Harvard University versus University of Chicago

I agree with @planner. Personally I think the academics at Chicago are vastly inferior to Harvard. When we visited Chicago the tour guide as I said above said the social life at Chicago was awful. This was totally unsolicited. In my kids major they were also control freaks. They said they would chose all the major classes and the kids were not allowed to take graduate classes as an UG. My kid as a sophomore has already taken a couple of grad classes. My kid has a friend at Northwestern and they seem to think it is great there

@Nervosa, congratulations on your acceptances! Itā€™s a wonderful choice to have.

I went to college a long time ago; I turned down both Harvard and UChicago undergrad for Stanford, but later attended each for graduate studies. They are incredible institutions, but very different. UChicago is an amazing place and every bit the equal of HYPS IMO in terms of the academic quality and intellectual vibrancy. I personally preferred UChicago by far as a vibrant and intimate intellectual environment where there was a real intellectual freshness; I felt stifled by the bureaucracy of Harvard. But thatā€™s just me, and thereā€™s no doubt that Harvard has incredible resources. I would beware of stereotypes (like ā€œthe place where fun goes to dieā€; I saw plenty of fun and levity at Chicago), and would make sure to visit each school and go with your gut about which is the best fit for you.

I believe that both are equally accomplished institutions. Harvard is skewed more to the graduate school and Chicago has more to offer in the undergrad level. Citiesā€¦ depend on personal interests. I dont see one being more prestigious or stronger than the other. Just decide based on how the two different campuses make you feelā€¦

@proudparent26 not sure where you got the idea that undergrads canā€™t take grad classes, I took a history class with 4 people in it last quarter, and 2 were grad students and 2 were undergrads.

@neweducation That is what we were told by the Chicago student tour guide.

"Harvard is skewed more to the graduate school and Chicago has more to offer in the undergrad level. " Is that based upon your personal opinion or do you have a reference for that. IMO from what I have seen Harvard has a lot more to offer at the undergrad level

Chicago undergrads can take grad classes. No question about it.

I think at least half the classes I took at Harvard were also graduate school classes.

In terms of future grad schools, it likely makes no difference. Among academics, UChicago is more highly regarded as being more serious/intellectual, but, obviously, Harvard is no slouch either! For fields like banking, business, investments, Harvard has more prestige.

A weird experience Iā€™ve heard from several people in that in some fields or parts of the country (outside Northeast, West Coast and very large cities), the Harvard name has actually hurt them a little. People see them as overqualified and using the job as a point on a resume or as being too snobby. Totally unfair, and not a reason to turn down a college, but I found these stories fascinating and unexpected. Overseas, the one US school everyone has heard of is Harvard, so it can be a help outside the country.

Re social life: Over the years, especially recent years, I have heard far more complaints about social life at Harvard than at the University of Chicago. Neither one has historically done much to foster undergraduate social life, but some decades ago the University of Chicago identified that as a weakness and started working proactively to improve things. The ā€œwhere fun comes to dieā€ slogan is at least 20 years old, and survives more because itā€™s funny than because itā€™s true, and also because thereā€™s lots of self-deprecating humor at Chicago.

Harvard never identified undergraduate social life as a weakness because Harvard doesnā€™t have weaknesses, and it generally takes the attitude that the people it admits as undergraduates donā€™t need the university to help them do anything, except maybe funding independent study and extracurriculars. Also, thereā€™s a notable lack of people who are actually self-deprecating at Harvard. Humblebrags, sure, and pointing out how much more accomplished than you your roommates and friends are, fine, but actual self-deprecation doesnā€™t compute.

Thatā€™s not to say social life is better at Chicago than at Harvard, or that itā€™s actually bad either place. I think there are peer schools that are more conventionally social than both of them, but people at either college who want to have fun with other people have little trouble finding other people who like the same kind of fun they do, whether that involves intoxication (of various sorts), flirting, folk dancing, or strategy games. What you wonā€™t get at either is the kind of massive party you might find at Ohio State, or even Penn.

Oh brother.

Great options. Do not get blinded my name. Instead, get excited by your gut feeling when you visit both places. Good Luck.

Agree with Gibby (#6). If you like the Core, there is no place like Chicago for you. Well, maybe Columbia, but their Core is not as good. If you donā€™t like the Core, it will feel like a straight-jacket. Harvardā€™s requirements give you a lot of freedom to do what you want ā€“ not quite like Brownā€™s, but close enough for most people with general intellectual curiosity.

A lot of people switch majors in college. If that happens to you, which college would make more sense for you?

Visit and get the vibe. There are many reasons to choose either, and congratulations on having such great options.

There is some information here that is a bit dated. Harvard absolutely identified undergraduate social life as a focus for improvement and has been redoing dorms, creating common spaces and other approaches. Harvard has gen eds that are required in each of 8 categories, not quite the same as the CORE but still not free like Brown or Amherst. These are being reviewed I believe. Harvard also identified grade inflation as something to improve- quite a few years ago. Social life can be fine there.

Finally, Harvard is a very humane and supportive place if you need it to be. The house system is part of that, the departments, the deans but also, at times, in our experience, the administration. I donā€™t know why people think it is cold. The guy behind the desk at one of the houses told me how happy he feels when one of the kids calls the dorm ā€œhomeā€ in conversation.

I donā€™t know enough to say much about U of Chicago except its reputation as a place for authentic thinkers. Both schools will have their share of many different types: generalizations are tough to substantiate. And every personā€™s experience will be different too. Try to assess what yours will be as best you can and then move forward knowing you cannot go wrong!

I grew up on the UC campus, where my parents met, and went to Harvard. Iā€™m still in Hyde Park around once a week. I love it there.

Thereā€™s no comparison when it comes to life outside of academics. Harvard is way, way out in front. UC has made a lot of strides in this area in the last 20 years, but itā€™s still not close. The ease of accessing what the city has to offer is ten times better at Harvard. The House system is so much better at Harvard (everybody stays involved for four years). The extracurriculars are so much better at Harvard ā€“ UC doesnā€™t have anything like Harvardā€™s daily newspaper, incredible music and theater, student-run homeless shelter, undergrad entrepreneurship, Institute of Politics, etc. etc.

Youā€™re looking at two fabulous schools that I love, and theyā€™re close peers in your intended field. Measuring vibrant life outside of the classroom/library, Harvard crushes UC.

Hanna - Is this because Harvard sponsors so many activities in the community? Because UChicago students tend not to venture into the city and take advantage of it? I grew up a couple of stops past Harvard on the Red Line but lived in Chicago briefly and fell in love with it. Chicago is a much bigger city with a lot more going on than Cambridge/Boston.

David Axlerod would be surprised to hear that UChicago has nothing like Harvardā€™s Institute of Politics.

Hannaā€™s not wrong that Harvard ā€œcrushesā€ UChicago in some of those respects, although she may overstate the case a little.

In many ways, the fact that Boston is a lot smaller than Chicago works to Harvardā€™s advantage. Itā€™s close to the center of the urban areaā€™s energy, and almost everything you would care about is easily accessible from the campus via the T Red Line. Boston and Chicago probably have about the same number of college students, but they represent a much bigger proportion of the population and economy in Boston, and they get catered to a lot more than happens in Chicago. Chicago is vast. It takes real time to get from Hyde Park to any other area of the city where things students might like are happening. Travel time to Northwestern on public transportation is about an hour, maybe more. At Harvard, Tufts and MIT are walking distance, almost, and you could get to the BU or BC areas in a matter of minutes if you cared to.

Boston, and especially Cambridge, is a great college town on steroids. Chicago is a world class city that has a bunch of colleges in it along with a zillion other things,

UChicago has a lot of theater (and a lot of energy around theater), and decent music. Once you leave the campus, Chicagoā€™s theater scene pwns Bostonā€™s. UChicago has a vibrant tutoring program and increasing support for student entrepreneurship. It has its own Institute of Politics now, led by David Axelrod. (Not to mention its very own alumnus Presidential candidate, at least for a few more weeks.) But in general Hanna is right: The quality of student-run extracurriculars at Harvard ranges from better to orders of magnitude better compared to Chicago. In part, though, thatā€™s because many Harvard undergraduates put most of their energy into the extracurriculars, not their classes, and doing that is extremely rare at Chicago.

And, yes, the house system at Harvard is wonderful, precious, unique (except for you-know-where). In fairness, though, this is what either of my kids would say: ā€œI spent three years of college living in an apartment where I had my own, spacious bedroom, a large kitchen, a real living room, and a sunporch. There were real people around me, people with jobs, kids, dogs; it reminded me I was a real person, too, not just a student. I ate fresh food that I chose myself. There was peace and quiet when I got home, unless I made the noise. My friends, my ā€œjobā€, and all sorts of nifty facilities were nearby; I never felt isolated. I didnā€™t have to move my stuff out every spring, and I could come and go during breaks as I liked. It cost much less than living in a dorm. Why in the world would I have wanted to live in a dorm three more years, even a really nice one?ā€ (And thatā€™s assuming that Harvard has completed its house renovations, and none of them are, um, the spitholes that some were a few years ago.)

Likely someday Chicagoā€™s young IOP will be in the same league as Harvardā€™s. Right now, in my judgment, it is not. You donā€™t get there in three years. David Axelrod would probably be the first person to acknowledge that. Heā€™s building it from the ground up.

You donā€™t have to sell me on Chicago, the city. I could live anywhere in the world and choose to live hereā€¦downtown. Hyde Park is a superb, maybe incomparable place to raise a family. But I found it a very dull place to be young and single, and itā€™s a real pain to need a car to get to the young peopleā€™s areas of the city or depend on cold/sketchy late night public transport. Uber/Lyft make things easier nowadays, but that still adds up quick.

ā€œIs this because Harvard sponsors so many activities in the community?ā€

Itā€™s more because Harvard has a much stronger history and culture of student-created extracurricular institutions. Current students benefit from existing programs that earlier students built. Chicago is moving in that direction, but it started pretty late compared to many of its peers. 50 years ago, my parents knew it as an intellectual space where extracurriculars were virtually irrelevant (and they liked it that way). This at a time when Harvard already had a 100-year-old Glee Club, Lampoon, Crimson, Harvard Student Agencies, the Phillips Brooks House Association bringing together many volunteer organizations, a nascent IOP, etc. (UC did play an important role in the development of student sketch comedy in the '50s, so thatā€™s a notable exception.) The upshot is that UC has a lot of catching up to do in this area.

Iā€™m a UChicago undergrad whoā€™s dating a Harvard student; I searched this for fun. A good reminder to NOT use CC in general - high schoolers and parents who abound on this site often have no idea what theyā€™re talking about.

@planner is completely wrong about Chicago being hard to navigate. The Loop is 20 minutes, anywhere in the city limits within an hour. There are a ton of buses, two L stops, two Metra stops, and a shuttle system on or very close to campus. Boston and Chicago have similar weather, Iā€™ve never really noticed a difference. Chicago has tons of prestige in the sectors students go into - banking, law, academia, etc. - if not in culture at large.

@proudparent126 is laughable. The social life at Chicago is fine (though less rowdy than Harvardā€™s) and Iā€™ve taken maybe a dozen classes with some grad students and three where I was the only undergrad.

@hannaā€™s comment is silly, but a bit less so. The extracurriculars are often slightly better at Harvard, but the same general opportunities are open to both. There is no real difference in the IOPs and they only affect a tiny minority of students anyway. Chicago and Harvard both have very good house systems and there are pros and cons to both.

The main difference between Chicago and Harvard is the student culture. Iā€™ve heard the experience of travelling between them described as culture shock many times and I think itā€™s pretty accurate. At Chicago, academics come first, second, and third; about a fifth of the students get PhDs, academic subjects are the dominant subjects of conversation, etc. It is a paradise for people that genuinely love to learn. Frats exist, but they are peripheral to campus life and widely reviled. The average student probably goes to a party once or twice a quarter (10 weeks). Sports have no significant presence in campus culture.

Harvard is more preprofessional rather than intellectual; sports, private clubs, and extracurriculars are more prominent in campus life and conversations. Students go to parties more than one night in a row (unheard of in Chicago). GPAs are heavily inflated. Students have more free time in general.

Both have segments of student culture that are like the other, though; Chicago can vary a lot depending on what dorm youā€™re in (South is very Harvard-esque) and Harvard produces plenty of academics. If I was going to choose, I would do it based on visiting the campuses, talking to current students, and looking at the programs they offer in my interests (and ideally talking to students in them). It also depends a lot on what your interests are; Harvard for philosophy, political science, engineering, or biology, Chicago for economics, history, physics, or math.

@phoenix1616 Donā€™t take this the wrong way but your misplaced condescension is a marvel to observe! Glad you popped in to set us all straight! Rock on.