<p>The type of people being admitted to the University of Chicago is changing. A new director of Admissions has changed the profile of the type of person being accepted. In the past, super smart but socially awkward students were admitted and to help them, the school used a 'house system' to enforce a rigid structure to socializing at the school. The system is outdated and if you choose this school, you might just find yourself wishing you had gone somewhere else. </p>
<p>Don't listen to the tour guides who sing the house system's praises. Here's what the house system will could mean for you as a firstyear at UC:</p>
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<li><p>You will spend your orientation week with a very small group of incoming freshmen. You will not have the opportunity to meet anyone beyond this group for the first week of school. Insecurity will lead to forced friendships based on necessity instead of common interest. You'll need to make a social connection among this small group. The house will break into small groups and you had better find one.</p></li>
<li><p>You will have to eat with your house all year. You might think the dining hall will be a place to meet people and have discussions or whatever. You'll eat with the same small group you are part of and always with the people in your house. Don't like some of them or would like to make more or different friends? Forget it. The tables in the dining hall are labeled by house and you'll have to eat at your table. There are always a few unlabeled tables but you can't realistically eat there because everyone at your table will think you're being an A-hole. You will eat with these same people no matter what. If you go to a different dining hall, you won't find the unlabeled tables and can't eat with another house unless invited. Your friends at the University of Chicago have chosen your primary social network for you and you had better make it work within that limited group.</p></li>
<li><p>Your dorm might be big and there might be plenty of guys (or girls) that you might become friends with but you won't get the chance. They are socially pressured to stay in their pack and can't/won't get to know you. If you're unhappy with your house or group, good luck next year, the cards are stacked against you.</p></li>
<li><p>You might make friends in class or in a club, but it is unlikely because, remember, they have to eat and socialize with their house. If they don't, the people who live around them in their dorm will, because of their insecurity, become hurt or insulted. The system is set up to assure that you (and any potential friend) has a vested interest in not making friends outside the house.</p></li>
<li><p>You won't find the people who are unhappy in their house (like you are with yours) because they're playing the game with their little group (just like you) because they have to. The firstyear dorms are far away from each other and if you manage to meet anyone from Max or the other side of campus, they are going to eat where they do with their little pack and that's all there is to that.</p></li>
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<p>Think of it this way, UC nerds; if the Sorting Hat had sent Harry Potter to Slytherin, he would have never been friends with Ron or Hermione. He would have been lost and have had no access to the rest of Hogwarts because that's the way the school would have wanted it.</p>
<p>There's no magic hat at UC, just some administrative secretary picking your friends based on when you paid your deposit.</p>
<p>I will ignore the undercurrent of “bawwww I hate everyone” running through this post and just focus on the facts:</p>
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<p>Wrong. There are plenty of opportunities to meet people during O-Week–it’s not like anyone is forcing you to stay in your dorm with your House the whole time.</p>
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<p>Uh, it is far more likely that no one will notice (they may notice that they never see you at the dinner table, but not where you are sitting), but whatever.</p>
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<p>Laughably wrong.</p>
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<li>It’s really not that hard to find the unlabeled tables, man.</li>
<li>No, you generally don’t sit at someone other house table unless someone invites you, but, uh, that happens all the time. Literally, by the end of O-Week we had people bringing people from other houses to our table.</li>
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<p>Also wrong. People from the dorm come into our house lounge all the time; people in our house also go visit other houses all the time.</p>
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<p>Dude, if I, the Antisocial Wonder, can make friends outside my house, so can you.</p>
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<p>First of all, what first-year dorms? Second, BJ and South. Max and Snitchcock. Max and Pierce. All a block or less from one another.</p>
<p>I understand that all of it is anecdotal and every house is different, but don’t pretend that your blissful UC experience is common. Look around you the next time you’re eating. There are people sitting there that wish they weren’t and feel like there aren’t a lot of options. There’s no ‘I hate everyone’ to them.</p>
<p>I noticed that you didn’t mention all of the reasons that you love the house system. Telling me that I’m wrong is easy, proving you’re right is harder for you, I guess.</p>
<p>I like it here but I hate the house system trap. I wish someone had explained it to me back when I could have used the information. I would have accepted earlier and maybe gotten into a better dorm.</p>
<p>I won’t even risk the ‘hater’ label again by telling you what I think of Hyde Park. I guess its wonderful too.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to eat with your house, here’s the simple solution: Don’t eat with them. They won’t think anything of it, I promise. They won’t think you’re antisocial or a jerk. If anything, they simply won’t care. (No, honestly. It’s kind of like walking down the street and noticing that someone’s zipper is unzipped. That person will be mortified, of course, but at the most, you’ll probably spend five minutes thinking about it, but then you’ll forget because there’s no point to taking up space in your hard drive storing information like that. You’ve got better things to think and worry about.) I’m a current second-year and I can say that I’ve eaten alone for 90% of my meals (and will continue to do so) simply because I don’t like conversing while eating. And guess what? It’s been better than fine. My house doesn’t care who I eat with. If you’re still worrying about this, the easy solution is to bring a book and pretend you’re busy catching up on reading. Nobody will bother you, then.</p>
<p>This is such bull. UChicago, like every other decent university in the world, is exactly what YOU make it, academically and socially. If you make the house system a social prison, then yes, it will be a social prison. However, the house system is not responsible. You can isolate yourself, or get stuck in a bubble all by yourself. Did you not go to high school?</p>
<p>You guys are awesome! There I was wondering why such a good university has set things up (unlike almost all great colleges) so that a first year student is arbitrarily plugged into a limited social network and you guys really straightened me out.</p>
<p>College is what I make of it! Brilliant!</p>
<p>Don’t eat with people if I don’t want to! Why didn’t I think of that?</p>
<p>Thank you so much. I was hoping for an intelligent discussion on the house program but I was really unprepared for the outpouring of intelligence and deep-thinking that I got instead. </p>
<p>I can’t tell you how much your words mean to me. I feel like enlightenment and insight has filled the void in my heart and I am a new man.</p>
<p>Remember that you are in control of this situation. If you don’t like how things are now, change it. Get it done.</p>
<p>Not meaning to preach, but life will be full of more difficult challenges and the more you realize that you have the ability to change things, the better off you will be.</p>
<p>Don’t take no for an answer from the administration if their response doesn’t satisfy you. Only you know what will make you happy so map out your strategy and do it, whether it means transferring to another dorm, moving off campus, or transferring to another school.</p>
<p>You weren’t looking for an intelligent discussion of the house system, you were looking for everyone to agree with you, and just won’t accept that maybe, just MAYBE you have the minority view. I personally love sitting with my house table, but many times I’ve sat at other house tables, or unlabelled tables with friend I met and class and that I knew from before. I actually really love the house system. My house is pretty close, but never exclusionary. People from other houses sit with us too. And the alternative of no house tables is not fun. (I’ve experienced 2 years at another university without a house system.) Without a house or dorm table, before you go eat every time, you either need to text a bunch of people or round up your friends before you leave if you don’t want to sit by yourself. </p>
<p>Instead, here we always have a table of friends to st with whenever you want to eat (which is convenient because everyone’s work schedule is so different.) And never have I noticed someone sitting at the table looking like they wish they were sitting somewhere else. Probably because if they wished that, they WOULD be sitting somewhere else. It’s not difficult. I don’t know why you see it as such a non-option.</p>
<p>Things change. Eventually people like me find our way to a different table…and it just took me longer than most, I guess.</p>
<p>Still, I stand by my basic premise which is that the house system hampers a first-year’s ability to encounter other people and make friends. Social pressure exists that discourages people from socializing outside their house. The same social pressure makes it awkward for other people to meet you since they may face the same pressure. </p>
<p>I just wish I had not felt obligated to be part of my house. In my world, people do care if house members stray. Some want to stray.</p>
<p>Admittedly, I am now several years removed from the school, but when I went there it was fairly taboo to not eat / congregate with your people. The exception was Max-P, where freshmen kind of roved across the whole Bartlett dining area like gossipy high school students. At that time, I felt that being placed (or not placed) into Max-P had a disproportionate impact on your social life as a first year, but no matter… </p>
<p>Anyways, I was in one of the more balanced houses where freshmen were only a 1/3 of the population, and as noted, failing to eat and socialize with the other people did get you labeled a jerk pretty fast. It seemed fine to be antisocial – to be the kid who gives the obligatory wave / smile and the eats with his head in a book – but if you congregated with other people it raised a serious eyebrow (particularly so if there was some overt bond like philosophical affinity, ethnic background, etc.). This also carried over to things like study breaks, weekly house meetings, birthday parties, and special events (e.g. scav). Personally, I just found the social life underlying the house system to be fairly banal, and could not bring myself to waste several hours each week gabbing with people who I thought little of. Obviously, those whose company I valued I connected with on other terms, but again, not without a certain amount of derision. </p>
<p>All-in-all, while I am not huge on sororities or fraternities, I do think it is a bit odd to presume that young adults are going to enjoy being forced into a social environment where the only common bond at its face is an administrative lottery (particularly if they just came from high school where voluntary social assortment is a given). Realistically, there are just some people that are not going to get along with each other, and asking them to tolerate one another in the classroom is already a tall order. Having that superficial cordiality carry over into all aspects of life can become really annoying, to say the least. </p>
<p>That said, you only have to put up with it for one year, which is pretty much the norm at most selective colleges (which feature a forcing function for freshmen of some sort).</p>
<p>I agree with Rny & with your comments about the house system. I’m a first year and became quickly disillusioned with my house & the system by second week. I’m at a loss trying to figure out how to meet people I truly like & belong with…the usual means (parties, RSOs, classes) have failed me miserably. Any advice? or do i become a hermit?</p>