<p>U Chicago’s professional schools (law, medicine, MBA) are all renowned and highly ranked. How much of this translate into the advantages for the undergraduate? Thus far, the answer does not seem to be resounding “oh, yes”, but U Chicago seems to be going through a popularity surge and is attracting more pre-professional students lately. Will there more help for the undergrads going forward?</p>
<p>Eh, it’s hard to gauge the difficulty of UChicago courses if you’re only a freshman with two quarters underneath your belt. For multiple reasons, I doubt the OP’s son is taking honors analysis; an easy one would be that very few, if any, students have gone through honors analysis without putting in many hours of solid work in each week (and Paul Sally will make this very clear if he’s teaching). Also, I think you can’t actually start taking courses that contribute to the econ major until spring of your freshman year. </p>
<p>This does not really detract from the OP’s overall informative post, but just know that the more difficult courses will usually require consistent, solid work (and often a lot of it).</p>
<p>However, some students do hit the ground running.</p>
<p>snipez</p>
<p>I would be very careful calling another poster an outright lier. that’s a heavy accusation. Based on what I read here, OP’s son fits the profile of a student who stands out even in the Chicago environment, unless her entire thread is an elaborate hoax, which I highly doubt.</p>
<p>Keep it coming! Our son got accepted RD to UC We are Americans living overseas, can’t visit and really don’t know much about the school. My son knew its reputation so he applied. We had no idea the acceptance rate was so low this year, we are really thrilled he got in. But, still trying to justify the money though so forget being humble and tell me the goods!</p>
<p>jugglingitall,</p>
<p>It’s the best $50K/year to spend, period. Of course, if it means $50K/year, $200K total, student loan for a future career in a highly honorable field but with low cash enumeration, that will be an entirely different story. But, if you can afford it without wracking your finance or creating a financial mill strone around your son’s neck even before he starts his adult life, go for it.</p>
<p>Let’s be blunt here. IN GENERAL (there will be caveats later), if a student makes to HYP, I say, go for it over Chicago. If s/he is an engineering major, then MIT/CalTech instead. In OUR case (just one family’s preference), Chicago over all other universities. Following caveats apply:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>if it is important for the student to have more traditional college experience with active fraternity social scenes and big time college sports, Chicago will be a big disappointment. Duke, Stanford, etc would be a much better fit.</p></li>
<li><p>if an “easy grading” system is important for whatever future plans, then know that there are other schools known for an easier grading scale (I have no first hand knowledge or experience, but others say it’s easier at Brown, Dartmouth, and even Harvard)</p></li>
<li><p>If you can’t stand bunch of 18 year olds waxing poetics about dead philosophers with half baked, newly initiated, and exaggerated sense of intellectual awakening, Chicago is not a place for you. (Chicago would be a terrible fit for my second son on this regard. He is anything but metaphysical: no milkman involved, I swear. Just different ambition, different path).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Going back to my earlier general statement about HYP over Chicago. That was a general sentiment in our family a year ago. Now? Well, my son may still pick HYP over Chicago. Me ? Not sure. Knowing what I know now and how well Chicago turned out and how what I hear exceeds my expectation about intellectually rigorous education my son is getting, I would prefer Chicago. Of course, it’s NOT my education, but as a parent paying through the nose for his education, I would say, I can at least have an opinion. I really, really, really wanted to see my son getting the top notch, rigorous intellectual training at college, and based on everything I hear, Chicago is delivering on that perhaps better any other top school would. So, I am a very happy customer.</p>
<p>PM me if you have questions you would rather ask in private.</p>
<p>If we didn’t like the “Rohan” essay UChicago released, and found it corny/“didn’t get it”, does this bode poorly for fitting in at Chicago? Most of my essays were more serious.</p>
<p>My Son is an EA admit and he got into few good west coast UC schools and an Ivy. He is visiting next week and most likely commit to Uchicago. The only aspects I am nervous about compared to the Ivys are
social fit and to a lesser extent weather and security</p>
<p>All other aspects, I rate uChicago UGrad better than all Ivys for most fields.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If hyeonjlee doesn’t mind, I’ll take this one as a current student. You’ll fit in just fine. We actually poke fun at all the people who are constantly pushing their philosophical theories onto others (see Urban Dictionary’s UChicago definition of “That Kid”), and you don’t have to be a complete weirdo to be accepted. Everyone’s style is different, and I’d venture to say that more people wrote serious essays than wrote crazy ones.</p>
<p>Security is actually good at Chicago, the weather, well that can be a ugly, though probably not a lot worse than what the east coast got this year.</p>
<p>So here’s my question to both parents and students. Chicago is a perfect fit for my son’s personality and intellectual endeavors. He loves everything about it and is not even considering any other school. We are in the dreaded middle income range, we got f.a. for half the costs. But, it is very expensive living overseas and we have a big family so we can only afford to help a little. He will probably have to borrow about $20,000 a year to attend Chicago. Where he could attend a state school in Arkansas that he absolutely hates for free. Is it responsible for us to owe that much after college? or should he go to a college he doesn’t like?</p>
<p>juggling- I would not saddle your son with $80k of debt for a four year undergrad degree.That said debt is a very relative item. I’ve seen threads promoting no debt, 20k, 30k, 45k for four year undergrad. My personal debt load recommendation for my DD is to not take on more than a car payment’s worth-- inexpensive sedan! A lot depends on what your son plans to do in the future ( and remember that too may change) so the less debt incurred for undergrad the better. We all want the best for our kids, and most on this site have fond idyllic memories of our own college experience which we’d like our kids to experience as well and that is a great thing, but the reality is education should be a lifelong pursuit and if part of that pursuit entails going to a state school because of financial reasons there is nothing wrong with that. Your son could end up in an honors program with other like minded kids and thrive. It really is up to the student and what they wish to achieve in whatever environment they ultimately land.</p>
<p>a few thoughts for jugglingitall – </p>
<p>first – a college that your son absolutely hates won’t work; you might find he doesn’t make it more than a year of college</p>
<p>As far as finances at UChicago – have you looks at ways of lowering the debt that needs to be taken (summer employment, term time employment, used books, working as an RA, FA appeal). these amounts can add up and reduce the needed debt considerably.</p>
<p>$80K of debt to start off your adult life with is a lot of liability. My general sentiment is, probably no. However, I have a habit of qualifying any of my statements with caveats. So, let’s not deviate. Some things for you to consider:</p>
<p>(1) what are your son’s post graduation plans? Does he want to go to a medical or law school? That’s going to cost a lot. In that case, absolutely no way, I would let my son incur $80K debut for undergrad only to assume another $120K+++ for graduate school. For a good decade or more of his adult like, he will be like a serf serving the overload of a bank.</p>
<p>(2) However, if he has incredible determination and personal qualification and aptitudes to go into a very lucrative field, like investment banking, right after graduation, that’s a different story all together, because:</p>
<pre><code> *** They won’t even recruit from Kentucky public schools. Wall Street, collectively, is
an incredible diploma bigot, and it’s VERY HARD to even get an interview at those
places unless you are from tippy top schools and perhaps maybe a couple of TOP
rated state schools like Berkeley, Michigan and UVA (I even heard even these
places are iffy, and will probably diminish one’s chance greatly to land a job at the Wall Street office, as opposed to branches in other parts of the country.
*** The pay scale on these jobs is pretty good. If your son does well at Goldman
he may not have a problem paying back $80K in a few years.
</code></pre>
<p>(3) For Ph.D. programs at top graduate schools, good students get their tuitions waivered and get living stipend. I got my Ph.D. practically free this way. Perhaps, he can handle $80K debt after he gets his Ph.D.</p>
<p>(4) If he really, really, really hates the other option perhaps all this discussion is moot. However, he is only 18. He may find it not so bad once he starts. By the way, if he is in an honors program and emerge as the best student on campus at that public school, he will have no problem getting into great law schools, med schools, and Ph.D. program. So far, I learned that the only kind of job where you REALLY need prestigious undergrad degree is the Wall Street, even there top tier wall street jobs like investment banking front office at Wall Street in NYC.</p>
<p>As for us, the deal is for us to fully fund our son’s undergrad education. If he wants to go for MBA at, say, wharton or Harvard, it’s on his dime. Better yet, he can even get employer sponsored MBA education (some employers send their top employees to top MBA programs: all expense paid and maybe even salary during these years).</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Actually we would probably borrow 10k and he would borrow 10k a year and we would pay back our loan, and he would pay his. So he would owe 40K at the end. How does one become an RA and what is the compensation for that job. What year would that become available? </p>
<p>Also what companies are known to hire and pay for a masters degree and what undergraduate degree is best at Chicago if you are pursuing that route. His plans are a phd but I know that initial plans often change. </p>
<p>I would assume all your children could have gone to state schools practically free so I’m asking if it is worth all this money to have a degree from Chicago vs. a not very good state school. Does it really get them further in the job market. I know it gives them a better education, which in my altruistic mind is almost justification for the money. I mean I home-schooled him K-9th grade, pouring my heart and soul into a classical education so I’m a little vested in him achieving his full academic potential. I am very unimpressed with our state schools academically. But I know we also need to look at this practically.</p>
<p>Rising third year students may apply to be Assistant Resident Heads (called RAs just because of familiarity with naming in other colleges). Becoming an RA is a rewarding but difficult and not-guaranteed process, so keep that in mind in encouraging your son to do it. </p>
<p>I am an RA and have all of the cost of housing and a full meal plan for free because of it ($13k/year savings), no actual monetary stipend, but I will admit that it is not a job you take just for this. Sometimes the RA position can lower one’s financial aid, especially when the grants awarded to the student exceed the costs of tuition and extend to room and board, as the financial aid office considers an RA to have no room and board expenses (so it is not treated as a “Grant” of the cost of room and board expenses, just the absence of room and board expenses altogether). The time commitment is great, and often inconvenient (think: accompanying a resident to the ER at 3am on a Saturday for having injured themselves or become ill, etc) with additional weekly house meetings, a biweekly staff meeting, quarterly trainings, study break weekly, and often a weekly house trip, not to mention numerous other interactions with residents who come to you to share problems or difficulties. The kinds of interactions you will have with people will be rewarding, but not something to take on purely for the money. It takes a real “people-person” to be an RA, and if your son is not one (not saying he isn’t, but just noting) it will not be a good job for him; also, houses pick specifically the person they want as their RA from a group of candidates, so placement is never a guarantee. I will say that I have enjoyed being an RA in that it has given me a good way to be with people, to help my residents through a lot of their stressful times, given me some good work experience, AND has made my room and board free… but that part comes last on the list and, frankly, is a happy perk of the position. </p>
<p>While sometimes stressful, I find my job as an RA very rewarding, but the moral of this is: do not count on an RA position to help when deciding finances for the whole of college, as it is a) difficult to get and b) unfair to expect of a student who may not be interested in the large and often stressful amount of work required of the position once they see how much it entails (it is very easy to think it will be light work, but once you get in to it or start the interview process you rapidly can decide whether or not it is right for you).</p>
<p>Now that you mentioned $40K, instead of $80K for your son’s loan liability (total), it looks much more manageable. In terms of what companies hire and pay for the master’s or other higher degrees… Gosh… I don’t have a complete roster of such companies. Suffice to say, I got my Ph.D. free because the program basically guaranteed that, and I got my Wharton MBA free because company paid for it and paid me full time salary while I was doing it. </p>
<p>Is this a norm??? Yes and no. For the Ph.D. program, most of the prestigious Ph.D. programs provide this avenue (at least in the social science, natural science, tech field dont know about humanities). In fact, I personally don’t know anybody who got a Ph.D. and paid tuition out of pocket. But then again, that may be must my circle. I also have colleagues who were hired with an undergrad degree, and after a year or so were sent to get a masters degree, at company expense including living stipend. However, note that that were 20+ years ago (different era: company lifers, and company loyalty, etc: all a fast disappearing commodity), and it was a tech/engineering field. </p>
<p>As for the spiffy MBA degree, that was definitely an exception. In my whole company of 300K employees worldwide, I think every year they sponsored this kind of opportunity for about 30 people, and they wouldn’t pay for any thing less than the tippy top MBA program, and YOU have to get admitted on your own first! However, I noticed among my classmates that there were several Wall Street kids who were there on their company’s dime. This is the route I hope my son will take. Note that all this may be pre-history. Companies have a very different attitude these days. I don’t think they want to invest that much in their employees anymore. </p>
<p>OK. Let’s answer another of your question. Free state school vs. Chicago (or for that matter any top tier private school). Here, I run the risk of appearing elitist and biased. But, rather than being politically correct by consuming a lot of bandwidth, time, and energy by pussyfooting and softening my stands, let be cut to the chase, so excuse my blunt statements below.</p>
<p>As you guessed, my son got a $50K/year worth of scholarship at a well known state school with a very good reputation/high ranking for the field he was interested in. When he got accepted into U Chicago EA, it took all together about 30 seconds to make up our mind to let him turn down that scholarship. And, it’s not because $50K was nothing to us. Granted, we had enough resources to pay for Chicago education for my son. However, the severe economic downturn created an economic situation for us where $200K total would no longer be a none-issue as it would have been 3 years ago. </p>
<p>Let me share with you why we thought that Chicago education was worth $200K. </p>
<p>(1) My son is one of the brightest people I have seen. I want him to be in an environment where he is challenged to the Nth degree by those who are even more brilliant than he. I did not want him to go to a school where he can use 20% of potential and sail through it all. He went to a magnet high school rated within 5-10 in the nation, and sailed through it all without lifting a finger. I did not want the experience to be repeated at college. There are great state schools. However, even at the best state schools, the student body is far more mixed, academically speaking, and you simply don’t get the maximum concentration of bright, inquisitive, intellectual minds that stimulate each other. Call me an elitist, but statistically, I don’t think many people can dispute that. There is a huge difference where the likes of him are an exception and where the likes of him are a norm, in terms of what kind of intellectual growth you can expect from the environment. I have once met a graduate of the same high school my son went. She went to a school that offered a full ride. She mentioned it was a bad decision. The fact that she went on to a higher education destination and found that most of her classmates were way below the level of her high school classmates was such a letdown. She said even in honors classes, the level of class discussion and exciting exchange of ideas was simply lower than what she was used to at high school.</p>
<p>I believe there is such a thing as a zeitgeist. Intellectual growth is like a chemical reaction. A certain threshold must be met before the chemical reaction takes place. It takes a certain level of concentration of bright minds to enable some of them to reach the next stage. There is a reason why we see in the history of civilization a sudden spark of unbelievable breakthrough all within a small region and during a very short (historically speaking) period of time. Florence during the reign of the Medici dynasty is a good example. In a state school, even if my son is in a honors program, the overall atmosphere will simply not give him the kind of challenges he will need. As is, even at Chicago, he is getting off easy, course work wise, but he now spends the extra time and energy on activities that are directly related to his future plans with other kids who are like him.</p>
<p>(2) most state schools are dominated by the kids from the same state. I believe U Michigan has 30% OOS, that was the maximum I heard, and it’s because U Michigan has been very methodically trying to position itself sort as a semi private school and made a point of recruiting nationally. In other places, OOS population is in the teens. I also heard that in most state schools like this, students’ social circles are sort of already pre made based on which high school they came out of, and many OOS students have a hard time finding their place. I heard people saying that over the weekend, a big portion of the dorm empties out as the local kids go home for various reasons. If you are living overseas, and your son will be alone, this is something else you need to think about. </p>
<p>(2) Think about all the economic woes that affect the school budgets. University of california system’s woes are well publicized. I don’t think they are such terrible exceptions. Probably, this problem is acutely felt in many public universities. </p>
<p>All things considered, if my son can go to U Chicago with $40K total load upon graduation, I think it’s a winner in balance. I am sorry if I sound cavalier about money, but I have always felt that education is the last thing I will compromise on financially - right before food. Even if we did not have the financial cushion we have, I would sacrifice almost everything else before I compromise on the quality of the education for my kids. The last disclaimer here: please remember what I said earlier: that is, if your son is going to Ph.D. program or a medical school, where he went to for the undergraduate degree does not matter that much as long as he excels terrifically in that environment</p>
<p>To put thing in context though, please remember that this is one posters opinion, her value, and her belief. I am sure there are ton of people who even more fervently believe that a good state school that cost nothing is 1000 times better than any private school that cost something and all the wonderful things can happen just as often and routinely at state schools. I dont dispute their belief. More power to them. Its just that I am on a different track. For my second son, who is NOT a life of the mind type, I have different schools in mind that will give him the best opportunities and challenges for his line ambition. As it stands now, I have no desire to send him to any public school for similar reasons (not for intellectual chemical reaction, but a different kind of chemical reaction, hence, NOT U chicago even if he has the stats for it, which he does not).</p>
<p>Now, it would have been a disaster if I decided to pay through the nose when my son had an option that cost him nothing and found out all the promise of Chicago education was just a propaganda not supported by real goods. Well, here, I can tell you that they EXCEEDED my expectation. So far, its worth every penny we are paying, and in fact, we would be willing to pay even more if thats whats required.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>jugglingitall,</p>
<p>I forgot to comment on the job market advantage. Well it depends. Wall Street jobs, absolutely, as I mentioned several times earlier. Ph.D. and medical schools, not really as long as your son is in honors class and doing very well. Law school - seems to be in between these two. Engineering/science - hit or miss. Mostly OK if you come out of a solid state school with good grades. However, I DO know some elite tech companies which CLEARLY prefers top schools only - they even want to see the SAT scores to see whether the candidate has “got” it. </p>
<p>As much as I am all gong ho about the life of the mind Chicago education, I should also share with you a story of my friends. Their two daughters went to Stanford and Cornell both of them full pay. Both of them had a near full ride scholarship opportunities. One of them is a math tutor (stanford) teaching private clients here and there. The other (cornell) is a calligrapher, and her parents are paying for food and rent. Both of these young women’s case, it’s not that they are writing earth shattering intellectual thesis and need mundane/odd jobs and family assistance while they are at it. It’s more or less because they don’t have firm plans for what to do, especially the second one. The parents are middle class folks. They are in the early/mid 60’s, and both of them are still working because of the financial reason.</p>
<p>Was the tippy top private education worth it in this case? Most people would say no. Even I am not sure whether that was worth it. Even the life of the mantra excitement loses a good deal of luster if it does not lead to a clear path of something coming out of it.</p>
<p>I enjoyed reading the OP’s posts immensely (even though I’m not choosing between colleges). If it’s not too much trouble, could you post an excerpt from one of your son’s post-UChicago papers? </p>
<p>Here’s why I’m asking: I matriculated at another school because of its reputation for intellectualism (similar to that of UChicago), yet I feel intellectually shortchanged. I don’t feel like I’ve become a better writer or a more rigorous thinker, and I’d like to know what I’m missing out on. I feel like I’m paying for the reputation, accomplished classmates, location, and future job opportunities. In other words, everything except my own intellectual development.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance, and please PM if you don’t feel comfortable sharing it here.</p>
<p>shruggingsheep,</p>
<p>it would be inappropriate for me to post my son’s paper. PMing it is also not proper. It’s his property, not mine.</p>
<p>I suggest you ask current students to PM their paper. Who knows, some students may share them with you</p>
<p>Sorry…</p>