Is campus visit a MUST for U of Chicago and Northwestern?

Parents Forum
21

This is wildly off-base. The University of Chicago is in Hyde Park, a quiet, leafy, upper-middle class oasis on the South Side. It’s quite lovely, really. Crime rates in Hyde Park are relatively low, though there is some property crime–thefts of computers left carelessly about, some auto theft, etc., but very little violent crime. However, some of the surrounding neighborhoods–Woodlawn to the south, Greater Grand Crossing to the southwest, Washington Park to the west, Grand Boulevard to the northwest—have high crime rates. Kenwood, immediately to the north of Hyde Park, is a mostly upper middle class neighborhood with crime rates similar to Hyde Park; it’s where the Obamas lived and still maintain a home. Lake Michigan lies to the east.

Because so many of the surrounding neighborhoods are sketchy at best, Hyde Park has a bit of an island feel. Most U of C students make extensive use of the Hyde Park neighborhood but rarely venture outside it. When they do, it’s usually to visit the Loop or popular North Side areas with lots of bars, restaurants, nightclubs, movie theaters, live theater venues, comedy clubs, museums, outdoor festivals, and the like. But the South Side also has its attractions, including Chinatown, the Chicago White Sox in Bridgeport, and some good blues bars (though much of this scene has migrated downtown or to the north side).

Northwestern has a pretty suburban feel, IMO, but Evanston is an older, “mature” suburb with some stately homes and quiet, tree-lined streets. The areas immediately adjacent to the Northwestern campus are quite upscale. Evanston also has some more troubled neighborhoods, but these are farther away from campus. Downtown Evanston is convenient for shopping, restaurants, etc., and Chicago’s North Side and the Loop are easily accessible by convenient El service.

22

Honestly, I think the 3.5 GPA makes both of these significant reaches. I might look for ways to show interest locally (info sessions, sign in at college fairs, get on their email lists). I agree that in this case, it may not be cost effective to visit because his chances are on the low end.

23

@bclintonk - You are painting a rosy picture of Hyde Park. Refer to the following article detailing the 45 people shot and two deaths in Chicago over the past weekend. At least one of the shootings was within a mile of UC’s campus.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/29740760/1-killed-14-wounded-in-weekend-shootings

The campus itself is urban, with the original buildings having a gothic style. The original quad is the best part of campus, but the newer buildings have a variety of styles ranging from neo-modern to brutalist. The school also does not do as a good a job maintaining their physical plant as other competing high-end schools, and the building and grounds maintenance was more akin to a cash-strapped state school. Outside of the quad, my wife used the term institutional to describe the campus. Given that they want $44,000 a year in tuition, I was a little put off.

Of the three kids that were with us, one liked the campus, one was meh, and one hated it. If someone wants to attend UChicago, they will do so because of the quality of the professors and student body, not visual appeal of the campus or the surrounding neighborhood.

As for Northwestern, they have a great location along the lakefront in Evanston. However, they have squandered it with a charmless campus that at least is safe.

24

@Zinhead A mile away from the University puts you outside Hyde Park, into Washington Park/Woodlawn, both of which are much poorer and crime-ridden than HP. UChicago students rarely venture into either of those neighborhoods, and denizens of those neighborhoods rarely come into Hyde Park.

We have to disagree with the grounds/maintenance. The Main Quad, the area around the Reg, and the Midway (controlled by the City of Chicago) are all impeccably maintained. Admittedly, the rest of the University is a little lacking, but that’s primarily because all that’s left is the Hospital, where there are no grounds to speak of, and the section south of the Midway, which has been improving ever since the opening of South Campus.

25

My son attends U of C and loves the whole package – the core, the intellectual vibe, scav, the house system, and definitely the campus! But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Go online and judge for yourself.

26

“Within a mile” is a pretty clueless standard for judging an urban university. Yes, Chicago is an urban university, like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Georgetown, MIT, Rice, Emory, BU, BC, GW, WashU, UWash, UCLA. USC, Cal . . . If an urban campus freaks you out, fine, don’t go there, but don’t get all goofy because there’s a bad neighborhood withing walking distance.

(Saying the Obamas’ home is in Kenwood is probably technically correct, but it’s literally across the street from Hyde Park, and it’s also across another street from a famous synagogue that is a Hyde Park institution, notwithstanding that it, too, is technically in Kenwood. Two Chicago dorms are five blocks away from it.)

27

A significant number of urban campuses are not in the midst of the best neighborhoods. There’s a theory that that’s in their self-interest. Low priced property to expand into, and not the best connected people for political pushback.

28

Personally, I chuckle at the some of the suburban anxiety folks attach to a campus to which they find something anything short of bucolic–to each his own.

However, I think most of these people would be surprised to find that places like WashU, Tufts, UConn, Brown and Stanford, have higher crime rates than UChicago. Something about the patina being a little too urban mixed-in with people of color…and well, for a small contingent of folks, it becomes undesirable…

29

In the early 80’s, I recalled the area to be a bit dicey when I visited.
However, went there two years ago and I think the area surrounding the school is pretty OK.

30

Good grief. I’ve lived in the Chicago area 25+ years. I live in the burbs now, but I lived in Hyde Park area for 10 years. UChicago is an urban campus as @jhs and @bclintonk suggest. Hyde Park is a nice area. Students need to know the boundaries. Not unlike any other urban college town. My D1 goes to Carnegie Mellon and believe me, you don’t want to walk too far north of Forbes and Craig. Turns bad quick, but generally she feels safe in her urban environment. Evanston has some sketchy areas, too. How about DePaul in Lincoln Park? Campus is right on the L and it, too, is close to some sketchy areas. Kids who go to urban schools just need to be aware. Don’t walk alone at night. Be street smart. Walk with purpose. etc etc.

31

For what it’s worth, my kid applied to UChicago EA. She was deferred.

She signed up for a campus visit in March…at the very end of the decision time…the weather was HORRENDOUS and UChicago canceled classes for that day (really unusual for them). My kid dragged herself there from the airport…a grand total of 4 kids were on the tour…afterwards, they all hung out around the admissions office as they tried to figure out transport back to airport. Two weeks later, she was in. Was it because she stood out for making the visit when she did? Who knows…but the end result was that she got in.

Of course, the real end of the story is that she got in and then we discovered there was no way we could afford it. :slight_smile:

32

It’s completely unfair to tar Hyde Park with what goes on in Woodlawn or Washington Park. Those are distinct neighborhoods, night and day different from Hyde Park.

I can cite some crime statistics if you like (all figures for last 30 days, rates per 1,000 population):

Violent crime: Hyde Park 0.5, Kenwood 0.7, Woodlawn 1.9, South Shore 2.0, Washington Park 3.0, Greater Grand Crossing 2.2, Grand Boulevard 1.6, citywide average 0.8, Loop 1.2, Near North Side 1.6

Property crime: Hyde Park 3.0, Kenwood 2.7, Woodlawn 4.1, South Shore 4.5, Washington Park 4.2, Greater Grand Crossing 4.5, Grand Boulevard 4.2, citywide average 2.7, Loop 14.9, Near North Side 5.8

Quality of life crime: Hyde Park 0.7, Kenwood 1.2, Woodlawn 2.5, South Shore 2.7, Washington Park 3.5, Greater Grand Crossing 3.7 Grand Boulevard 1.8, citywide average 1.7, Loop 1.8, Near North Side 1.2 (category includes criminal damage, narcotics, and prostitution)

We can further break down the “violent crime” category for Hyde Park: assault 0.0, robbery 0.4, battery 0.0, sexual assault 0.0, homicide 0.0.

And the “property crime” category for Hyde Park: arson 0.0, theft 2.0, burglary 0.4, motor vehicle theft 0.7

And the “quality of life crime” category: criminal damage 0.7, narcotics 0.1, prostitution 0.0

These are, overall, very low crime rates, though as an island of affluence surrounded by generally poorer neighborhoods, Hyde Park is the target of some economic crimes—robbery (much of it directed at businesses, I would imagine), theft, motor vehicle theft, and to some extent burglary. Apart from a few more robberies, crime rates in Hyde Park are pretty comparable to those in tony Lincoln Park on the North Side (violent crime 0.2, of which 0.1 robbery; property crime 3.0; quality of life crime 0.7) and similar to Lake View, a mostly upscale North Side lakefront neighborhood popular with young professionals and home to both Wrigley Field and “Boys Town,” Chicago’s largest gay male community (violent crime 0.4, property crime 2.6, quality of life crime 0.6).

33

I lived for a year on Irving Park Rd about two short blocks west of Lake Shore Drive. Irving Park Rd, near the lake, is in Lakeview.

While there, I never spent time in Hyde Park. But I felt safe by myself walking around Lakeview. For a longer walk, I’d walk the handful of blocks south to Wrigleyville to check out the scene at Wrigley Field or grab a bite to eat on Halsted. South of Wrigleyville lies Lincoln Park.

If the crime stats for Hyde Park are similar to those in Lakeview, I would conclude that Hyde Park must be pretty safe.

34

I’ve lived in Lakeview as well, and never had an incident or felt unsafe. Same with Hyde Park. However, I did have my purse snatched on the 151 bus on Michigan Ave and Oak Street (Gold Coast–Mag Mile) in 1987. I was even carrying it cross-body style, but the strap was yanked so hard it broke. The perp timed it perfectly, dashed off the bus and fled. So it happens in even the best of areas.

35

You must have felt pretty unlucky – robbed on swanky Michigan Avenue. Hey, at least you had your health, right? :slight_smile:

36

I find these discussions on CC to be worthless unless the posters give some context, i.e. “we live in a suburb with two acre minimum zoning and I drive my child everywhere, i.e. she has never taken public transportation by herself”. OK- I get it. An urban campus is going to look scary to you even if statistically it is much safer than more bucolic places. You should know that according to many experts who compile these statistics, most campus crime is student on student, i.e. your D leaves her laptop unattended in the library and somebody steals it- most likely another student.

I am an urban person; my kids all attended urban universities but they had the street smarts to do so and had been taking public transportation in and around “not so good” neighborhoods starting when they needed braces and their parents couldn’t take the afternoon off to chaperone the endless orthodontist visits. So if you are role playing with a 13 year old about how to handle various situations, you are going to be much more comfortable with that kid- now 18- heading off to an urban school. I found the drama (warned by many on CC) about New Haven, Philadelphia, and even Morningside Heights to be quite overblown especially if your child is NOT going to be looking for the nearest drug mart, where yes- they are at risk of being the victim of a crime.

If you are not inherently comfortable with an urban university, you should visit Chicago and Northwestern. They are both more urban than a campus stuck out in the middle of a cornfield or the prairie, even if that campus has 30,000 students. And wherever your child ends up, the discussions about not getting into a car with someone who is drunk, not taking a drink from someone who may have put in a drug, and locking their door can’t start too soon.

37

I went to Columbia in the middle of the crack epidemic and lived in a cockroach infested apartment within spitting distance of Morningside Park, so urban universities all look pretty tame to me now! I had my wallet stolen on the subway and my boom box stolen out of a locked cabinet in the architecture school while I was there.

38

I was robbed outside the American Embassy in London (one of the nicest neighborhoods in London and at the time, the highest real estate prices in the UK) but fortunately, it made replacing my passport pretty easy!

39

@bclintonk - Just so the non-Chicagoans understand the area we are discussing, Hyde Park runs east to west between the train tracks and Cottage Grove, and between 51st Street and 59th Street. This is one square mile, with the university campus located on the southwest corner of Hyde Park and making up about 1/4th of the Hyde Park area.

Just west of Hyde Park is the Washington Park area which by your statistics has a violent crime rate 3.75 times the city average, and just south of Hyde Park is Woodlawn which has a violent crime rate 2.375 times that of the citywide average. So what you are saying is that as long as UChicago students stay within their one square mile “island of affluence”, they should be reasonably safe. I agree with you about that.

However, the creator of this thread asked if it was the kind of school that it was necessary to visit campus before accepting. Wholeheartedly yes. The majority of kids who have the academic chops to compete at UChicago will likely come from higher income suburban schools, and it is a culture shock for these kids. I know it was for me when I moved to the south side 20+ years ago.

Also, Hyde Park is really only an “island of affluence” if you compare it to Woodlawn or the South Shore. The University has spent a lot of time and money rebuilding 53rd Street as a viable retail strip, but for most of the non-urban kids that visit the campus, it still leaves much to be desired.

40

I have one word for you: Vanderbilt. From what I’ve seen, the 3.5 will be fine. They just want high scorers.

Also, check out Northeastern University, in Boston. They are scratching their way upward and giving significant merit money for great scores. Leafy campus in the middle of Boston. Again, 3.5 shouldn’t be a problem there.