<p>[clears throat]</p>
<p>Er, anyway. Like people have said above, OP, any university will have students who have mostly negative/ambivalent feelings about it. These people are generally bad fits for the school, which is why they feel its flaws so acutely–imagine the stereotypical UChicago student, with the intellectual conversations and the quirky hobbies and the Marx, at–well, at a party school where everyone just wants to play beer pong.</p>
<p>There may be many good things about this large party school! They’ll let you take whatever classes you want–and, since you have lots of AP credit, you’ll be able to double or even triple major. You know you’ll be towards the top of the class, so you won’t feel like you’re constantly living in a pressure cooker, wondering if you can keep up with everyone else. Departments XYZ are pretty good, and if you’re assertive enough, you can do research with the professors. There’s a thriving extracurricular scene, and the parties are great, and so is the football team. And so on and so forth.</p>
<p>–but none of those things matter, or matter enough, to our hypothetical student. They’re bored out of their mind at the easy classes, they’re miserable that no one seems to want to talk about the things they’re interested in, and they can’t stand all these idiots who get ****faced drunk every weekend and throw up on the lawn. Do you see what I mean? The problems that our student sees with Large Party School are not just flaws, they’re important parts of the schools culture that a lot of people enjoy, or at least inevitable consequences of that culture. Changing them would require turning Large Party School into something it’s not, and alienating all the people who enjoy it just the way it is.</p>
<p>Similarly, the people who hate UChicago aren’t worked up in a froth about the bad food or lack of parking. They hate the Core and wish they could just take stuff they actually care about; they wish that the extracurriculars were stronger and that there was more school spirit, and GOD all these kids are so PRETENTIOUS with their trying to have deep conversations about a bunch of BS all the time, and why are they so socially awkward and what exactly is the POINT of lowering everyone’s GPA like this, all you’re doing is killing my chances of getting into med school. All these are valid criticisms! But the Core is an important part of Chicago, the difficulty of the classes is an important part of Chicago, and the pretension and awkwardness of some of the students is a direct consequence of trying to attract quirky and intellectual kids. In other words, it’s impossible for Chicago to accommodate these kids to an extent that would satisfy them. Their problem is with Chicago itself, the most important parts of its institutional culture.</p>
<p>IMO, Chicago gets more critics of this nature because it has a very distinct institutional culture, moreso than its peer schools, and because its culture is not one that suits a lot of students. (I mean, imagine making the same kind of criticisms about Brown. “I hate that it’s so easy to get an A here! And what is WITH this being able to take whatever you want?”) There will be more people here who are bad fits for the school, and the fact that they are bad fits will be more pronounced. But on the other hand, if you are the kind of person to appreciate them, the positive qualities of Chicago are as distinct as the flaws.</p>
<p>You just have to think long and hard about whether you’ll fit in here, s’all. I hope that answered your question.</p>