Decided to start this thread so that the accepted students can start discussing queries, doubts etc. regarding what happens after being accepted and the process etc.
It would also be great if current students or other people can post their “latest” views on the various dorms etc. that will help all of us to select the right dorms?
Can someone please give views and the merits and demerits of being in Snell-Hitchcock Hall and Campus North Residential Commons?
I know that there are many similar posts, but it would be great if it can all be in one place over here
is there an FB page for accepted students???
Hi, guys, are you able to pay the enrollment deposit? I tried several different cards, none of which worked. It just says “Your payment was declined due to the following reason: DECLINE.” Does anyone else have this problem?
Yes. I could pay the enrollment deposit. Try logging out and logging back in to pay. I had a similar problem while sending my ACT scores. and it worked. Try doing that.
It works now. Thanks!
Great!!
Current student here.
Most people will be happy in any dorm. Stereotypes are stereotypes, and turnover can be upwards of 50% a year in some houses, so house/dorm culture can be difficult to predict. I would put must-have amenities ahead of house culture, because these things are known quantities - and I say this as someone who loves house culture.
If you’re an athlete, you will probably want a dorm near the gyms - North/Max/Snitchcock. Walking half a mile there and back from B-J/South/I-House (or a mile if you’re in Stony) isn’t much fun in the winter.
AC (which B-J/Snitchcock don’t have) is largely a nonfactor. 90% of days when you’d need AC occur outside the academic year. In the winter, housing cranks the thermostat waaay higher than it needs to be across the board (I actually have to crack open a window to stay cool in December) so the cold isn’t a concern either.
None of the dorms have a direct connection to a dining hall, but the walk can be anywhere from 10 yards (South/North) to 1/2 a mile (I-House) or a full mile (Stony - this is why many Stony residents cook in their apartments). Snitchcock and B-J are somewhere in the middle - each less than a block from the nearest source of food.
North has dedicated study spaces, as does B-J; I’m not sure about other dorms, but the house lounge is always a possibility (albeit with a high risk of distractions).
Fraternities are mostly near North and Max, if you’re into that kind of thing.
The CTA is most accessible from North (the 55 bus will take you to the Red/Green lines) or Stony (the #6 can get you downtown in 25-30 minutes). B-J and South have the 59, which can get you to the Garfield Red Line, but that only runs on weekdays for some reason. The 2 goes straight from B-J’s door to the Mag Mile (again, only on weekdays) while the 171 and 172 ferry students from campus to stores on 55th and/or restaurants on 53rd during the day. The CTA is great in general - the U-Pass delivers more bang for your buck than anything else the University requires you to pay for.
If you want to go to a lot of trendy shops/restaurants, those are mostly up on 53rd Street, but the CTA and campus shuttles make the distance mostly a nonfactor. Woodlawn (the area south of the Midway on paper, and south of 61st Street in spirit) is relatively underserved by campus shuttles because A. there are fewer amenities in the area and B. the administration tries to keep Suspicious Black Males out of Hyde Park - poor nonwhite folks might scare parents or (more importantly) prospective parents. So living nearby is a better bet than shuttles if you’re the activist type.
What are the stereotypes of North’s houses like? Are they too young to have developed one?
@calebhs Don’t worry about individual house stereotypes. They change too often (even in Snitchcock and BJ) to matter and you don’t get to choose your house.
North houses are uniformly pretty obsessed with Smash, though.
If I want to stay away from partying are there any dorms/houses I should avoid?
(a) Even if you deposit now, you don’t get to pick a house, just a dorm, so it’s kind of useless to worry about the reputations of particular houses within a dorm.
(b) As @DunBoyer said, by the time you get there next fall, half the people (or more) who were in the house you are assigned to this year will be gone. And when you are a second year, if you stay in the house, 95% of the people will be people who were not there this year. And the current reputation of the house is probably still somewhat a hangover from people who were there last year but aren’t there now; by spring the reputation will be different. Whatever the reputation of the house is this year, it will be changed by this time next year, changed more in 15 months, and utterly different 20 months from now. So even if your house assignment were something you could influence, it still wouldn’t make sense to worry about it.
© At least historically, the foregoing isn’t quite true of Snell and Hitchcock, although I think their brand has been getting diluted because of the appeal of the newer dorms.
@calebhs I’m now fairly convinced that every dorm has uniform rates of people that enjoy partying (anyone that thinks BJ is party free should have been on a certain floor of a certain house on the Saturday of third week this year…oy vey) - and there are houses in North (supposedly the party dorm) where very few people party.
It’s UChicago. Every dorm has fairly high rates of people that don’t like to get wasted every weekend. If you don’t want to party you’re going to find people that don’t want to party no matter where you’re living.
Pick based on architecture/amenities/location etc. Want your own bathroom? Max. Want a single? BJ. Want the new dorm? North. and so on.
Does anyone know if the College gives preference on picking housing for legacy students? Would like to live in the same house as my dad who graduated about 30 years ago. Mainly for nostalgic reasons, nothing else.
@f77a9b82 No
Is it possible (or ethical) to ask for more financial aid if they don’t provide enough?
@astrofan You can appeal your financial aid award by filling out a form located on UChicago’s financial aid website and emailing or faxing it to their office.
@astrofan Also, just to add to the residential hall conversation, I live in North currently and it’s a fantastic dorm! However, it’s definitely not for everyone. North is a very modern dorm, and the all-white walls can make things feel a little sterile sometimes. Each house has a color scheme that dictates the aesthetic of its lounge space, but that might not be enough to make it feel homey for some people. It’s also cold in the mornings. This doesn’t matter much during the 3-ish weeks that bookend the school year, but during the winter it’s pretty rough if you wake up early enough to feel it. And our dining hall is arguably the worst on campus, though I still eat there because I love my house 
How close your house is honestly varies from year to year, because a lot of second-years move off campus and there are only a few third- and fourth-year holdovers from the old Pierce and New Grad houses. If you get placed in North, don’t expect your house to be anywhere near as tight-knit as the ones in BJ or Snitchcock, simply because there are 100 people in each one. But it seems like roughly half are pretty close for their size.
@astrofan It’s always possible to appeal your aid determination. Whether you will be successful or not is another matter. To have a chance of succeeding, you really need to present a logical, fact-based argument that there is some mistake in their calculations, or some unique set of circumstances they haven’t taken into account sufficiently. Some gamesmanship can come into play, too (a better offer from a peer college, a credible threat to walk away from an ED admit), but you really have to offer an acceptable objective basis for any change in aid.
@f77a9b82 if your father graduated 30 years ago, does his house still exist? The houses in Snell-Hitchcock and some of the houses in BJ were in existence then, but the vast majority of current houses are less than 20 years old. As they have built or established new dorms, they have created new houses rather than moving the houses associated with the dorms being closed.