It’s all relative. Back in the Dark Ages (the '80s) I was interested in going to UChicago. Don’t remember how or why it was arranged, but UChicago invited me to visit - in February. As a hick who’d only lived in Florida, I didn’t even own a winter coat but layered on all the long sleeved clothes I owned and a few pairs of jeans and headed north. Perhaps I’m misremembering, but back then the school had a variety of pretty grimy, depressing buildings and there appeared to be much less of a “buffer zone” between the school and the surrounding, rough neighborhood. After the guide joked about what appeared to be an actual drug deal we observed right across the street from a campus building, she noticed my alarm. "Don’t worry! See all those white phones out there along the sidewalks? If there’s a problem, pick one up and campus security will come find you. If you’re being chased, you can just knock them off as you run by… they’ll eventually track your location down and help you. "
As a 90 pound geek who was well aware she did not blend in this new environment, I did a quick mental calculation of my chances at running through the 2’ snow faster than whoever was going to be chasing me and regretfully concluded I was not fast enough to attend.
When my son and I visited UChicago last year, it looked much better than it did in the 80s. The campus was clean and inviting, security was visible but not oppressive and while the school still borders some tough areas, those areas are now separated from the campus by more than a single street. It felt as safe as any urban campus and the crime stats we researched didn’t scare us off. We even made a point of taking public transportation and walked in the immediately surrounding area. Our conclusion was they should take the same basic safety precautions one would in most big cities, but that UChicago students are likely to survive their time there.