<p>I got a full ride for Tufts and I would like to pursue International Relations. I am worried about the academics at chicago and the social life....Where should I go? I have yet to hear from Chicago's finaid.</p>
<p>Both are amazing schools. U of Chicago was on my list as well. Thankfully - since I love Tufts and it was/is my first choice by far - I was accepted to Tufts ED. Tufts is definitely the place to be for international relations.</p>
<p>tufts has one of the best IR programs in the country</p>
<p>both are good schools.....U of Chicago students are know for being very competitive and intense whereas Tufts students are known to be more laid back</p>
<p>hope that helps</p>
<p>One of my friends said there was an awesome library within the University of Chicago where you couldn't tell what time of day it was. It's an academic powerhouse for sure.</p>
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<p>Wow! A full ride is wonderful.</p>
<p>I answered you over on the Chicago board, but I wanted to disagree (slightly) with Wishing Waiting. Chicago students may be intense, but they are not competitive in the sense of wanting to outdo their peers. They talk about academics but not about grades. </p>
<p>Again, best of luck crideme. You have great choices.</p>
<p>both great schools, but very different social and academic cultures. UChicago has a reputation for being cutthroat, but I don't know how much of that is actually true.</p>
<p>I'm laughing out loud here from my desk in Hyde Park.</p>
<p>If you knew me (and my friends), you would be laughing too. I am the last person in the world one would consider "cutthroat," considering that I forget the grades I got for the quarter three minutes after I see them posted and I don't want to take another standardized test in my life. I fit in at Chicago because I'm very academically motivated and I loved the idea of being around peers who, like me, also really like school and schoolwork. I obviously can't talk about my grades with my friends because I don't know them, and the only person I know to ever talk about grades in a social setting was very much disliked...</p>
<p>That's not to say that Chicago will be a better school for you than Tufts, but it is to even out this bizarre "cutthroat" myth.</p>
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<p>It really depends, I think the above poster's comments sums whats stereotyped as the experience at Chicago: that students are very much into school and academics (while not being cutthroat). If it were me I'd probably go to Tufts, I prefer a more collegiate, east coast experience with a suburban campus, and then to Chicago for law or business school! I know Tufts has a dedication to undergraduate teaching, I would look into seeing if its the same at a school like UChicago where their graduate programs are powerhouses!</p>
<p>I've never been to Chicago, but my impression of it was that it was a school whose students didn't really care so much about rank and prestige, they just wanted really intense academics, and a setting where academics permeated the social life, too - like, people there would just want to talk about what they were learning in their classes. Which is great! I'm a fan of that to some extent. And given that we have someone here who has gone to UChicago, perhaps they can weigh in on to what extent that's true - do kids only care about academics, or do they get involved with other on-campus activities too?</p>
<p>The people that have gone to Chicago from my school don't do much to dispel the stereotype - one was salutatorian and focused only on schoolwork; one was advanced a few years in math and science classes, and then did outside science classes online, and eventually had enough credits to skip JUNIOR YEAR...so she was deadset on gettign the hell out of my town as fast as she could to dive into more books; and one you might recognize from the documentary Spellbound, he was the kid who got out on "banns". He is really into academics, and when once asked in 8th grade to pick a number from 1 to 25, he said "Pi." When the teacher attacked him for being insolent, he said "WHAT? You didn't specify that it had to be an integer!" LOL. Anyway, yeah, based on the people I know who went there, it only reinforced my idea of the school. However, I could be TOTALLY OFF. I also met a girl who goes there through a housemate, and she's really cool, has a 3.9 GPA, helped do research for premiere economists there, and is heading into a job with the National Bureau of Economic Research (or whatever the acronym NBER stands for), so it sounds like excelling there will lead you to great opportunities.</p>
<p>I think both schools attract students who love to study but who are more competitive with themselves than with each other, which is rare at top schools, I think. Both are not party schools, but Tufts may have a slightly more vibrant social life, given what I've heard from my friends who went to Chicago.</p>