I got accepted last week and have yet to fully dedicate to attending next fall. I’m perusing this forum looking for more reasons to fall in love the school and one of my favorite things is in the Admissions Rates, Yields & Outcomes page which basically turned into alums and parents of students sharing stories about the university and the unique learning community there. I’d really love to hear some more!!! Stories are more powerful than statistics and rankings, and I’m looking for every possible to reason to convince my parents that U Chi will be worth it. And they don’t even have to be academic. Just share a story that shows why you love U Chicago. Thanks in advance!!!
Have you heard the one about Ida Noyes drowning in Lake Michigan? One of the best and most beloved - although it’s also entirely made up. Would love to know how old the story is because it was alive and well when I was on campus several decades ago.
@JBStillFlying Nope, I’ve never heard of it. Care to share?
Ask someone about the Lascivious Costume Ball. :devil:
Somehow, I suspect that stories about the Lascivious Ball may not serve the OP’s purpose here.
Lol. Tell them that you will be so busy working, that you will not have any time to get in trouble, because UChicago is one of the most rigorous schools academically 
Parents love that. It makes them feel that they are getting their money’s worth
LCB was cancelled by the admin. at some point. (Might have been resurrected by one of the student groups - not sure). Another great U of C tradition.
So, Ida Noyes. Many wonder why Ida Noyes Hall (1212 E. 59th in HP, right between I-House and the main quad) at one point had a swimming pool in the basement. When we would go inside Ida Noyes for various functions and activities, we’d be greeted with a lovely portrait of Ida Noyes herself on one of the landings. That portrait has since been stolen, probably to bury THE REAL STORY, which goes like this . . .
Ida Noyes was a young Co-ed at University of Chicago way back in its very earliest days. She was very wealthy but had poor social skills. Poor Ida tried to join one of the sororities but was rebuffed due to her awkwardness. Finally, one of the sororities put her through a hazing by having her swim in Lake Michigan while they rowed nearby. In order to be accepted, Ida went along with the haze, even though she couldn’t swim a stroke. “Swim, Ida, swim!” the sorority girls cried, while rowing along and otherwise refusing to help her. Poor Ida drowned.
Her grieving father was a benefactor at the university and his next donation was quite sizable but contained two conditions: 1) every student in the college must pass a swimming test in order to graduate; and 2) no sorority at the college could ever be allowed a real house in which to live. Until just the past year or so, the swim requirement was in place, and to this day no sorority has real estate in Hyde Park. Ida’s father had a large academic dwelling built and named after his late daughter (Ida Noyes Hall) and had the portrait installed as a permanent remembrance. To help ensure the swim test requirement, he had a swimming pool built in its basement.
I remember hearing the Ida Noyes story, in fact thought it was true. But, please, don’t tell me that Aristotle Schwartz didn’t exist! Here’s a piece that tells of his origins in the mid-fifties:
http://thecore.uchicago.edu/Summer2012/features/paper-trail.shtml
The story had morphed slightly by the 60’s. Having been escorted from campus by Administration goons intent on normalizing the student body, Aristotle had become a perpetual student and was rumored to have returned to the University under cover of darkness. He was said to be in hiding in the far reaches of the catacombs of Harper Stacks (then the principal library of the University), exiting only for the purpose of attending classes in philosophy and the Great Books. The Administration’s worst nightmare! Periodically we would see a wraith-like fellow walking around campus in a state of dishevelment and distraction. That’s him!
@marlowe1 I remember the story about the perpetual student. Funny thing is we knew a few of those in grad school! There was supposedly this sailor who would show up every spring when his boat docked in Lake Michigan, just in time to flunk his first-year PhD exams, and then head out again (presumably to sea). I actually did meet a few who took a LONG time to finish their PhD’s but never met the sailor.
We also thought the Ida Noyes story was true. We only heard a summary version of what I posed above.
Hahaha! These are all super entertaining. @JHS is right that this isn’t what I envisioned, but hey I’m down to be cultured in U Chicago mythology.
Ah, the swimming requirement. It was said that one of the great products of the University (I forget whom now - Carl Sagan possibly) never received his B.A. because he refused to satisfy that requirement. The reason he gave was that “it is uncivilized to remove one’s shirt during the daylight hours”. Speaking of which, in the days when I took the course (which was given then at the pool in Bartlett Gym, not Ida Noyes Hall) it was more than one’s shirt that one removed. We all did this thing buck naked, not a stitch of swimming suit allowed! I never got up the nerve to ask any of the women whether a similar prohibition was in force for them. That still seems exceptionally odd to me. Was there some democratizing idea behind it? Or was it a mimicking of English public schools? Or an echo of the “back to nature” ideas of the turn of the century?
Lascivious Ball has been resurrected
The OP could collect classic University of Chicago t-shirt slogans for his parents:
The University of Chicago –
– Where fun comes to die
– Where the only thing that goes down on you is your GPA
– If it was easy, it would be your Mom
– If I had wanted an A, I would have gone to Harvard
– Hell does freeze over
– Beat me, whip me, make me read The Iliad (University BDSM Society)
– ∫e(x)=0
@HydeSnark if the LCB returns to 1984 levels, I genuinely will be amazed. That was the most over the top party I ever went to, or heard of, anywhere. Naked people and bizarre costumes everywhere, a drag queen show in the third floor theater, porn films screening in the main lounge, grindhouse dancing in the gym, and an honest to god orgy going on in the basement pool. It was like all of the nerdiness and social cowardice of the U of C was squeezed out of the place for just one night, and everyone just went nuts. Out on the streets there were reporters from the Tribune and the Sun Times and every Chicago TV station trying to get inside or get footage of the madness.
And don’t forget those two wild and crazy dudes, Leopold and Loeb.
“and an honest to god orgy going on in the basement pool”
- Probably at Ida Noyes
Regarding the LCB, Here’s the 1986 column in the Chicago Tribune that appeared my first year of grad school. By the wonderful and ever-funny Mike Royko (my parents called me up about this, btw):
Edit to add: just re-read it. What a period piece! LOL.
@JHS, there was another slogan, though it pertains to the B-School and is a bit dated, given that it refers to the old name of Graduate School of Business (GSB):
BFD. We had T’s made with the same lettering, font, slogan look, etc. Till admin shut the project down.
http://www.snopes.com/college/admin/swimtest.asp
This seems to be a generic myth. Swarthmore, Harvard, Columbia have similar stories but apparently the Red Cross is to blame for the swimming requirements.
I still have a GSB t-shirt with Stuart Hall (where GSB used to be) in the front with the Chicago skyline as background. At the back it says:
MARKETS ARE EFFICIENT
IT’s THE PEOPLE WHO SCREW UP