I don't think I'd be a good fit for UChicago after all (Overnight Session).

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>So, I attended the Thursday/Friday overnight session (although I actually ended up deciding not to stay the night. More on that later!), and I'm not gonna lie, I could see how fun comes here to die.</p>

<p>Despite the fact that UChicago is <em>in</em> Chicago, I felt like it was even more disconnected from the city than Northwestern up in Evanston. The closest L station to UChicago is in a super sketchy part of town (and I thought I knew sketchy. USC and Berkeley's neighborhoods are pristine compared to UChicago's neighborhood!), and it seemed like very few students ever make the trek out to Chicago. Is there even a shuttle? I know they kept mentioning public buses, but I'm not sure I'd wanna take a public bus through Hyde Park...</p>

<p>I don't know. I guess I'm glad I visited, but after attending a large chunk of the offered sessions for Thursday, I felt a little bit out-of-place. Not "I'm a prospie walking around with my dad" out-of-place, but "I'm not as nerdy as all of you" out-of-place. I'm a good student, I'm fairly geeky, but WOAH is all I can say to a lot of the students I saw. And I realized that an overnight stay would probably be unnecessary.</p>

<p>Finally, I feel like UChicago would hurt my chances at grad school. Even the student panel willingly admitted that grading here is difficult and that the environment is "intense" and "stressful." I'm not sure I want that. I didn't really feel any sense of community among the students. Everyone seemed to be doing their own thing.</p>

<p>And yet part of me wants to like UChicago. I love the campus itself. It's gorgeous. But that other Chicago campus up north is beginning to appeal to me a bit more.</p>

<p>Someone sell UChicago to me, a pseudo-nerd who wants to keep a social life.</p>

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<p>i also found it a lot more disconnected from the city than i had imagined, but it’s not much of a deal breaker for me. i love downtown chicago; i’ll probably be going atleast once a week!
i rode the metra to uchicago campus to/from downtown…i believe it’s faster/cleaner/less sketchy than the cta bus. the station was also right next to the broadview dorms.</p>

<p>weird. when i visited on the 15/16th, i met a lot of cool people; i totally didn’t expect that.
before i visited, i was also worried because i thought i wasnt weird enough for uchicago, but seriously, there are a lot of people who are anxious like you. so at least you share that in common.</p>

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<p>Really? All the people I met were so normal. XD Almost too normal. I think partially it’s the luck of the draw, what kind of students you get. And I didn’t think Hyde Park was sketchy at all, idk idk.</p>

<p>Honestly, though, if you’d rather go to NU, then go there. It’s not worth fighting yourself.</p>

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<p>Well, I’m also choosing between a lot of other schools actually.</p>

<p>I have no idea where to go! I think I’ve narrowed it down to UCLA, USC, Berkeley, Northwestern, and UChicago. Not that that’s very narrow or anything.</p>

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<p>Accepted admission offer yesterday. Absolutely fell in love with UChicago when I visited recently. People seemed perfectly normal to me. I have nothing bad to say about any other school. Wish you all the best.</p>

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<p>Go with what your gut tells you. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with finding out that Chicago may not be the best fit for you - if you think you’d be happier at another school, go there and never look back. Hopefully current students can elaborate more. Good luck!</p>

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<p>I’ve not visited Northwestern, though having gone past it certainly seems closer to a CTA station. (As in, right next to it, lol). One of the things that I love about UChi is that it is somewhat separate from the city- a lot of times, Hyde Park feels like a small town/neighborhood, which I like. I’ve never found getting downtown to be a hassle - you just walk/take a UChi shuttle to the 6 stop by Stony Island, or take the 55 (which picks up by Ratner) to the Red or Green Line. The green line stop is perhaps a bit more setchy, but as far as buses go, I’m a white girl from a barely populated western state, and I don’t think they’re sketchy. (But I’m only traveling at decent/daylight hour) On the weekends, there is a shuttle that runs from Reynold’s Club to the Roosevelt Red line station at night, so you don’t have to take the red line or 55. </p>

<p>As far as grad school goes, I can’t really speak too much on the subject, though I know upperclassmen who have gotten into good grad schools. I’ve heard grad tacks .3 onto our GPA because they know we don’t grade inflate like other places, but this is only my anecdotal evidence. If you want A’s, they are achievable, but they require you to actually work. Most students here are probably a bit stressed, but from the conversations I’ve had, it seems like everyone absolutely loves the school and just gets stressed about the day to day aspects of problem sets, etc. As far as community, you’ll probably find yourself in many different “small” communities, through your house, RSOs, and classes. </p>

<p>And really quickly, don’t worry too much about your gut. When I prospied, I remember thinking during the overnight that there was no way I could come to the school because I didn’t like it, and then tearing up because I WANTED to fall in love with it. I came anyway, and there’s no school that I could be happier at. Sorry for the long post. :)</p>

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<p>Mendi, thanks for sharing your experience.</p>

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<p>Are you sure that you want to be “connected” from the rest of the city? I am not sure you really want that… It’s nice to go to downtown once in awhile, but I do not think you want to be connected to the city too much. My parents visited UChicago and Columbia, and they much preferred UChicago because it is far away from downtown. Students can focus on academics. I am not sure why being disconnected from the city is a bad thing.</p>

<p>UChicago would hurt your chances for graduate school? Nope.
<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html[/url]”>http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>^Well, I guess that’s the UChicago mentality…and that’s what I don’t like about the school.</p>

<p>I <em>love</em> Chicago. I’ve basically grown up with Chicago. It’s one of the main reasons I applied to UChicago. I want to be connected with the city. I wouldn’t call that a distraction from academics, I would call it a huge advantage.</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong, I love how UChicago is sort of a refuge in the middle of an urban environment (similar to Columbia), but I just didn’t get the impression that UChicago students visit the city very often.</p>

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<p>^ See, I got exactly the opposite impression from you. My hosts (I stayed in South) told me they went into the city all the time, and my tour guide said that having Chicago at her fingertips was one of the things she loved most about the school. [shrug]</p>

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<p>KevRus: It really depends on the people. Some students love to go to downtown every single day, and others like me just go to downtown four times a quarter. No one is going to stop you from going to downtown. You will find both types of students here.</p>

<p>But yes, I do think that being “connected” to the city distracts me from academics.</p>

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<p>All I can say is: you probably stayed overnight with people who you wouldn’t really fit in with normally, and who don’t really represent the UChicago population.</p>

<p>Point 1: You don’t even need to ride the L to get to downtown. Take the 6 right to Michigan Avenue. The 6 isn’t anything near sketchy. You want to get to the L? Take the 55 and transfer to the Red or Green stations at Garfield, which are substantially less sketchy than the L stop at 63rd/Cottage Grove, the latter of which very very few people use. Lots of people go to the city quite often, and it is very easy to get to with the 6.</p>

<p>Point 2: Chicago will help your grad school chances significantly. In terms of pure academics, Chicago is at the same level of respect as HYP, et al. Northwestern cannot say this. Many graduate programs have websites that have grad student profiles, and if you browse some of these, you will see that Chicago is greatly represented at the top schools, while Northwestern hardly makes an appearance in comparison. Grad schools know which schools are the hardest, and which are the easiest - grad school admissions committees are run by PhDs who have attained great success in their fields, so they’re obviously well connected to the reality that certain schools are harder than others. This is partly why Chicago is so prestigious in academia.</p>

<p>Point 3: The students here really aren’t that geeky. I mean, there are a few groups that are really geeky, but the majority is fairly normal. See other prospie comments for support of this.</p>

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<p>It sucks that you had such a bad experience. I came to UChicago on Thursday expecting that, but I was completely floored with how awesome of a time I had there. I prospied in Burton-Judson, and I had the chillest hosts ever! I loved the campus and the people I met. We went to a frat party, we hung out until super late in the morning, it was just really awesome and surprising. My host and his friends also said they go out into the city all the time, and it’s pretty accessible. The only downside is that I’m even more undecided now :D</p>

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<p>KevRus, I am also a hs senior and I was considering between UChicago, Northwestern, USC, and UC Berkeley-- almost the exact same schools as you. So I can sort of see where you are coming from, and hopefully I can explain to you why i ended up choosing UChicago.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I decided to take UC Berkeley and USC off my list first. This was a really hard decision because they were my cheapest options, and I’m from CA, so I was giving up the option of staying close to home. But I realized that the UC system is going down, or rather, that their prices are hiking up. I always thought that Berkeley was a great place to get a quality education for a smaller price tag, but the UC president is hiking up tuition, and frankly, the private school advantage (smaller classes, more counseling/advising, etc) seemed more appealing. I also loved USC, and it was difficult turning down a scholarship, but the caliber of education there just does not compare to that of NU’s or Chicago’s.</p></li>
<li><p>After I narrowed it down to two, I visited both campuses. I went to NU’s wildcat day on the 19th, and I loved it. Part of the reason for that was because I got into a program i really liked (MMSS) and because the students there were all very nice and bright. I have nothing to say about NU or Evanston; had I gone home after the Wildcat Day and skipped visiting Chicago, i’m pretty sure I’d be submitting my deposit right now. BUT, after seeing UChicago, I realized that NU was lacking in a lot of areas:</p></li>
</ol>

<ul>
<li>The student body is pretty homogeneous. On the surface, there seems to be a lot of diversity-- geographical, cultural, academic interest, socioeconomic, etc. But after a while, I realized that all the current students I met (and I met ALOT. I stayed with current students that i knew for 2 nights and met lots of people in the dorms), they all had the same, well-rounded, ambitious, pre-professional personality. It got kind of bland after a while.</li>
<li>It really didn’t feel urban at all. I wanted an urban campus, and although NU is close to Chicago, the atmosphere was very suburban</li>
<li>the parties really weren’t that good. For a school that boasts a better social life than UChicago, it was disappointing.</li>
<li>The econ class i sat in was literally the most boring thing of my life. I fell asleep. I found the econ class i took at community college to be more engaging than the one i attended at NU, but maybe I just had a bad professor.</li>
</ul>

<ol>
<li><p>I visited UChicago tuesday/wednesday, because i had to be back home by thursday and I couldn’t go to the admitted students program. I stayed with a friend of a friend in South Campus, and a family friend that I hadn’t met before showed me around. At first, I HATED IT. Campus was really really empty and the people I met were SO NERDY. They were the archetype of the stereotypical socially awkward geek. But then i found out why campus was empty: Bill Gates was speaking that night. He chose 5 campuses to speak at, including Harvard and Stanford, and UChicago was one of them. This is when I realized how highly regarded UChicago is. When the lecture was over, people started coming back to the dorm and the sense of community really became apparent. I met a lot of surprisingly normal, and very social, students. In fact, I think I met more “normal” students than socially awkward ones. ultimately, you befriend the people that are similar to you anyways, so if you think you fall on the extremely social end of the spectrum, just pick a social dorm and you’ll meet people like you.</p></li>
<li><p>I went into Hyde Park at night, and I didn’t think it was any more sketch than the neighborhood around USC. My family friend also told me about the time she and her friends went into downtown every single night for a week; if you want to go into town, you can. She also told me that the academic intensity and stress is exaggerated. Any good college will be academically rigorous, and UChicago just takes a lot of pride in that.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Lastly, a word about grad school: the schools you apply to will understand that UChicago grades toughly. The average GPA’s of Northwestern and UChicago are roughly the same, btw.</p>

<p>Sorry for this ridiculously long post. I hope it helps, and maybe I’ll see you in the fall!</p>

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<p>My kids go/went downtown (and cooler places in Chicago) all the time. It’s a big part of their experience there. The 6 bus is really nice (although they also use the Red Line). The Red Line Garfield station is like Hell on Earth – it’s in the middle of the Dan Ryan Expressway – but it works, and no one gets killed there.</p>

<p>You’re right, though. Northwestern’s neighborhood is nicer, and it is better connected to the fun parts of the city. And if it were the University of Chicago, you should run not walk to choose it. But it isn’t the University of Chicago – that’s in Hyde Park. If you want all the special stuff that the University of Chicago offers, you have to put up with the relative inconvenience, isolation, and sleepiness of Hyde Park.</p>

<p>Grades at Chicago are much higher than people might lead you to believe. Maybe, maybe, the average is .1 lower than at Harvard or Yale, and about the same as Princeton. If you are thinking about PhD programs, no college lends more cachet and credibility than Chicago, although in the end its YOUR work and the impressions YOU make on people that make the difference, not where you got your diploma. Chicago students get Rhodes Scholarships and Goldwaters and all sorts of other prestigious goodies.</p>

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<p>I googled to find out campuses with most crime, I found a list of 15 and Berkley was #1, Chicago was not on the list.</p>

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<p>I don’t have the source, how convenient right, but UChicago was voted the safest urban college campus in America last year.</p>

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<p>If it’s any help, Chicago isn’t on this list. [How</a> Safe Is Your College? - Page 1 - The Daily Beast](<a href=“The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News”>The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News)</p>

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<p>I was at the Chicago admitted student event with my S. The daytime events were not really set up to encourage much direct interaction with either current or prospective students, so by preemptively deciding not to stay the night, the OP missed the best chance to do that. </p>

<p>Judging others based solely on how nerdy or geeky they look is a good way to miss out on getting to know some brilliant, funny, and delightful people. </p>

<p>We did not find the students to be exceptionally nerdy in any case.</p>