Social Scene at UChicago?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

Can someone describe what the social/intellectual environment is like at UChicago? I’ve been hearing a lot of interesting things about the school like how students get into “intellectual combat” about different things and learn/are trained to take apart someone else’s argument if it’s not well constructed. Someone mentioned that it’s this contrarian philosophy and aggressive discussion that makes up a lot of the students’ social interactions as well as the school atmosphere.

Now I might be kind of weird for thinking this, but I really really really like that idea. The way its been described to me, intellectual prowess is valued above other things like athletics (to an extent) and I have tremendous respect for that.

Can someone confirm or deny (or just elaborate) on what I’ve been hearing?

2

That sounds like an over dramatization of what happens. Are people on average more intellectual and willing to have theoretical discussions than their ivy peers? Definitely. Is everyone going around engaging in weird socratic debate and methodically deconstructing arguments? No

3

Virtually no one cares about athletics, probably because we’re D3. Also no one’s going to be socially evaluating you on your “intellectual prowess” (aside from smelly snitchcock kids maybe)

4

@omguchicago

You’ve piqued my interest - in your experience, what’s the social life at UChicago like? What do students nowadays do to unwind or take a break from the books?

5

@Cue7

A great way to get a peek into what’s happening with the students is to subscribe to the University of Chicago Yik Yak feed. You will find gems like the following

or this one

Gives you an interesting view to life there.

6

Reading yik yak to get a view of a school is like assessing attractiveness by looking at people’s reflection in fun-house mirrors…

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@HydeSnark I totally disagree. When students know they can post anonymously, they let out their true feelings. Some are ugly and some are quaint, and some are just meh!

8

Yeah, a small subset of the student population that leans angry and fratty lets their true feelings out…it isn’t representative of anything besides the yik-yak using population.

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9

Not according to these estimates
A lot of students use it. It’s big on college campuses

http://www.businessinsider.com/yik-yak-the-next-major-messaging-app-2015-3

I find it a very interesting barometer of a community. Unfiltered, uncontrolled, and raw. No one can censor you, so you get an unwarnished view without any spin. You have to follow it for a while though to get a complete picture.

10

@VeryLuckyParent hahaha do you actually follow the school’s yikyak? why??? most of the student body doesn’t follow the yikyak. Furthermore the yikyak is mostly hyperbole to get laughs. @Cue7 it depends what you’re social inclinations are, but recently campus has been pretty dead because of frat scandals so you’re either going downtown or staying in mostly. Also the amount people have fun and drink drops off drastically in second year. But yeah the social scene is not something you can make blanket statements about. In general though the partying sucks.

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11

I would second HydeSnark on this one - sure, I and many of my friends might read YikYak, but do we ever post? Hardly. It tends to be a Greek-heavy, somewhat dissatisfied segment of the population. The 22% figure cited in the BI article seems more plausible at the average college than UChicago. The witticisms that crop up on YikYak are not what you would hear in conversations between most students (at least the majority who are not in Greek-life), and I would not expect the character of YikYak to really shed light on the color of one’s experience. Most people who post on YikYak are posting for the upvotes and validation, and thus they will filter and conform their posts to fit the prevailing attitude on the forum.

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It’s hard to say to what extent Yik-Yak conversations reflect a campus community. It’s hard to know what membership is on a specific campus, and Yik-Yak is subject to a certain level of selection bias. Just as I wouldn’t judge all wealthy people by the pictures the Rich Kids of Instagram/Snapchat post, or all Republicans by the tweets of Sarah Palin’s fanbase, I don’t think the population of students who want to post their thoughts anonymously is representative of the student body as a whole.

13

I follow yik yak for a few college campuses. All I can tell you is that you see remarkable differences in the student communities and their postings. I learned a lot from UChicago yikyaks. Like Bartlett food sucks compared to other dining halls. That sometimes students are driven to exhaustion by their workloads. That UChicago yik yakers are indeed a lot more prone to intellectual horseplay in their comments than other campuses.

I see remarkable differences that speak to the campus’ strengths, weaknesses and stereotypes on the college yik yaks. It’s not the only tool I use, but it is a tool to get a pulse of campus life for me.

Plus it is a great passtime. Whenever I have some time to kill or need a little boost, I fire up yik yak read some comments, smile, shake my head and get recharged.

14

On the one hand, I’m sure Yik Yak gives a highly distorted view of life at UChicago. On the other hand, I guess I agree that seeing an “angry and fratty” student comparing his sort-of girlfriend to Schrodinger’s cat tells you something about the university in comparison with others.

Years ago, when my older child was deciding where to go to college, she was lurking in the Livestream communities at each of the colleges that interested her. As with Yik Yak, and probably anything else, there were pretty pronounced differences among the colleges. The communities were self-selecting and obviously not perfectly representative of the various colleges, but there was little question that the idiosyncrasies of the Chicago group provided valuable, accurate insights into how Chicago differed from other colleges. And that was an important part of her deciding that Chicago was her place. Not that she couldn’t have fit in elsewhere – she’s very social, that wouldn’t have been a problem – but it seemed like it would be more interesting to fit in at Chicago.

A few words on social life: Each of my kids got tired of bar night and decided the frat world was not for them sometime during the winter quarter of their first years. After that, the partying part of social life really moved off campus, to people’s apartments (and some to The Shoreland, a dorm that no longer exists, but which was at the time the clear party dorm, and which was off campus for all practical purposes). To a large extent, social life revolved around their extracurricular activities with larger groups – UT, club sports, publications, WHPK. One kid was part of a group of friends that essentially took over one of the coffee shops for three years, trading off management and most of the employee positions among themselves, so that it effectively became their clubhouse (always open to others, of course).

Also, it would be misleading to omit that the A-level of the Reg was an important element of their social lives, and that of all their friends. I don’t know if anything like that exists now.

15

On the other hand, the social scene is great if you’re not a fan of partying and get awful FOMO. There’s basically no pressure to party.

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@HydeSnark

You said: “the social scene is great if you’re not a fan of partying and get awful FOMO”

This describes perfectly why UChicago isn’t for everyone. There are a significant number of college students (even at top schools) who want partying to be a considerable part of their college experience.

@omguchicago and @JHS

You both describe what I remember social life at Chicago to be like about 20 years ago! I had (and continue to have) an ambivalent view toward Chicago’s social life. For some in my day (and they tended to be the scav hunt types) - it was paradise. I remember classmates/dorm mates who had all-night nintendo parties, role-playing game sessions, bad movie nights, etc. They found quite a few other people who were interested in all the wacky activities that made them feel castigated in high school. Further, NO ONE at Chicago judged social activities. It was a very laissez faire attitude - if you wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons all day, no one cared. You could probably find a bunch of people who’d like to join.

For me, I always found the social scene to be a bit tepid. Yes, there were frat parties, but they didn’t resemble (at all) the parties I went to when I visited friends at other colleges. Yes, there were apartment parties, but they tended to be rather low key affairs. I’m pretty sure, in my day, people went to Dartmouth or Cornell or Duke because they wanted to party for four years, at least 2-3 times a week, at a good school. I don’t think I knew ANYONE at Chicago like that. I contrast this with my time at Penn as a grad student observing undergrads. I was always surprised by the remarkable intensity of the social/partying life. Especially for freshman, the social scene could be a blurry/drunken haze. Walk around the various frat rows, and they’re buzzing with activity/mayhem on weekends. Things at Chicago seemed tamped down.

Additionally, the city of Chicago gets a lot better after you turn 21. The museums/symphony/restaurants are great, but the city is even better, in terms of concerts, bars, (and having disposable money) for those 21+. In some ways, UChicago may offer more for grad students than undergrads for this reason. It was also a bit time-consuming to get downtown without a car.

The A-level and the Reg certainly were hubs for social activity. For some, again, this was paradise. They could study and take breaks at midnight with other nerdy students! Let’s play assassins in the stacks at 4am! Let’s hang out at Ex Libris (a coffee shop) and procrastinate! I found it a little depressing that the library was a social hub - more so even then our small student union (the Reynolds Club) or any other space on campus.

All of it felt a little tamped down and a little oppressive. I loved my concentration and my academics, but I felt that, at Chicago, I could also never fully get away from my books. Students might take a night or two off to pursue other activities, but for the most part, people kept grinding. Further, with mid-terms and exams always looming, many students spent more than a few quiet Friday or Saturday nights in the library, studying hard. I felt that we had more quiet Friday and Saturday nights than our peers elsewhere.

I bring this topic up on occasion here, and I’m always surprised by the consistency of responses.

17

I think this is part of the self-selection at UChicago; the students looking for a Dartmouth experience don’t apply en masse, though some kids do just apply to the entire USNWR top 20. I can’t speak for every student, but I’d choose a museum or a concert over a blurry/drunken haze. The concert/performance is also more likely to be a classical piece or a musical than dubstep or pop, though I’ve made exceptions for Bruce Springsteen and a few others.

Finding students with a similar mindset was one thing that drew me to Chicago. Not that there won’t be students crawling home at 5 AM reeking of beer - it is college, after all - but I’d rather the social life center around a library if the alternative is a bar.

18

@NotVerySmart,

I think where Chicago differs is you have one option (the social life centering around the library/quirky pursuits/museums) but you DON’T have the other option. At Penn, there are students who want nothing to do with frats, and they enjoy the world-class museums/restaurants etc. in Philadelphia. These students also spend tons of time studying in the library, and find others who do the same. I imagine you could say this about many other top schools (Northwestern, for example, readily comes to mind).

At Chicago, there isn’t the option for a more “traditional” college experience. That’s not to say I would’ve wanted that. Rather, I would’ve liked the diversity in options. The students in my cohort who really enjoyed the school through and through, tended to be the ones who had quirky pursuits in high school (and were somewhat marginalized because of them), and then found loads of other students in college who had the very same interests.

Again, yes, Chicago has frats and apartment parties and dorm parties. Maybe now this has amplified. When I was there, though, there weren’t a lot of college bars/clubs/frats that had steady streams of events. Jimmy’s Woodlawn tap was nice, but it was a little sleepy in my day (and aimed more for older college kids/grad students). When I was in Hyde Park, I felt I could never quite “get away” from studies the way that those at other schools could. The student body, also, was homogenous in terms of the reason they attended. EVERYONE came for the academics - that was the chief draw. Maybe some came for the city of Chicago, but the school felt disconnected from the city, in my day. (I understand this has improved a bit of late.) For the most part, downtown was something I glanced at out the window while on the 5th floor of the Reg. I enjoyed the city a lot more in my 4th year (especially after I turned 21), but that coincided with my academic load being lighter as graduation beckoned.

To contrast this to Penn, I was struck by the various reasons students had in choosing the college. Some came for the academics, some came primarily to pursue their D1 athletic pursuits. Others came because they were legacies and it’s where they always knew they’d go. Others came because it was a stepping stone to business/finance/consulting jobs.

Finally, this may just be my age and this may just be a remnant of the past, but, post-Chicago, I grew tired of hearing about going to “that weird school on the South Side.” I got to know a lot of Northwestern grads in my first post-college job, and that was Chicago’s rep at the time, at least in my experience.

I say all of the above to highlight my ambivalence with the social life at Chicago. Being around like-minded, similarly situated, iconoclastic students can be paradise to some. Spending four years knowing you’re around others who want to learn, and are really only at the school for the purpose of learning, can be liberating and exhilarating. Over a four year period, it can also be fatiguing, especially when aged 18-22.

19

I hear you. Having said that, I personally don’t think UChicago is that homogeneous anymore.

In the year 2000, the school accepted 43+% of its 7500+ applicants and had an yield of 32+% or so.
In 2016, the school accepts 7+% of its 31,000+ applicants and has a yield of over 60+%

No school can go thru such a radical transformation in such a short time without significantly affecting the kinds of students who matriculate there. Today the incoming class is about 13% Intentional. Most of them are full pay from rich families in China, India and Korea. These kids are not coming for the quirkiness of the school. They are coming for the prestige, just like at the other schools. The Asian population is also sky rocketing. Pardon me for stereo-typing here, but these kids are very career and outcomes focused. They won’t waste time at a school where outcomes and careers are not up to snuff. All this changes the fabric of the school. UChicago is not Nerdville anymore. These kids have different priorities, outlook in life and views on college life and experience

I think the students who come to UChicago today are actually quite similar to students at Penn and other elite schools. Some come for the academics, others because they are legacies specially now that the prestige factor is so high, a significant number for careers. You can see that in the increase in the banking and consulting jobs at UChicago.

When the pool of the students is “similar”, how long can the culture remain “radically different?”

20

Just to highlight some important nuances of difference from the (secondhand) experience I was describing:

  1. Yes, Chicago is a lot better if you are 21. (And that's an important contrast with Philly, which makes a lot more accommodations for 19-year-olds.) But I'll bet there are very few Chicago students who care about that who cannot produce proof that they are 21 that works most of the time.
  2. Both of my kids spent a lot of time outside of Hyde Park with friends. One went to clubs, art galleries, and restaurants all over the city. The other would pop up to the Art Institute for a few hours as a study break (students are free), or get student rush tickets to the Lyric.
  3. One of my kids somewhat fits your description of people who liked social life at Chicago. He enjoyed playing strategy games. Scav was a big part of his life. He partied with people in his clubs. But they had real parties. And he had friends who were in frats, and he sometimes partied with them, too. The other kid wasn't like that at all. She had little tolerance for nerdiness. She was basically a hipster who hung out with other hipsters. She and her friends didn't feel like part of the mainstream at Chicago, but they didn't feel lonely or oppressed, either. They had a good time. And both of my kids did plenty of socializing at the Reg, because like everyone else at Chicago at the bottom of everything they were really interested in what they were studying and enjoyed being with other people who were also intellectually engaged.

During her first-year spring break, my daughter did a little tour of friends at other colleges, and reported that no one felt comfortable talking about their classes with their college friends. She couldn’t imagine living like that. And years later, sharing an apartment in Brooklyn with her college roommate, at one point she said, “We really only like socializing with people from UChicago and Yale. No one else ever wants to talk about ideas.”

  1. It's true, however, that neither of my kids had any interest in being part of a large, Penn State-like frat party scene. They both liked alcohol and other intoxicants, they both liked flirting and sex, they both liked dancing to loud music in dark rooms, but they never particularly enjoyed getting stupid, or being around other people who were. They didn't want to tip cows, or test the limits of consent, or tell war stories about that time they were so effed-up. That was high school to them. If that was part of the normal college experience, they never missed it. (By the way, I'm not so sure that was so unavailable at Chicago when they were there. I think that's how the Ultimate Frisby team/cult rolled, at least until they were kicked out of the apartment building they had taken over entirely for a decade.)

Honestly, after their first few weeks, neither kid was ever dissatisfied with his or her social life at Chicago, and I don’t think their friends were, either. That’s not to say @Cue7 is completely wrong, but a lot of those elements have moderated over the years so that they may not feel as oppressive to as many people