<p>Does anyone know anything about this school? The child of an old friend has been receiving mailings from it.</p>
<p>A girl from my kids’ HS was considering it. She was into the performing arts.</p>
<p>A friend of my daughter is in a music program in Chicago that sends it students to Roosevelt for some of the non-music classes. She is not complimentary about the academic qualifications of many of Roosevelt’s students.</p>
<p>For the performing arts, its Chicago College of Performing Arts is well-known. When S was considering a trumpet performance major, it was on our radar. Several members of the Chicago Symphony are on the brass faculty and the jazz program is first rate as well. I don’t know that it’s an academic powerhouse, but with U Chicago and Northwestern in town, it’s not hard to look like the runt of the litter.</p>
<p>^Yes, but you’ve also got UI Chicago, DePaul, and Loyola, and I’d rank RU at the bottom of that list. I graduated from RU in '76 (BS Business) and later got my MBA there; but I would not recommend it to my HS jr D. The music program is supposed to be very good, though.</p>
<p>Sorry to be harsh, but every city has a college like this - it provides the basics, often for non-traditional students, and it’s a convenient loop location, but it’s not academicallly selective and there isn’t really much to recommend it to someone from out of town. I concur with Annasdad – if the desire is to attend a school in Chicago (and the student is not at the NU / U of Chicago level), DePaul, Loyola and U of I - Chicago are likely better choices.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info…the school is officially off her list,
Never heard of it before…but she must have indicated somehow she is interested in schools in Chicago (which she is)…and she started getting mail from them.</p>
<p>My son was accepted to the MT program there. I was familiar with it as I worked in Chicago a long time ago and their down town campus was on my route to the office. I think it has some great programs and opportunities in the performing arts. My son wanted a full university, however.</p>
<p>We plan to visit it, only because the Chicago College of Performing Arts (CCPA) is part of Roosevelt. CCPA is more selective, as an audition-based conservatory. If you have someone who is determined to live and study in Chicago, I think Roosevelt would be a “fall-back” or “safety.” Columbia College Chicago is located nearby, and has open admissions, but concentrates on visual and performing arts, with some media and communications.</p>
<p>Choose DePaul over Roosevelt. Not much harder to get into, great location, caters more to traditional students, better academics, still easy access to downtown, big-time basketball (if you like that sort of thing). Roosevelt is not terrible but not a good choice for the typical college student.</p>
<p>If being in the center of the city is important to you, then try UIC. More programs, cheaper, only slightly less convenient to downtown, and more of a typical college experience (but still not as good as DePaul in my opinion).</p>
<p>mantori.suzuki – What are you basing your UIC/DePaul judgment on? UIC is more selective, and has much better job placement. The campus isn’t as appealing because of the architecture, and the students, on the whole, tend to come from families with a lot less wealth (and a lot more racially and ethnically diverse), but in many, many areas UIC offers the superior educational experience. Just look at the faculty bios!</p>
<p>I wasn’t knocking UIC. When I said “but still not as good as DePaul in my opinion,” I was referring to the “typical college experience”. Lincoln Park wins hands-down as a fun and safe place to live for four years. But certainly UIC offers a very good education, first-rate in some fields.</p>
<p>Well, I’ll be honest, as a Chicagoan of 25+ years, I think of DePaul as offering a pretty good campus / college experience in a terrific and fun location, and I think of UIC as being a) good for those who want to be very specific health / medical professionals and b) being more of a school for first-generation students for whom college is otherwise unavailable. That is, I can see things about DePaul that might make it attractive for an out of towner; I don’t see similar things about UIC that might make it attractive for an out of towner. However, I’m willing to be shown differently.</p>
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<p>I am under this impression as well—generally—although I understand UIC has made strides in recent years to become more campus-oriented and less of a commuter school. I also understand they still have a ways to go. (DePaul has a lot of commuters, too, but c’mon! Lincoln Park! Woo!)</p>
<p>I haven’t looked at DePaul, because it’s not on my D’s radar screen. But when I look at UIC, what scares me is the 24% 4-year and 54% 6-year grad rates. It’s one of my D’s safeties, but an important one, because she’d love to go to school in downtown Chi.</p>
<p>Right. And I don’t think it’s necessarily “oh, the school is so awful” but rather a reflection of the fact that it’s attracting a lot of first-genners, for whom money is tight, and for whom college may be the first thing to go if the purse strings need to be tightened at home.</p>
<p>According to NCES, only 3% of UIC students are from other states or countries, as compared to 34% for DePaul. Again, not necessarily a reflection of quality, but definitely something to consider when looking for the “college experience”.</p>
<p>I’d say that it really depends what you’re looking for in a school. There’s no question that the bars in Lincoln Park are MUCH better. And DePaul’s music education program is quite good. If you’re interested in engineering, computer science, math, life sciences UIC is much better (and DePaul’s computer science dept. isn’t housed on its Lincoln Park campus in any event). You can make the argument that the math department at UIC is significantly better than the math department at UIUC, at least if you look at faculty publishing and graduate school experiences. </p>
<p>DePaul tends to give a lot of full-ride scholarships to kids with good grades from Catholic schools of varying qualities in the Chicago area to boost their enrollment. They also have a more well-funded basketball team. </p>
<p>So you’re absolutely right that it’s a bit of apples and oranges. I don’t think I’d urge a kid from a different part of the country to go to either without knowing a lot about what that particular kid is looking for. It is true that at UIC you’ll have more classmates driving a cab or waiting tables at night (though not as much as 10 years ago) and many, many more first generation college graduates. And probably less beer.</p>
<p>It’s 3% of undergrad students who are from OOS or international. The stats on the grad/professional programs are very different. I don’t know why UIC has a reputation for being a cheap school because it is not. In terms of tuition, it is the second highest public in the state. It gives an illusion of being cheap because many students live at home and not on campus. For a student living on campus, UIC might actually be more expensive than UIUC.</p>