<p>i am a junior in high school and i am starting to look at a lot of schools in chicago, because that's the area i'm set on attending. (i live near pittsburgh) </p>
<p>i've done some research on the loyola, such as cost, acceptance rate, majors, ect. but i have a list of about 8 chicago schools i'm looking at and i need to narrow it down to about 3. </p>
<p>so if anyone is willing to tell me a little bit about the university it would be greatly appreciated :) such as what the location is like and if it's near downtown, what the atmosphere is like, if students/teachers are generally friendly, ect.</p>
<p>I applied and was accepted to Loyola for next year. I have also been to the campus twice. Loyola actually has two campuses. There is the water tower campus, which is downtown- classes held at the water tower campus are communications, criminal justice, psychology and education, with some, but a limited amount of options in other areas. Most other classes are held at the lake shore campus- social work, sciences, literature, composition, language, mathematics, theology, womens studies, international studies and history classes. As of right now, they only have dorms at the "lake shore campus" but I believe they are in the process of opening the dorms at the water tower campus, however they will only be available to upperclassmen and are all suite-style. Both campuses are very convenient. Although the water tower campus is located right downtown, the lake shore campus is only 15 minutes away. It is easily accessible by taking the "L", the public transit system. Loyola also offers a shuttle between the two campuses throughout the day. If you've ever been downtown you know that it hardly shuts down, so there is always something to do. But I think Loyola offers something unique with both campuses. The lake shore campus is beautiful during the summer, but Chicago winters can be harsh. The campus is pretty quite during the day, but downtown is only 15 minutes away and its free for students to travel to-and-from the city and within it- the school issues you an "L" pass. The thing about deciding between schools in Chicago is that they are all easily accessible from the downtown and relatively close to eachother, so you can visit multiple campuses in a day.</p>
<p>ok thanks!! i was kind of worried about loyola because multiple people told me they didn't like it. but it's one of the few schools that offer journalism so...</p>
<p>btw if you don't mind me asking, what was your gpa in high school? i have about a 3.5 and hope to raise it to a 3.7...do you think that would be good enough?</p>
<p>With a 3.5 you probably wont have any trouble getting in. I have a 4.4 weighted and scored a 31 on the ACT, but I have a friend who got in with a 3.4 gpa and a 26 act. Good luck!</p>
<p>I'm not sure if I will be attending Loyola b/c although I did recieve a substantial amount of aid from them, I recieved more from U of San Diego. With my acceptance I recieved an automatic $12,000 scholarship and in my financial aid package I was offered a $10,000 Loyola grant (which I think is need and merit) and a $4000 Pell Grant (just need). I think they were generous for their tuition, but not too much considering my EFC was zero.</p>
<p>A 3.5 is good enough for Loyola. Don't worry.. it's not very difficult to get into, especially because it's stepping up its recruitment efforts.</p>
<p>I actually dont know exactly how Loyola fares in the pre-med undergrad compared to other schools, but ifI decide to got there, I will be majoring in pre-medicine and international studies.</p>
<p>Yeah. Well I know that their Med-School is ranked somwhere around 80 in US news. I know that they have an early assurance program or something like that where u can apply for the med school like sophomore year or soemthing and get accepted so you don't have to take the MCATs and stuff. But Megara, with your stats why would you want just Loyola?</p>
<p>I'm not discouraging anyone. I'm considering the college myself I was just curious of what others thought of the college and its programs and if anyone knew that much about it.</p>
<p>I considered Loyola pretty hard and just felt like the major I was going to go into, Marketing, just wasn't good b/c I figured that their business program is not that strong, since it wasn't ranked in U.S. News Week and BusinessWeek magazines, and plus I never did hear anything good about their Business program from any peers or anything. </p>
<p>Also, the 3 hr. a day commuting by train wasn't a pleasant thought for me. Had the Business School been rated better, I would've probably gone there. </p>
<p>They do give a lot of financial aid in the form of scholarships(i had a $5,000 a yr. offer for all 4 yrs.) along with a 5,000 grant I believe. </p>
<p>The thing is, it cost $36,000 total with living there and all that this year. It'll probably be close to 39,000-40,000 next year. It's pretty damn crazy lol. </p>
<p>I chose Univ. of Illinois, and even though I'm not in the Business program, I still got a major that is business related(Consumer Econ. and Finance).</p>