<p>Hi, I will be a senior this year and am experiencing major uneasiness about my college list. My dream school is Yale, for I visited it and fell in love with the atmopshere, and the top notch academics, especially its English Department.</p>
<p>I also, until recently, loved UChicago for its academic expertise and well-rounded students, and Cornell for its idyllic location and great departments. However, I feel Chicago will be a little too intimidating for me (I want to be able to relax a little in college and am not a huge Marx fan) and that Cornell's Greek scene is too pervasive.</p>
<p>Are there any schools that are similar academically to these schools and have a social life that isn't as wild as Cornell's and a school where "fun goes to die"?</p>
<p>THanks for any help :) And I hope I do not offend any Cornellians/U Chicagoans.. I love your schools, but feel they are not fits for me.</p>
<p>(BTW, I hate chances threads, but if this will help, I am 1% in my class, solid GPA, ECs, and Recs, and am looking for a great academic experience)</p>
<p>How about Johns Hopkins? I know they have a great English department (check out their website), and also seem to have a smaller Greek-esque social life</p>
<p>Er, are you sure your judgments on UChicago are accurate? You might want to talk to some current students. Message a student; they'd probably be willing to help.</p>
<p>Reading Karl Marx isn't bad enough to keep you out of a college, and students definitely relax.</p>
<p>^^ Oops, I forget to mention the next most important tidbit of info: Due to airplane costs/my fear of flying, I am looking for a school in the Northeast (anywhere but NYC, which I am not sick of :( )</p>
<p>I hope that isn't too constricting :(</p>
<p>And you're right Kyle, I just meant that was an additional thing I didn't like about Chicago, but really the location issue was the tipping point.</p>
<p><em>waves hello</em> I'm a Chicagoan and my brother just graduated Cornell. The two of us are as opposite as people who share genetic material in common can be, but we understand each other better than anybody else.</p>
<p>Regarding Chicago... "Where fun comes to die" is one of our monikers, and is an ironic way of corralling school spirit. When you don't have "Gig 'em Ags!" or "Yay Ivy League!" or what have you, you are at a loss of ways to celebrate your school. If you come to campus, you'll see kids wearing their WFCTD shirts with pride. We do have parties and all that good stuff here, but not a HUGE party scene. You'll find what you want socially.</p>
<p>A typical UChicago kid is kind of like that person at the gym who runs 3 miles a day... you're not sure why they are so dedicated to what they do, they're not sure why they're so dedicated to what they do, and they don't like it all the time, every day, but yet they do it anyway and the net positive effect on them is enormous and they can't imagine not doing it. Reading Marx is not going to be a walk in the park, but at the same time, you'll be happier having done it at the end of the day... that is, if it sounds like something you might like to do.</p>
<p>While you can engage yourself academically at Cornell, you can also hide in a corner and nobody will attempt to find you. (This is what my brother, for whom academics was never a priority, did throughout college). My impression is that most Cornellians work much harder than he did, but at the same time, I was sort of upset that he wasn't forced out of his shell, but rather left to be. (Chicago, on the other hand, will not let you hide from anything). Though he was active in a fraternity, he was not that big in their party scene... he used it to make Cornell, which is a vast school, much smaller for him.</p>
<p>Northwestern is sort of like Cornell plus city. Highly recommended for you. Tufts too... similar size to Chicago, similar distance from downtown, but with a more Cornell outlook.</p>
<p>^^ I originally directed the OP to you, unalove, but then I saw your thread on "Don't come here if..." which detailed some of the OP's reasons for disliking Chicago. =p</p>
<p>oh gee, I hope I'm not contradicting myself now... the OP doesn't seem squeamish about Marx, but is just expressing a distaste for reading him. Not every core class ends up reading Marx, anyway, and one learns that there are bigger fish to fry. (Don't get me started on why I don't like Kant, other than the fact that he doesn't write coherently).</p>
<p>However, I do think that UChicago's intimidation factor is way overplayed. I don't think the student body is any smarter than the student bodies of any of the other schools mentioned so far (NU, Cornell, Tufts, WashU) and if the OP can get into any of those schools, he or she is able to do the work at Chicago. Where the real divergence is that the Chicago kids have a very academic bent-- they WANT to do it, and they make themselves able to do it. . I don't think the workload is really that intimidating given that you want to get it done.</p>
<p>Check out fun schools that are of the same caliber...any top 15 US News school should fit all of your criteria, and then eliminate ones where you don't feel you'll fit in.</p>
<p>Check out Michigan. I attended Cornell and Michigan and they are very similar. Cornell was co-founded by a Michigan man and close to 50% of Cornell's presidents since then were either educated at Michigan or were part of the Michigan administration. Michigan's Greek scene, though certainly present, is not nearly as pervasive as Cornell's primarily thanks to Ann Arbor, which is significantly larger than Ithaca. </p>
<p>I think either Chicago or Cornell would be a great choice for you. You can have very similar academic and social experiences at Cornell or Chicago, and the English department at both schools is great. I can also see why you find similarities between them and Yale. </p>
<p>I tend to think that UChicago may be a little bit less focused on undergrads as they have so many graduate students, but that may just be my Cornell bias. </p>
<p>And I wouldn't necessarily be worried about the size of Cornell's greek scene. It is less than a third of the Cornell population, which leaves twice as many independent (non-Greek) undergrads in Ithaca than there are undergrads at Chicago. Any type of person you can imagine is at Cornell, people find their niche (and there are seemingly unlimited niches at Cornell), and you can have a great time in Ithaca without ever stepping foot in a fraternity. If you are looking for more of a Chicago-style residential experience at Cornell, try Risley or the West Campus houses. Or live off-campus with a couple of good friends.</p>
<p>"I tend to think that UChicago may be a little bit less focused on undergrads as they have so many graduate students, but that may just be my Cornell bias."</p>
<p>Chicago sounds like a good choice for you. Don't believe the stereotypes. Look at Carnegie Mellon. Hopkins may be a fit. Barnard would be good, except that you don't want NYC. Rice would be a great fit- has a lot in common with Yale, but it's in Houston. University of Rochester may be a fit. Have you considered Tufts?</p>
<p>I agree with thethoughtprocess... you're a bit early in your search to narrow your list two two schools, and given what you've provided so far, almost any school anywhere will give you the experience you want. Every college will provide resources for you to excel, and it's really up to you to take advantage of them and meet that group of friends that like to do what you like to do on weekends.</p>
<p>CayugaRed: Chicago has a lot of grad students (~9000 to an undergrad population of ~4000), but these students don't teach undergrads unless they're all but dissertation. Oftentimes, it's difficult to distinguish abd from full professor-- both are qualified to teach you, both are open to your ideas, etc. Undergrads are able to piggyback on grad student resources-- the library is one of the best in the world and research opportunities abound. At the same time, Chicago has a real LAC feel to it-- class discussions and small class sizes are a priority, and the residential college system helps build a sense of community and spirit.</p>
<p>If one were to put Cornell and Reed on a spectrum, Chicago would fall exactly in the middle, and all of the other schools mentioned so far would fall between Cornell and Chicago. The other schools hanging out more towards Chicago in Chicago v. Cornell would probably be schools like Wesleyan, Oberlin, and Carleton, and Tufts, Northwestern et. al. more towards Cornell. I don't know of any schools that would fit in the exact middle of the two.</p>