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<p>From what I’ve heard about Columbia and Chicago and seen at Columbia…there are some slight…but visible differences in the “academic seriousness” of those two great universities.</p>
<p>Columbia undergrads tend to be more pre-professional oriented and sometimes disengage/get intimidated when the level of in-class conversation gets “too theoretical”. A few sometimes even get annoyed with classmates who are “too enthusiastic” about the theoretical aspects of a course. Saw this firsthand in a few undergrad classes I’ve sat in on at the invitation of a Prof/TA friend. However, there’s a good mix between deeply intellectual engaged students and the “hang out and shoot the breeze” casual type students…and both aren’t terribly hard to find. </p>
<p>UChicago undergrads tend to be less pre-professionally oriented and are much more willing to deeply engage class discussions…however difficult and theoretical…sometimes with an excess of enthusiasm. </p>
<p>Only slight concern I’d have for the OP in that academics and campus culture is he may have a slightly harder time finding the “hang out and shoot the breeze” casual type students because most IME…tend to be put off by Chicago’s reputation of high intellectualism, extremely heavy academic workloads, and “where fun goes to die”. He’ll still find them…but he’ll need to be somewhat more patient in getting to know his classmates before finding the casual type of students.</p>