House assignments are out...

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
41

@CU123 my kid didn’t get her first choice. That was Snitch. She was content to get BJ though she would have preferred being on the quad. Now she would definitely NOT trade it in for a single in Snitch. That’s the benefit of the house system - they placed her in a great house. We are warning my son about the downside of housing at UChicago. He doesn’t want to get “stuck” in I-House either but he also realizes that this is a small potatoes worry compared to whether he’d even be accepted. However, he has time to prepare at least - quite unlike the student who had a number of top choices, chose UChicago over another elite school, then got placed into a dorm which wasn’t even on their list. That would burn, especially if, like @booklady123 is saying, snippy housing officials were assuring families that your top-3 choices were highly likely.

@booklady123 - I’d be shocked if the squeakers were dismissed. UChicago has been bending over backwards to make their students happy and keep retention high. Would love to be a fly on the wall - guessing there’s a lot of convo. with the resident heads of I-House right now to arrange more in-house dining and other activities. Admin might be banking on a huge influx of returning students to Woodlawn Commons in a couple of years. Maybe they can give the I-House and Stony kids first dibs, especially if their houses are moving over there.

Not sure anything went “wonky” so much as there appear to be two areas where admin. completely messed up: 1) markedly increasing enrollment before Woodlawn Commons has even broken ground; 2) mis-representing your chances of getting assigned one of your choices. When they made the latter set of near-assurances, they obviously couldn’t see the preferences, since those weren’t submitted till June. This year it’s quite possible that they not only increased the class size but changed the mix of student. What I’m reading on this forum and from those I know personally who are facing the same, it appears that a very large number applied only for the new dorms. But let’s assume that’s NOT the case - that there is a reasonable and even distribution of preferences, excluding the two dorms historically - and now completely inaccurately - known for being where you get stuck if you don’t submit your deposit “on time”. A major problem still exists. What UChicago is facing is not only a larger number of incoming 1st years (near 100% within their control) but also a higher retention of returning students in the dorms (not really within their control). The total number of available beds in North, South, Max, Snitch and BJ is around 2,800. if 25% graduate and 100% of the remaining actually return to dorms rather than move off-campus, that leaves a grand total of only 700 available beds for 1,850 or so first years! You can follow the queue algorithm perfectly and still end up with a whole bunch of disappointing outcomes for a number of kids. Once you start factoring in room-mate preferences and personality stuff, there can be some real wonky results simply due to lack of space.

In reality, there were probably something like 1200 or 1300 available beds, not 700. But you get the point. And where are the remaining 600+ going to end up? Well, about 70 in Stony and about 530+ in I-House. I-House actually has a LOT of room now that it’s 100% undergraduate. That happened in 2016 so it saw a large number of first years for Class of 2021 and, it’s sounding like, an even larger number for Class of 2022. As mentioned above, they will hopefully move those houses over to the new dorm. Hopefully it really is a “done-deal” and will more than make up for the inconvenience of I-House or Stony.

They can also give a discount to the I-Housers. I think we would have told our kid she had to go there if her room fee were discounted enough. After all, I-House was good enough for her mom once upon a time (though admittedly I bolted after one year for apartment living - and I was a grad student so slightly different animal). Guessing, though, that the main problem with I-House will remain it’s distance from a dining hall. In truth, it’s in a lot better shape than BJ or Snitch and not really any farther from the main quads than North or Max.

The single/double disparity doesn’t surprise. Had something on this but @DunBoyer explains it better in the previous post.

42

Discounts for I-House and Stony would be a welcome gesture, the dining inconvenience certainly warrants one! I never understood the reasoning behind charging freshman the same housing fee across the board, regardless of room type. Seems singles and newer dorms that have A/C should have a premium?

43

The reasoning is that, to a degree, this is outside students’ control. If a student requests one room type/dorm, but gets assigned another, that would materially affect their costs for the year. And because all first-years are required to live on campus, a $1000 or $2000 increase in room and board because of the way the housing chips fall wouldn’t be a “take-it-or-leave-it” proposition - it would just be “take it.” If any number of students requested doubles in Snitchcock or B-J, but got singles in Max P/South/Stony/North and a required housing charge $1,500 higher than they were planning on, the College would be dealing with a lot of angry parents every year. If there are going to be out be unpleasant surprises, the College would rather have them affect a student’s room type than their parents’ bottom line.

Upperclass students pick out rooms during the housing lottery in the spring, and they not only know exactly which rooms are available when their number comes up, they also have the option of moving off campus. That makes different rates reasonable for upperclass students.

44

I think it’s fine to take a little off the top if you don’t get one of your three choices over these next couple of years, till the new dorm is built. However, UChicago students being as clever as they are, would probably work that little perk into their housing choice strategy if they knew about it it up front. Suddenly you’d see a ton of applications for doubles in I-House as 2nd or 3rd choice, and someone would complain that it backfired and they ended up with a single in North and now have to pay the full housing fee . . .

Newer dorms with AC might be worth a premium to some but it didn’t matter at all to my kid, who primarily wanted an older dorm due to the character and the reputation for having more interesting, quirky people (have no idea whether that last part is even true). She spent an overnight in Max P and noticed too much partying for her taste. Would NOT have wanted to be “stuck” there :slight_smile: So the discount would have to apply to people like her as well. The dining inconvenience, however, is a real issue and, to be honest, is probably one of the primary reasons why people don’t like I-House and Stony. Too bad there isn’t a dining hall in that particular area for the two.

45

Okay makes sense, I see the chaos that tiered dorm rates would bring.

Dining inconvenience is frustrating. I have read that Stony and I-House often eat breakfast in their dorm, or skip altogether, adding grocery costs to the expense of unused ‘paid-for’ meals. Urgh, painful as a ‘full-pay’ parent who actually has to take out $30-50k annually in parent loans. :frowning:

46

Housing deposit in on 12/18, single ranked of most importance - more important that dorm choice; dorms listed as North, Snell, BJ since Snell and BJ have a lot of singles. Hoped for North, assumed would get BJ…ended up in double in North…looks as though his application was not read - only looked at in terms of dorm choices…

Squeaky wheel here. I’m annoyed with already being contacted by the philanthropy folks - they will get an earful when we attend their reception next month!

47

@caymusjordan that’s strange that he didn’t get a single in BJ! Snell - that’s more understandable as it’s a smaller dorm. The son of our friends got a single in Snell 2 years ago (class of 2020) and he deposited around the same day (Was EA back then but UChicago was first choice). Class size was around 250 heads smaller . . .

It’s almost as if they specified dorm over room type for your son.

48

“Dining inconvenience is frustrating. I have read that Stony and I-House often eat breakfast in their dorm, or skip altogether, adding grocery costs to the expense of unused ‘paid-for’ meals.”

That is a very legit complaint. First years are already required to live in the dorm and to buy the $6500 meal plan, so the fact that the closest dining hall is more than a mile round trip sucks. If my kid ended up in a dorm that wasn’t one of his first three choices and was that distance from the dining hall, that would be a topic I’d broach with Housing. There is no way in Hades many college kids will be hauling themselves that far to breakfast every morning, so I’d push hard for a waiver of the full meal plan - something like a 14 meal a week plan and $2k off the meal plan price would actually make me very happy and fit with how my kid would be likely to eat.

But since nobody else has brought up the cost of the meal plan, maybe I’m alone in thinking it’s really expensive for what it is. The housing seems in line with most colleges but that meal plan pricing - and the fact that it’s required - seems nuts to me. I keep joking with my kid that for $6500, I hope he’s eating at least three solid meals a day and wouldn’t mind a bit if he put on 10 pounds (he tends to skip meals when he’s engrossed in projects.)

49

A single this year might still be a possibility, upperclassmen graduate early, study abroad, etc, so rooms open up; odds are uncertain, timely request forms have to be submitted, but I am guessing you are already aware. I hear your frustration, and it is very unsettling to me that they have not offered you an honest explanation. It seems impossible that all singles were filled before 12/18 deposits. I truly hope it works out for you both, because this fiasco aside, the UChicago family is really something very special.

50

Meal plans are an increasingly popular place for colleges to hide cost of attendance increases. Pretty sure ours is typical for an expensive private university. Of course, “typical” in this context means a 194739% profit margin.

51

Not allowing meal plan choices is robbery. Makes so much sense for Stony and I-House in particular.

52

The logic, I believe, is that first-years don’t really know themselves. Many (most?) are accustomed to having a lot of meals chosen/prepared by parents, and aren’t great at budgeting over the course of several months or predicting what their college routine will be.

The nightmare scenario, which putting everyone on the Unlimited plan is meant to prevent, is someone stopping by the dining hall when they need a snack, going to Fourth Meal a lot, and running out of meal swipes with two weeks left in the quarter. Friends with guest swipes can only tide someone over for so long.

This is a recurring theme with a lot of rules that cover first-years specifically. The College does its best to minimize the odds of first-years outsmarting themselves.

It also doesn’t hurt that this doesn’t hurt the university’s bottom line.

Though, for what it’s worth, the Phoenix meal plan is basically what @milee30 described (~2 meal swipes per day) and costs the same as the Unlimited plan - the main difference being that Phoenix gives you 75 extra Maroon dollars each quarter.

53

“Many (most?) are accustomed to having a lot of meals chosen/prepared by parents, and aren’t great at budgeting over the course of several months or predicting what their college routine will be.”

With very few exceptions, students at UChicago are there because they have reasonable brain power going on. Food - a pretty powerful motivator - combined with reasonable brain power means most will figure out how to budget and eat, even if it’s something they haven’t done previously. And honestly, is the school really filled with that many special snowflakes who have never prepared a meal or couldn’t figure out how to do a basic budget? Maybe that’s something the school should screen for rather than forcing a ridiculously expensive plan in place to continue the assumed sheltering… But I’m a mean mom. My kids have been making some of their own meal for a long time. I think it’s a life skill.

Do we really think these students are smart enough to be admitted to one of the top selective universities in the world yet not smart enough to figure out how to feed themselves? If that truly is the case, this is a crisis that needs to be addressed and not by continuing to offer unlimited food.

54

If I had to bet on the intelligence of UChicago students or the research that says humans are bad at predicting their future behavior and following through on long-term plans, I will take the research every time.

55

There is a fundamental disconnect here and a fair bit of irony.

56

I understand Stony, but IHouse isn’t even really off campus. When I went to Purdue, we had to walk a least 4 blocks just to get to the academic campus. If I had to eat, I left for campus a little early, stopped in the dining hall, ate and then went to class. It was just what it was. And our winters were just as harsh as Chicago’s. Kids are pretty hardy things. They can and will figure this out.

57

Totally agree that these are smart kids and will figure it out. But I think they’d also figure it out if they weren’t required to buy a very expensive meal plan which some of them are pretty unlikely to use for all meals given the location of the food.

And just to give a comparison, since you mentioned Purdue - students who live in a Purdue apartment (like Stony at UChicago) aren’t required to buy a meal plan at all. Students who live in a Purdue dorm room are required to buy a meal plan, but can choose from any of the different plans. Their plans start at $2900 and top out at $5400 ($1100 less than the UChicago plan).

Are Purdue students somehow more equipped to handle feeding themselves a few meals? Don’t answer that - I have relatives who went to Purdue and would definitely argue “yes”. :slight_smile:

58

Except it never happens this way in practice because both I-House and Stony have to walk or take a shuttle in that direction to get to class anyways. I-House has a cafe that accepts maroon dollars (which you also have to pay for in the $6500 meal plan) in its lobby. Everyone in Stony has a kitchen in their apartment.

The fact is the difference between dorms is minuscule these days. As recently as when I was a first year you could have ended up anywhere from on the quad to 2 miles (NOT round trip) from the quad. And Broadview had neither a cafe nor apartments. It was a run down and moldy old hotel. Maclean was a converted hospital in the most boring part of Hyde Park. And so on. Now people obsess over the tiny differences. It’s ridiculous.

59

I would reckon that around a third of the kids in my house of BJ once upon a time did not turn out for breakfast or, perhaps a different third, lunch. Failure to rise in sufficient time to make the first meal and also get to class was the obstacle in the morning. Being unwilling to tear oneself away from something occupying attention on campus was the obstacle at lunch. This despite the dining hall being steps away from our rooms, which makes me doubt a bit that making a walk in the direction of campus for a meal would really be the problem. It might even be an alleviation of the luncheon problem. It has to be said that many who missed these meals complained that the food was inedible in any event. I didn’t find the food so bad, and for me it was an article of faith that any meal that had been paid for I was damn well going to eat. Plus I always enjoyed the serendipity of chatting with whoever was at the table with me. Perhaps for that reason as well as for the satisfaction of hunger pangs almost everyone made it for dinner, and those meals tended to become gab sessions in a way that the other meals did not. I hope this remains the case.

60

@ BrianBoiler
I-House is more ‘on campus’ than Stony, I really feel for those students. However regarding dining hall distance, Stony is 0.7 miles from Bartlett, and I-House as it turns out is 0.7 miles from Cathey and 0.7 miles from Bartlett as well.

Zooming out these housing gripes may seem trivial, but I believe UChicago endeavors to be great, which entails tackling the devil in the details, opposing viewpoints and all.