<p>So I am currently a junior in high school and U of Chicago has always been my dream school. However, i heard some rumors about the neighborhood around it is not that safe. And my mom told me that she heard one guy got robbed on the bus near U of Chicago, she is really worried about it and she doesn't even want me to apply for it.
Are these rumors true?
thank you!</p>
<ol>
<li>Hyde Park is a nice neighborhood. The Obamas, pre-Secret Service, were willing to live there with their two young children–I think that says a lot.</li>
<li>It is, however, a nice urban neighborhood, and, yes, there will be street crime. Occasionally people get robbed on buses! The chance that this will happen to you in your four years here is low, but it’s not zero, and if that bothers you then you should not attend an urban university.</li>
<li>The chance that serious harm will come to you is basically zero. In that regard you are in far greater danger from the students, faculty, and staff at your university than you are from some random thug on the street–that applies no matter where you go to school.</li>
<li>At some point you will get the “don’t walk west” speech: to the south and west of Hyde Park are some depopulated and, yeah, dangerous areas. Bad **** goes on there. You would expect this to bleed over onto campus territory–it doesn’t. There are numerous reasons for this but I don’t feel like talking about them right now.</li>
<li>Just follow common-sense rules–if they’re not common-sense to you now you will learn them quickly once you are on campus–and you will be fine. Probably. There’s an element of chance in there that can’t be removed. But that’s true for all things: do you drive?</li>
</ol>
<p>The houses in the immediate Hyde Park area start from half a million, even in this real estate economy, and go up from there. If you want an example of gentrification, this is a golden one.</p>
<p>A couple of weeks ago, two Harvard students were robbed, at gunpoint and knifepoint, one a couple of blocks from his house (dorm), the other right smack in the middle of campus. Now, that doesn’t happen every day, but it happens sometimes. Harvard, too, is in a nice urban area.</p>
<p>You can decide you don’t feel comfortable with the risks at Chicago, but then you probably should be crossing a whole lot of colleges off your list of places to think about applying: Harvard, MIT, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Georgetown, George Washington, Northwestern, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, USC, Vanderbilt, Tufts, Boston University . . . .</p>
<p>oh thanks for your information a lot. i wasn’t really worried about it but my mom was just paranoid about the safety issues. i guess every parent has that problem so i will just show her the information you provided.
thank you guys so much and i so want to go to U of Chicago!</p>