My daughter was accepted EA to UChicago and is extremely interested in attending but is waiting for RD results from other universities before making a final decision. In the meantime, I have a few questions.
Does UChicago provide an information session on safety guidelines/do’s and don’ts for incoming freshman?
I’ve read a lot on this site and others about the safety in Hyde Park and surrounding areas and how to get around Chicago, but knowing my 17 year old, she would need to hear such information from someone other than me before she took it to heart. My concern is that after living in Europe where it has been relatively safe for her and her friends to walk around cities and take public transportation after midnight after visiting bars or clubs (drinking age is 16 so it’s normal here), she may not be as aware of possible dangers in certain areas (i.e. guns and violent crime). I know I sound like a paranoid parent but any helpful information would be appreciated.
Which dorms are the first to fill up?
What percentage of students are from Europe?
I’ve read that international students make up somewhere between 10% to 14% of the undergraduate population and was wondering how many come from Europe. If anyone here is from Europe, how was the transition for you or your child?
Being an average student
How is the transition for incoming freshman with respect to course work and grades. In other words, If the majority of students are used to being the best in their class in high school, how is the adjustment for most kids when everyone is just as bright or brighter as they are?
Has anyone not received an acceptance package yet?
We received the online letter, but haven’t received anything in the mail. Should I contact the regional admissions officer?
@schlegelkopf - congrats to your daughter! My D17 is a first year and loves it.
One option to assist the transition to the rigors of college, the quarter system, and UChicago in particular might be to start off with three rather than four courses. You are allowed to register for up to four during pre-registration, but three is also a full load. Others might start with four but drop before the Drop deadline if they feel too overwhelmed. Others still take four but don’t overdo it with honors (the regular track is rigorous too). Finally, her math and (if applicable) chem placement will help ensure that she enrolls in the right level for those subjects. She will be challenged, but she doesn’t need to live in a constant state of feeling overwhelmed as long as she chooses her courses wisely and stays on top of her work. She will learn much more once she commits and starts reviewing the pre-registration materials over the summer.
Others will have better opinions on the res. hall question - my impression is that Snell-Hitchcock is hard to get into because it’s the smallest dorm and has a lot of single rooms. Of course, how quickly a dorm fills up will also depend on how many upper class students decide to leave for other lodgings around Hyde Park. Last spring/summer a larger-than-expected number decided to stay for the fall so Residence Life was scrambling to place all the 1st year students. Some of the returning students got moved to Vue53 which is a new luxury apartment building maybe a half mile or so north of campus (but still firmly within Hyde Park). D17 really hopes the same thing happens to her when she’s a rising third or fourth year :)) She loves her dorm but luxury digs are nice too.
When you arrive as a new student you will attend a week of orientation called O-Week. My daughter told me that they covered safety and I believe the older students in the houses and/or your RA’s will reinforce these common-sense principles. Students on this forum can fill you in as to their personal experiences with the CTA (the public transit system consisting of elevated train/subway and busses) after midnight but my impression is that the college kids do take it in groups late at night with no issues. During O-Week she’ll go out to dinner with her house at least once and groups of new friends will probably also want to hit some restaurants in Chinatown or the Downtown area. CTA passes are an automatic item included on your bill and are distributed as soon as you arrive on campus. There are other modes of transportation as well (Uber, Zip Car) but CTA is the cheapest since to the student it’s “free”
My daughter is currently a Second Year at UChicago. While we are American, we lived in Europe when she was born, and didn’t move to the States until she was almost 16. I understand your concerns with coming from there to Chicago, but I think your daughter should have an easy time with the transition. My daughter wanted a school in a large city because she feels more comfortable in them, especially because they have the amenities she grew up with, like public transportation. She and her friends use the CTA frequently to explore the different parts of Chicago. Because of an internship during her first year, she had to travel downtown alone a few times a week, and sometimes there were evening events that lasted several hours. While she usually took the bus there, she would Uber back to campus per our request. However, that says more about us being paranoid parents than it does about the safety of Chicago. Still, she knows that she needs to be aware of her surroundings when she is out and about, no matter where she is.
She had a bit of Imposter Syndrome rear its head when she was accepted EA, and it worsened once she met her classmates. However, as she met upperclassmen who, even four years in, also felt like they’d been mistakenly admitted and would be thrown out as soon as someone had the time to fill out the paperwork to have them escorted off the premises :)) , she relaxed and found her footing. By October, she was comfortable enough in her 4 classes and her internship to accept another job offered to her because she thought it would be an “interesting experience” to have. Her schedule exhausts me, isn’t for everyone, but she is having the time of her life.
Thankfully it’s not a cut-throat environment; in my daughter’s experience, the kids work collaboratively and are very supportive of each other. She can’t imagine being anywhere else.
Congrats to your daughter! As a current student, and one who worked as part of the Orientation team last year, I can answer some of your questions.
Yes, definitely, multiple times. There are safety-specific mandatory info sessions, as well as general guidance from RA's, RH's, and older students in the house. There are also info sessions on navigating hyde park and the other Chicago neighborhoods—which provide information about cool places to visit as well as how to get there safely. The houses take several trips into different parts of the city during O-week, in large, organized groups, with the RA's/RH's making sure no one gets lost. There continue to be house trips during the rest of the year, and usually students take CTA in groups for long enough to get used to the system and how to navigate it safely. You definitely pick these things up pretty quickly. Campus is very safe, with the uchicago-specific police force and the more general chicago police force, the police-escort system, the shuttles, and the blue safety light/buttons on every block. All of these resources are explained in detail. I moved off campus this year (52nd street) and feel fully equipped to live safely in Hyde Park. You really don't need to worry! If you have specific follow-up questions, feel free to ask.
Last year, North filled up/was in high demand because of how new it is. MaxP and Snell/Hitchcock are also desirable because of their central location, and Snell/Hitchcock especially is hard to get into because it's small. South and BJ are middle-ground, and I-house is easier to get into, because it's further away (though I lived there—having a guaranteed single has its perks).
I don't know the numbers, and can't speak from direct experience. I think it depends a lot on the student—most of the international students I know really love uchicago, but of course do experience culture shock and a different type of homesickness. One thing I do know is that prior to O-week there's the international pre-orientation program—which helps international students get adjusted to Chicago earlier, and gives them friends who share their experiences.
It is definitely a hard transition for some. In my personal opinion, though, everyone should have this type of experience eventually—it helps you mature as a person as well as a student. It forces you to realize that there's more to your worth as a human being than your academic achievements, to learn how to deal with the occasional inevitable failure, and to prioritize health and live in a more balanced way. There are also a lot of resources available if students do become overwhelmed. As the previous post mentioned, starting out with three classes can be a way to alleviate some of the stress. I'd also say that the benefits to being in a community like this are great—with so many smart and diverse peers, you're learning new things all the time, even outside the classroom, and making awesome like-minded friends.
Mine took a while to get to me; I'd say don't worry. If it takes more than a month definitely reach out. Otherwise, since you're EA it isn't extremely urgent.
O-Week will include more than anyone wants to know about safety and getting around, etc. The fact is, you work into it little by little anyway. You don’t need a lot of special information to go from dorm to class to library to dining hall, and that’s all you do on any number of days. When you decide to be a little adventurous, generally it’s with a few other people, one of whom may already be familiar with the area because of having grown up there.
Traditionally, Snell-Hitchcock filled up first because it’s small, pretty, and centrally located, has very strong traditions, and has a high number of upperclass students who stay. It appeals to people who are nuts about the University of Chicago and put down their deposit the day after early admissions results are out. I would guess that North is second because it’s the newest and shiniest, and because most students want to live north of the Midway if they can.
I’ve never seen precise information on country-by-country breakdown of international students. Almost all of the international students my kids knew were from Korea or Singapore. One from Israel. I don’t know that there are lots of kids from Western Europe.
I don’t know that there’s a standard reaction to no longer being the #1 best student. Most people, I think, are thrilled to have peers, when maybe they never had real peers before. That’s certainly how I felt. Some people feel challenged to work harder to keep pace with the people who seem to know so much more. That’s how my wife felt.
Congratulations!
My daughter, a freshman at UCh, was also accepted in EA and waited for RD results (accepted in 7) even though UChicago was her first choice. Once she visited the first time, she could not imagine being in any other place. She loved the university but also wanted to be near a big city. Chicago offers everything that she likes to do on her (rare) spare time (especially museums and nice restaurants).
She is in South (Grossman-Granville) and made her dorm request in April. She got her first choice and a single. She loves her house and its traditions. Dorms and bathrooms are perfectly well maintained, and the dining hall is only a few steps from her building entrance. The housing system is just amazing, and new students feel at home from day one (at least her group).
Academically, the first weeks of classes were a bit stressful. She was coming from being a top (2%) student in an extremely competitive private prep school (she did 15 AP classes all with 5’s and A’s), and she did not expect the classes to be so hard and demanding, especially math (she is doing 16000, one of the hardest math sequences). Her teacher has a Ph.D. in math from MIT (she has the same teacher for 16200).
At the end, she got straight A’s in her first quarter by studying more than ever.
She and her group of friends usually go to the city on Saturdays for dinner, but leave around 5:30, and by 9 they are back. A few Sundays, they go for brunch and the Art Institute.They take the CTA.
Campus safety is very efficient and present in every corner, but students need to be careful anyway.
On Fridays, they stay in the lounge (she is not into parties), watching movies or playing Nintendo, and very often, studying as well. As @NorthLeftCoast said, it is not a cut-throat environment. Kids are extremely smart but nice, supportive and down to earth.
My daughter says that she cannot imagine being happier in any other place.
It is likely the case that a European kid will be in a very small minority in the College. That’s not necessarily a disadvantage. Her classmates will either be Europhiles or at the very least be very interested and intrigued by a kid no older than themselves with the gumption and curiosity to cross the pond and end up in the belly of the American Beast - the bad old city of Chicago in the heart of the heart of the Midwest in the bad old U.S. of A. Perhaps it is my own Europhilism showing, but I expect that her secondary education will have been more rigorous than that of most of her American classmates, so the academic part of her new life, though challenging, may not be as overwhelming to her as to some of them. The enemy for her will likely not be stress of study, nor any lack of finding friends nor any real danger in her surroundings - but simply, as someone has said, homesickness. However, that’s a somewhat universal condition at Chicago during first year. It soon abates and is in itself a bracing part of growing up. Many American kids in the College come from places as culturally dissimilar to the University and the city as are some parts of Europe. The University of Chicago is a pretty unique world for almost everyone who first encounters it.
“how is the adjustment for most kids when everyone is just as bright or brighter as they are?”
This is the one question where I have some experience (from a different very rigorous school).
The incoming student needs to know that at Chicago (or MIT or a few other similar schools) the workload will be tough, and they will be average. Some students love the challenge and do very well even as an average student. Some students hate it. Some get very stressed out. Some top students would be better off being near the top of their class at a very good university, rather than being in the middle of the class at a highly demanding university.
I think that the most important thing is: The student has to want to do it.
Thank you everyone! Your responses really put me at ease. She loves UChicago and is looking forward to attending. From everything I’ve read here and elsewhere, I think she will love it. It sounds like the perfect place for her with its blend of academic rigor, supportive intellectual peers, a vibrant housing system, and the opportunity to explore the cultural and culinary aspects of Chicago. Homesickness will definitely be an issue, but there is a possibilty that one of her closest friends will get accepted and attend as well. If not, it will be a learning experience. As for me, I miss deep dish pizza and can’t wait to visit myself!
Schlegelkopf (Hammer Head?) - best of luck to your daughter. Son just graduated with a technical major and with a rich variety of other academic and extracurricular activities, and he still lives in Hyde Park and works in the Central Loop area. Loves HP. Loves the city. Loves the friends he’s made. But he is aware of his surroundings.
Will she be able to go to accepted student visits at a couple of her top choices? 24 hours on campus can be very enlightening at all colleges in a way that a day visit isn’t. My kid (who was accepted to UC EA a few years ago) changed her mind about her preference going in after attending them for her top 3 schools. She had done day visits at all of them ahead of time, too.
Unfortunately, no. I asked if she wanted to go in April, but IB exams start at the beginning of May, and she prefers to study and not have to get over jet lag. She doesn’t even want to go away for Easter break. I think there are only two schools she would possibly accept over UChicago, but the chance of getting in to one of those is really low.
Thank you for this post! It was extremely helpful especially since it is unlikely we are going to the admitted student weekend. I’m sold on UChicago! Now it is just up to her…
