I just realized I don't want to go to my school.

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Here’s the situation: I was accepted to the University of Chicago in the fall. It was my backup school; I never intended to attend. (To UChicago fanboys: By “backup” I mean “last-choice school,” not “crappy school.”) But as fate would have it, I didn’t get in anywhere else. I should have applied to more schools, but I didn’t. Compounding the dilemma are two things:</p>

<li><p>The school offered me no financial aid. Absolutely none. Though my parents have a lot of money locked up in real estate (which is probably why nothing was given to me), $50,000/year is almost prohibitively expensive for them and me. All I have is a little merit aid from National Merit and the NLE (if I take Latin), but it’s not nearly enough to substantially reduce the cost of attending. I’m not being selfish; there are many people who need the limited funds far more than I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that the cost is still incredibly high, and any debt incurred would make graduate school a pipe dream. (I want to go to graduate school.)</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t like the University of Chicago. I’m not hip or cool or artsy (I don’t have anything against those who are, but I don’t feel as though I’d be able to fit in), and I don’t consider myself a member of a “community of learning.” In fact, that latter phrase is so nauseatingly pretentious and stupid that it, perhaps more than anything else, has really made the school look disgusting. (It’s just marketing, right? Well, when you see students seriously parroting the marketing material, you come to realize that perhaps they don’t believe it is.) Admittedly, I’ve been there only once, but I’ve felt the atmosphere, and it doesn’t attract me. Maybe I’m just not ready for college, if college means eating ice cream out of a carton, pretending to be poor, wearing Che Guevara T-shirts, and acting childish. (Okay, I can be pretty childish - but I don’t deliberately act childish. Beer pong? Slip 'n slides in dorm hallways? Chugging hard liquor? Is this college? ***? Be a child or an adult - don’t be both.) </p></li>
</ol>

<p>But maybe my impression of the school is ridiculously skewed. I don’t know. What I do know is that I could save tens of thousands (maybe hundreds) by going to some CUNY school. I’m taking a Chinese class at Hunter this summer, and I like it and am learning a lot. No, the kids don’t consistently say brilliant things, and no, the teachers aren’t Nobel prize winners, and no, the school doesn’t look like Hogwarts (in fact, the escalators seem to consistently break down), but it has a charm that UChicago doesn’t have. Maybe I’m ■■■■■■■■. If so, please tell me. But after reading so many posts about how one’s undergraduate school is completely irrelevant, I’m wondering if CC members truly believe it or whether it’s merely consolatory (and a load of ********).</p>

<p>What should I do?</p>

2

<p>I’m not going to chide you for doing the application process wrong, as I’m sure others will cover that for me. If I was in your situation I’d probably take a year off, get a job, and then apply again. Alternatively, you could go to CUNY schools and transfer.</p>

3

<p>Maybe transfer after the first semester or something? Maybe if you stay there long enough, it’ll start to grow on you.</p>

4

<p>I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Chicago can be a tough school to love if you don’t come here for the right reasons. I’ve seen too many people who applied to U of C as a backup or to round out their applications, only to get to Chicago and hate it. Of course, some of them arrive and end up loving it, so it can be a guessing game. Given your financial circumstance, I think Titan’s advice is sound–UChicago is not worth 200,000 dollars and four years of bitterness (that is, if your initial opinions of the school’s atmosphere are correct).</p>

<p>That having been said, I would recommend that you give U of C a try. Most of the people in your situation come to Chicago and find a niche, and their experience ends up being pretty great (it could be argued that I’m one of those people). Chicago, despite the stereotype, actually has pretty high levels of student satisfaction. If your financial situation really is untenable, than maybe you should pursue other options, but I think it’s probably a good idea to give UChicago a chance. Good luck, Aristotle!</p>

5

<p>Aristotle:</p>

<p>I’ll leave the financial situation up to you to decide. I think very highly of the CUNY system and it’s probably one of the best ways to get a great education. If 50,000 a year is a huge, huge burden to your family, I’d be very persuaded to take the money and run, so to speak. Go to CUNY, take the classes you want, and live the rest of your life without hunkering debt over you. Treat yourself to lunch at the Met every day of the week :-)</p>

<p>What I do want to contest, though, is your image of the U of C. I will first say that U of C kids come in many, many, many flavors, and yes, some model the “hipster” or “bobo” (bohemian bourgeois) model. (It may amuse you that David Brooks, who coined the term “bobo,” is a U of C alum).</p>

<p>If you came to visit during an overnight, it’s very possible that the people you were staying with were trying their best to complicate or overturn an image that the U of C isn’t fun, and in doing so you felt a little disillusioned. This happens a lot during overnights… a friend of mine almost didn’t go to a school because he was taken to a party during his overnight. I convinced him otherwise, and he loves the school he attends now.</p>

<p>Anyway, getting back to your fears, I should first say that I personally don’t follow that mode you’re describing. I wear solid t-shirts and jeans almost every day, I don’t know how to pronounce “hegemony” and I don’t think I could give an accurate definition; I like action movies and pop music and watching TV. I also really really really like school, and I wanted to be in a kind of place where other people really really really like school too.</p>

<p>I don’t have that many “bobo” friends, but I do have some “preppy” friends. Again, though, these are just appearances, as a lot of my “preppy” friends usually have a pleasure reading book on their person. I also have a lot of friends who have never bought their own clothing-- i.e. everything they own is from math competitions from 1998.</p>

<p>Everybody has a different comfort level with other personalities and different turn-ons and turn-offs about other people. What I like in other people is a positive, can-do attitude and people who are comfortable expressing how they feel. I do not care what they look like. I am uncomfortable around people who treat life as though it’s miserable and the sole recourse to this miserable life (usually a wealthy and healthy one) is drinking. Ew ew ew.</p>

6

<p>Last choice school, eh?
U Chicago was at the BOTTOM of your list? HCHS, amirite?
Have you reckoned for a moment in your agony that perhaps it is your perception of people and matters that might have thwarted your college plans?</p>

<p>What you COULD do is take some initiative, and write a letter to the Office of Financial Aid, making your case on behalf of your family. You’ll get around 10,000 in this way.</p>

<p>UChicago is not a hip or artsy school. Be thankful you’re not stuck with NYU, then. Your fiery denunciation of hipsters and young people will pretty much screw you over wherever you would have gone to college, given that these scumbags are prevalent at every top national university and LAC.</p>

<p>Be satisfied that you will have a superior undergraduate education. Relative to other schools you might have applied to UChicago beats most of them in terms of academic quality.</p>

<p>Give it a try. If you hate it, you can try to transfer to Yale, Stanford, Cornell, UPenn, Columbia, whatever the hell you want.</p>

<p>@ Unalove, <3 David Brook’s Bobos in Paradise =)</p>

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<p>Kwu makes a good point, actually. If you do go to Stuy, Science, or HCHS, then you’re one of many who are shuttling off to the U of C, so you’re probably thinking of everybody you know at your hs and filling out the rest of the student body in kind. The New Yorkish hipsterish contingent is a small one at Chicago and it’s probably only bigger at other schools.</p>

<p>I went to a high school in this sort of elite category (not a public, though), but I can promise you that I stuck out like a sore thumb, partially because I had a middle-class upbringing and was thrown into the fire pit of an upperclass school.</p>

8

<p>^^ I neglected to add the important part of where I was going with my last comment: That I started out at Chicago unsure of what to expect, and by the third day of Orientation Week I wanted to exclaim, “Honey, I’m home!” I throw a real curve ball to my mother and father when I refer to Chicago as “home,” usually accidentally.</p>

<p>I think that’s because for me, Chicago has been about living in a way that’s beyond simple definitions (or just stereotypes). I’ve been here long enough and know enough people to know that Chicago changes people very rapidly and very dramatically-- sometimes not in a pleasant way but in a necessary way. All of a sudden complacency-- whether it’s about hipsterhood or not-- won’t cut it anymore, and I have a lot of friends who sailed through high school only to realize that now it’s time to rethink everything.</p>

<p>I mention this because I think it cuts against what you find yourself disliking about Chicago-- that you imagine students living in a grand illusion-- rich enough to be poor, examining the world through their own rose-colored glasses. I think that Chicago as an institution tends to encourage inquiry into academics and into self, and I think that the people who come might have found “answers” in high school by being goth or punk or hipster or whatever, but they now know those answers don’t really hold together. This has happened to me in a few areas of my life. PM me for more details-- I don’t want this post to get too long or too personal.</p>

<p>I chose Chicago because I wanted to be a better person by the time I graduated. </p>

<p>**</p>

<p>Back to “life of the mind” and “community of learning” rhetoric-- I actually get a little nauseous too every time I hear those terms or words like “intellectual.” However, I think those terms are necessary to indicate to the outside world in recognizable terms what being at Chicago is or could be like. I totes see how a “Gee, let’s talk about how intellectual we all are,” conversation would just be a form of indiscreet navel-gazing, but fortunately, it’s much more do and much less talk. When my friends talk about school, they talk about school… they don’t pat themselves on the back for it, it just comes naturally to them.</p>

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<p>i suggest a transfer after first semester – coming out of uchicago you should be able to go to some great places…</p>

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<p>Take a year off, take some classes at Hunter so you don’t fall too far behind credit load wise and reapply this fall (maybe there’ll be some schools that will take you in the spring semester). If you were able to get into UChicago, odds are you’ll be able to get the full scholarship program at CUNY or a similarly good deal at SUNY. I’m about to rack up debt for grad school and I cant imagine having to do it if I had undergrad debt as well. And I hate to say it, but while UChicago is an amazing school, the only schools I think its worth to rack up debt for is HYPSM. 200k in debt after undergrad is an absolutely horrible position to be in, especially if you want grad school. I’m sure you’ll be able to find a great scholarship, likely to a school better than a CUNY, if you cast a wider net when applying.</p>

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<p>^^ But it’s awful to go into a school knowing you want to transfer out. Either you go with a clear conscience or not at all. Can you imagine meeting all sorts of new people and then feeling caught in a gap because you want to desert the people you’re getting close to?</p>

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<p>Also the idea of transferring from UChicago is probably a great one as well, just make sure you’ll still be eligible for scholarships as a transfer, I’m not really sure how that works.</p>

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<p>When aristotle comes back to this thread, I’m curious to know which schools aristotle rated for themself as above Chicago and why. From the tone of the OP, it seems like aristotle wants an involved, serious, rigorous undergraduate community without much fuzzy rhetoric or alternativeness. </p>

<p>The only other schools I can think of that may be an improvement from Chicago, depending on aristotle’s major, are MIT and CalTech. LAC’s tend to have a lot more rhetoric/fuzziness, and I’m trying to think of another school that parallels Chicago when it comes to rigor, education, and overall attitudes of the student body. I’m thinking HYP, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins. I think Chicago fits into that personality mode pretty well, but hey, I could be wrong.</p>

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<p>I second what Titan said. It isnt worth getting in debt over especially if you want to go to grad school.</p>

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<p>If you don’t want to go there, and the bill is too high to pay, then don’t go. Go through the process again next year, older and wiser.</p>

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<p>The opportunities available to a Chicago grad far surpass those of a CUNY grad. Just something to consider, even with the debt.</p>

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<p>But they’re not worth that much debt…</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>I do. In fact, I really do. If money and prestige were not issues, I would base my college decision purely on these factors. But in the real world, education costs a lot of money, and so it’s prudent to purchase an education whose (somewhat subjectively determined) return is greater than its price.</p>

<p>And so my considerations were based entirely on prestige. The students and teachers at the top 10 schools are similarly bright and inquisitive (and the educational quality is similar if not identical), and so picking UChicago over Harvard is only smart in very rare cases, in my opinion. I applied to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UPenn Wharton, and UChicago. As PimpDaddy1 notes, $200,000 simply isn’t worth the education at the many private schools that cost this much (based on monetary returns, educational benefits, and personal prestige accrued). The only schools at which the education is worth $200,000 are HYPS, MIT, UPenn Wharton, and possibly Caltech. A UChicago education, however superb, simply is not valuable enough to make a $200,000 investment profitable, either monetarily, personally, or socially (at least for me). Actually, it’s on the borderline. If you don’t get into a top 10 private school, paying $200,000 for college is utterly insane. Problem is, I’m having difficultly deciding whether UChicago is or is not worth the sticker price, despite its top 10 status. I’m leaning towards “not” right now, as you can probably tell. It also depends on major. Dithering away in Chicago studying Latin, for example, is unquestionably not worth $200,000. (If I were to go there, I would therefore not study Latin - probably computer science, Chinese, or both.)</p>

<p>Let me add a few things:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I am not planning on graduating from CUNY or SUNY if I attend. If I do, I will only for one or two years before transferring to an elite private school, maybe even UChicago.</p></li>
<li><p>Thanks for the UChicago perspective, unalove. I guess the atmosphere is sometimes what one makes of it - see #3.</p></li>
<li><p>I probably won’t despise UChicago. I truly hate very, very few things. I don’t make enemies easily, and I don’t even dislike people easily. I dislike atmospheres, but I don’t think I’d hate UChicago enough to force a transfer.</p></li>
<li><p>UChicago is far away from my family. It costs about $300 to fly from NYC to Chicago, which means that I’d come home only about three times a year. My parents aren’t exactly excited at this prospect and neither am I.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>

</p>

<p>I entirely agree. The only question is whether I would at Chicago. I have enough money for about 1.5 years of education at an elite private school - the other $125,000 would have to come from my parents, other sources, or loans.</p>

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</p>

<p>I hadn’t thought about that. You’re absolutely right. It’s one more thing to consider. Then again, because of the lack of dorms at CUNY schools, many of the friends you meet will be [url=<a href=“http://www.momscape.com/articles/silverandgold.htm]silver[/url”>http://www.momscape.com/articles/silverandgold.htm]silver[/url</a>].</p>

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<p>I actually contacted them about this, but the deadline is long past. I can still go to a CUNY school and take honors classes, though.</p>

19

<p>Your college list made no sense. If you did not love Chicago you should have put some schools that fell in the middle of that and HYP, like Columbia, Penn non Wharton, maybe Brown or Dartmouth…Honestly going to Uchicago is worth the money since it will pay off in dividends later, but do what you want. I think going to a school (CUNY) for the express purpose of transferring later, when you got into a school like Chicago is ridiculous and will undermine what you receive from your time at college (socially and academically).</p>

<p>But this is just one man’s opinion.</p>

20

<p>A few things.</p>

<ol>
<li> The worth of a school is not translatable into its prestige. A more expensive school will not necessarily land you a higher-paying job, and it seems like you very clearly draw a line between what’s “worth” the price and what isn’t. It’s a line that correlates to the US News ranking. Since prestige is so nebulous and variable, it’s nearly impossible to predict how much the prestige alone would be “worth” in a very strict financial sense. You do seem to understand that what you’re investing in is not only a salary rise, but also a social, emotional, intellectual experience.</li>
</ol>

<p>How can you know now that a certain school will deliver its monetary value, while another school won’t?</p>

<p>I hope you also realize that classics majors can go on to make lots of money too. The skills you will acquire as a classics major are ones that translate well into the workforce.</p>

<ol>
<li> Don’t pay for Chicago if you want to do what you want with your life. If forced to choose between my dream school (an expensive one) and my dream career (a low-paying one), I would choose the career.</li>
</ol>

<p>But this advice is all wishy washy without my knowing how much of the cost you will burden, etc.</p>