<p>D visited 12 schools and DePaul is her favorite. The business school and great opportunities for interships impressed her. She loved the atmosphere of Lincoln Park. She likes the idea of their quarter system.</p>
<p>Yet, when we mention the school to others, the reaction is basically "oh" and they may start suggesting other schools. Around here, it may have to do with lack of football and of late, lack of decent basketball.</p>
<p>But did D have blinders on and only see what she wanted to see? Is there anything wrong with DePaul?</p>
<p>D is a rising junior at DePaul in the school of commerce/business. DePaul was her safety but by far her favorite when we were touring schools. She loves Chicago, loves DePaul, and has been challenged yet supported in her classwork. </p>
<p>As her mother, I have been particulalrly happy with her professors and instructors, both in the busines school and in her liberal arts classes (she had great courses in African history and music, to name a few.)</p>
<p>The biggest negatives have been the housing situation and the lack of a “real” campus. (Housing after freshman year is more difficult to obtain if you want to stay on campus.) Let me say, though, that these are NOT negatives to D. She likes living off-campus and had no desire for the whole bucolic campus experience.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are other things wrong with DePaul. However, D specifically wanted a school with ties to the Chicago business community, and so far she hasn’t been disappointed.</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with it. It doesn’t have the national academic prestige of Northwestern or U of Chicago, but people have been getting a solid education there for decades. I would have no problem with sending either of my daughters there. The locations of their campuses are hard to beat.</p>
<p>One of the top students in my D1’s class chose there over many other prestigious choices. She is studying to be an actuary and is very happy. </p>
<p>I agree that DePaul gets overshadowed by UChicago and NW, and it’s definitely not for someone who wants a typical college campus. I’ve found that many schools like DePaul that have a lot of commuters tend to get looked down on, possibly for the understandable reason that student activities and dorm life aren’t they way they’d be at a more conventional university. </p>
<p>If your D understands and likes how campus life is, I say hurray, congrats, and best wishes to her!</p>
<p>The guidance counselors from our high school like DePaul (and there are many schools they do not recommend). My daughter loved DePaul when we visited and we will be visiting there this fall with our son (who will be a h.s. junior then). Two professors were very kind and helpful to D when we visited. Many of the academic programs are very strong. Cool study abroad opportunities. Great community service. A variety of scholarships available. The Lincoln Park neighborhood is fun and funky. There are many off-campus apartments literally across the street from classroom buildings, so living off campus does not mean living far away and leaving the campus in the evenings. There are many on campus student activities and plenty of students on or near campus to enjoy them. GW has even less of a green campus and people don’t hold that against GW; maybe the expectation for green campus space is higher in Chicago. </p>
<p>Our son may very well be there in Fall 2012. As of now, it is one of only a few schools that he and I agree looks/sounds good for him. (We need to work on a meeting of the minds. West Virginia? Say what? :D) The students that both of my kids know who go to DePaul really like it. Some people think there is something wrong with any college that has an admission rate over 33% - but I agree with Emmybet that this is what is wrong with DePaul: *it is not Northwestern or U of Chicago! *</p>
<p>I think there is little overlap between students who would enjoy U of Chicago and students who would enjoy DePaul.</p>
<p>She’s said for years that she hates hot weather and will move north whenever she can. The “way out of state” schools we visited were in locations where we had family or knew a few people or were personally comfortable with the city.</p>
<p>As others have noticed, there isn’t a traditional campus or residential life there, and that would be a deal-breaker for me. I have my whole life to live in an apartment in Chicago.</p>
<p>But you can see that for a girl from the car dependent suburbs in the Southwest, living in an apartment in Chicago, riding the el to the Loop campus, having internships with Chicago busineses - all of this would be an exciting personal stretch; many more opportunities for growth than going to a nearby large football U with a traditional campus.</p>
<p>DePaul has had some success with its basketball program, just not lately. Basketball is big there. D had a good friend from high school who went there for two years, then transferred. She had been a cheerleader in high school, and cheered for the basketball team the two years she was there (so there was lots of school spirit in her experience), but claims that her biggest reason for transferring was that there were too many ‘international’ professors, which she found difficult. She said it became very frustrating to try to understand all the accents. I had not heard this before, and have not heard it since, but this was her perspective.</p>
<p>Missypie - you have just described my daughter: loves riding the El, finding cool new restaurants, going to concerts by obscure rock bands, walking along the Lake Michigan shore on a nice spring day, even hanging out at the zoo or just window-shopping on Michigan Ave. The whole idea of going to a Big 10 football game on a Saturday left her cold (whereas I thought it sounded great!)</p>
<p>She is thrilled with the absence of big-time sports, and she’s actually happy to be out of the dorms (not a big fan of residential life…)</p>
<p>As others have alluded to, it’s definitely a “different” type of college experience. Not better, not worse, just different.</p>
<p>^^^ Hanna, the students from our high school who go there have described what sounds like good on-campus life on the Lincoln Park campus. DePaul has 3000 students in on-campus residence halls. That is larger than the entire population of many LAC’s.</p>
<p>This is a big school, and in addition to the 3000 students living on campus there are many more within a block of campus. Students are involved in sports, music, theater, and clubs (especially community service). Based on what we have been told, for most students, the college experience there is a lot more than living in an apartment in Chicago (not that there is anything wrong with living in an apartment in Chicago!). When we toured campus, we saw for ourselves that there were many apartments right across the street form campus. We have heard of exceptional student support for basketball and theater, for example.</p>
<p>Chicago’s a great town for young people, and DePaul is in a great location (actually, two great locations) to enjoy much of the best of it. For my own Ds my concerns would be whether it’s academically challenging/rigorous enough, and whether there might be too many distractions—just too much fun to be had in such a great city. Oh, and along with that, how much money gets burned up in restaurants, music venues, and the like. But for kids who can get what they want academically from DePaul and are disciplined enough to maintain a focus on their school work and enjoy the city’s many pleasures in moderation, it could be a great choice.</p>
<p>Glad to see the generally positive responses. DePaul is near the top of our son’s list too hes interested in their CDM (College of Computing / Digital Media). I liked the school as well and had heard that it is committed to teaching undergraduates. But Ive spent a portion of the summer wondering the same things listed in the OP and for similar reasons.</p>
<p>The things mentioned here are valid quarter system, no football (I think even basketball is played a good distance from campus), housing, % commuters, lower tier school than NW or Uof C (we’ve been trying to determine what would be considered peer institutions). But at least we know those going in. Our concern was whether we were missing something - especially academically or in terms of relationships with the business community that would show up if he attended. Missypie, thanks for asking the question.</p>
<p>DePaul basketball was HUGE in the late 70s when the legendary Hall of Fame coach Ray Meyer took the likes of future NBA stars Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings as far as the Final Four in 1979, and the Blue Demons were the toast of Chicago. They literally outgrew their old, deteriorating on-campus building, and were lured to the then still relatively new Horizon (now Allstate Arena) in suburban Rosemont, a large venue that they filled to capacity for a few years. They had some good seasons in the 80s, then the basketball program went into a long period of decline and sagging attendance in a large, unappealing building far off campus. Sad. They’d do better in their own building somewhere near campus, but given land values in that part of Chicago, that would be an enormously expensive proposition.</p>