<p>I hesitate to mention this because I typically do not like direct school comparisons, but it was just too funny not post on this forum. I was recently in Chicago and a business associate, a Stanford grad, asked for a tour of the U of C campus. After a brief walk around, she turned to me and said, "Compared to this, Stanford looks like a Motel 6." </p>
<p>(She also was impressed by the fact that everywhere we went students could actually be seen studying, or in animated discussions about interesting topics.)</p>
<p>My husband called from the April 19th overnight and told me that the intellectual environment was way beyond anything we had seen at Brown or Penn(and we really, really loved Brown and Penn). He said if you closed your eyes you could hear various discussions going on around you that were both intense and fun. He also mentioned meeting other parents of kids who were deciding between Stanford and Chicago, both sets truly loved Chicago.(Son # 2 wants Stanford so here's hoping I have a plethora of hoodies to choose from:))</p>
<p>Wow! Sounds amazing. I actually got this vibe that Chicago was my place to be because of the intellectual conversations and I used this in my Why Chicago essay (it worked).</p>
<p>Yea, but just because the parents like it, doesn't mean the kids will.
Lots of kids are scared by the overt intellectual atmosphere and reputation for ugly, boring, and nerdy.</p>
<p>Or not. There's another thread on the forum in which a mom wantss her daughter at fun-loving UC Santa Barbara rather than intense Berkeley. UChicago-student corranged provided some great insights into kids wanting intellectual experiences.</p>
<p>Butcherer my kid looooved Chicago. He didn't get even a slight shiver of ugly, boring or nerdy. He talked about meeting pretty girls, comedy troops, insanely fun RA's and having probably the best conversation of his life discussing bollywood, freakanomics and Joseph Campbell.</p>
<p>i know a bunch of people who go to uofc and theyr really good people (fun. intellectual, etc) but I visited the campus with a friend and it was realy dreary and abandoned, maybe it was the winter or something but I always thought it would be bright and colorful or something</p>
<p>All it takes is the sun to shine for the campus to sparkle. Unfortunately, the weather doesn't always cooperate.</p>
<p>As a student, though, it's a lot easier to deal with the weather than I thought it would be. The coffee shops and pretty study spaces make it easier to stay inside when the weather is dreary, and coming into Reynolds Club from the cold to warm up by the fireplaces is a treat.</p>
<p>I agree with bambi... I know people who were great fun people who happen to be smart, and then I go and have a pretty mediocre stay. My friend was turned off by chicago enough that he's going to Tufts instead now (and I thought he'd fall in love with it) oh well, I guess we'll see in sept.</p>
<p>Hah, I had almost the identical experience as ramses 2 --- I sent my very skeptical husband on the U of C trip with my daughter (he's a Columbia grad) and he called mid-day absolutely thrilled with the place. I should add that part of his excitement was seeing how thrilled my daughter was with the atmosphere and the people she met.</p>
<p>Not a ton of Columbia talk around here these days.</p>
<p>And the Stanford reference cracked me up -- it was one of my choices way back when and I took a near-instant dislike to the place. The homogeneity of the student body (this was the late 70's) and the architecture (wanted to go to school, not a country club) just turned me off. It was kind of amusing.</p>
<p>No, it actually was funny, i just needed a reason to tease you.</p>
<p>First year has been pretty good, but I think I'm in trouble this quarter...I haven't done anything............really at all. I also have a midterm, two papers and a presentation next week so that'll be delicious.</p>
<p>I'll pop in on this, since I'm pretty familiar with both Stanford and Chicago. When I went to Stanford for grad school, having graduated from an elitist East Coast college, it took me a long time to believe that there was anything intellectual going on there. At my college, you could stand on any corner and see kids going by practically incandescent with excitement about learning, and there were intellectual conversations going on everywhere, all the time. Stanford looked (and looks) like a golf course, and there's none of that air of intellectual intensity about it.</p>
<p>That's a little misleading. There's lots of intellectual activity at Stanford, but it's mainly in the corners, out of public view. It's there if you want it, and lots of people do, but it doesn't envelop you the way it does at a handful of schools. </p>
<p>Which definitely includes Chicago. If you want an intellectual atmosphere -- and you don't want to study engineering, and you don't mind cold -- it's perfectly rational to prefer Chicago to Stanford.</p>