs, and one of the was a history class being taught by an Econ prof, ***? The guy was actually worse than a passionate TA.
Some of the TA’s are ok, but a few really suck. In an advanced language class I was taking another student kept having to correct the TA. In another a TA explained to a group of science students that science was so much more difficult than math because math contained no theory!?!?!</p>
<p>Another lie was in housing. I got Broadview, which I love except for the fact that they told me when I was visiting that there would be a bus every ten minutes and all the buses were free. No where even close to true. There are buses that run every ten minutes or so, but only one bus line is free. That ends up being about once an hour there is a free bus. It supposedly comes more often in the morning… but I’ve never managed to figure it out. We don’t even get a discount on the other bus lines. Paying $2 one way is really hard for a poor college student. So I end up walking the 1.1 mile distance from broadview to class in the sub twenty degree weather. Sucks. Point of note… UofC is the only college in Chicago that does not give students a free student bus pass, and UofC students pay higher tuition than at any other Chicago college.</p>
<p>The core is cometely different from how they describe it to prospies. They say they want students wh want to take every class in the course catalog and the core is there to help. BS. They told me that the core would require say a science and then you could choose “practically any” science to fulfill it. BS. The core is extremely strict. Mandating to a T which classes fulfill the requirement. For me it has severely limited which classes I can/could have taken. There are dozens of interesting classes I have missed due to the effing core.</p>
<p>Don’t take a parents perspective on this either, I don’t tell my mum all these things as she’s paying for it and I don’t want to upset her.</p>
<p>No grade inflation sucks to.</p>
<p>That being said I do enjoy it at uofc, most of people’s fears about it being filled with eggheads is off base. You really can have a great time. None of this is bad enough to make me want to transfer.</p>
<p>Cheers!</p>
<p>This is a pretty interesting thread - it’s interesting in that the complaints some students have now (like mactastic voyage) really sound like the same complaints my peers had at Chicago 10-12 years ago. The basic underlying premise of the complaint is that the administration doesn’t really care about the undergrads - so they don’t invest in good advising, they misrepresent the core and use of TAs in marketing materials, and the infrastructure (student buses, etc.) is poor. </p>
<p>If this is a problem, students may be well served to bring these issues to light. Students could write articles more often in the Maroon, or be more active in their protests of these problems. </p>
<p>What surprised me when I was at the U of C is that everyone complained endlessly about the advisers, buses, etc., but rarely looked to make these complaints more public. </p>
<p>What it comes down to is this: unless the administration/university is held accountable for these issues, they won’t change. There’s a reason why advising and students services are generally strong at Dartmouth or Williams, and why, if the student body is disinterested or complaining without purpose, they lag at places like Columbia and (at least as this thread shows) Chicago.</p>
<p>In the College of Physical Sciences, there are departmental advisors. S has made MUCH use of their advice and expertise and has not been steered wrong there. He has had only professors in math and CS courses. For Core HUM/SOSC/Civ course recommendations, he talks to friends and upperclassmen. Those classes have been a bit more variable in quality. </p>
<p>There are a couple of times where the general advisor was entirely too laissez-faire and mellow about issues that were a big red flag. </p>
<p>S has never visited CAPS. What news he has heard about jobs/internships he has found on his own or through the CS department. (OTOH, he has landed great stuff.) He learned to write a resume at home.</p>
<p>S has not had to deal with health services yet at Chicago. Mactasticvoyage, S was at Broadview last quarter and felt the same way you do about the buses. He’s now back in his usual house and at least there are multiple routes along that road so he doesn’t feel like he’s always standing around waiting for a bus.</p>
<p>This is an incredibly helpful thread. Usually you just hear about the good and bad parts of a school from the perspective of an outsider. It’s refreshing to be able to get some personal response from people who have gone through the system. My decision about Chicago was made up a long time ago, but I really appreciated this thread. Thank you!</p>
<p>Re: buses – S was on a Broadview shuttle that got stuck in a snowdrift during the blizzard this winter. They did send another bus to retrieve the students on the bus rather than sending them out into the snow. Difficulties with getting the city streets plowed enough to accommodate buses and employee cars (this is done by the city) was a big reason Chicago cancelled classes for <em>two</em> days after the storm.</p>
<p>OTOH, S lives in a dorm at the far edge of campus and he can get from one end to another in under 15 minutes. It’s not THAT onerous, even in the cold.</p>
<p>Cue, there has been ongoing coverage in the Maroon about bus issues.</p>