Thanks very much, @caymusjordan! I will save those dates and hope to use them!
We are assuming 2/15 notification as we haven’t heard differently yet. Wish him luck. X_X
It is on web site ED2 is Thursday late afternoon.
Anyone know how to get into the facebook chat, do they know if you get accepted or not? Like if you request and they never accept you, does that implicate that you didn’t get in?
Once you are admitted, there is a tab on the Admitted Student site where you can request to join the admitted student 2022 FB group.
Can anyone who applied RD see their financial aid award on the portal? Or should I expect it in a few days? (SUPER EXCITED)
@californiaperson it says to expect them within two weeks of your decision
Heyyy my friend was wondering - does it say anywhere which major you are accepted to? She applied through common app so she told me she had 3 choices and she’s wondering which one she’s accepted to…
From what I’ve read, I don’t think it matters once you are accepted. I think the admissions group is looking at what you are thinking about majoring in as one more input in their desire to enroll a diverse class. A class full of Econ majors, would be a pretty bizarre student body. There is only one school at UChicago for undergraduates and that is the college. Just about everyone on the Facebook group says something like “I plan on studying X, but who knows…” Everyone pretty much spends the first two years in the same curriculum.
^^ True. You are admitted to the College, not to any particular major.
YMMV, but my D spent the first two quarters in nothing but Core. This quarter she starts the first class in her prospective major but the other three classes are all Core. Beginning 2nd year she’ll start another three-quarter Core sequence as well as three quarters of FL so half her schedule will remain as requirements. Others may put off Civ or another Core sequence till they go on Study Abroad - if D opts for Study Abroad she’ll be able to use those as electives (or as Core and switch her Civ in 2nd year to electives or Major). So even with the credit-intense Core and the FL, there are still a few options and you can really choose courses that interest you, not just that you have to “fulfill”.
D hasn’t decided 100% on a major yet - she’s just beginning to explore that now. However, she also did a lot of reading up on her areas of interest last summer before beginning at UChicago, in order to figure out when various majors typically begin. Some are so credit-heavy that you really need to start the planning right away, others are a bit more flexible. So don’t make any “major” decisions now but do spend your summer perusing the options and understanding when you would typically begin that course of study, what pre-reqs are required and so forth. The College Catalog Programs of Study is a great place to start:
http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/programsofstudy/
BTW, my D was one of those “Econ” majors on her application, but was never entirely sure - and now she’s starting to go in another direction. UChicago - or any top LA program, for that matter - accommodates those who need some time and experience on campus before choosing a major.
Note: Everybody does not spend the first two years on the same curriculum. That hasn’t been the case for at least 20 years, or whenever it was that they restructured the Core. (I think it was sometime in the 90s.)
In theory, the general education requirements, including the Core, could take up to 18 quarter-units to complete, which could be close to two academic years, but for most people would be more like a year and a half. But many people place out of some or all of huge chunks of that with AP or IB scores, or placement tests – the foreign language requirement, the math requirement. People who will be majoring in the humanities, and aren’t planning to apply to medical school, will meet their biological and physical science requirements in a very different way than anyone looking at a STEM major. Almost everyone takes some sort of math, but there are at least 10-12 different options for what math to take, ranging from remedial pre-calculus (which would have to be followed by at least two quarters of calculus), to a single quarter (the second) of the least demanding calculus sequence, to year-long inquiry-based honors calculus, to a year-long course that’s approximately the math equivalent of Navy SEAL training, to more conventional post-calculus courses, to options in statistics. And people take their Core courses at different times – some cram everything into the first two years, but some spread a few into the third or even fourth years.
Everyone does take a “Hum” (humanities) Core course first year for at least the first two quarters. There are six or seven different options, however, and although there’s lots of overlap in the reading lists for all of them, there are also differences, including sometimes differences from section to section of what’s supposedly the same course, depending on the instructor’s interests. The same is true of “Sosc,” which everyone takes for three quarters either first or second year. The Core definitely provides considerable commonality over the course of a few years, but it’s nowhere near the degree of lockstep that you would see at Columbia or St. John’s.
Meanwhile, people definitely start on their likely majors by the end of first year, and they really have to be doing that by the middle of second year. It is possible to switch later on, but not necessarily easy.
Has anyone taken a class given by Steven Levitt? Are his classes only for non Econ majors or can Econ majors also register for it?
What did you guys talk about for your why uchicago supplement?
Are all offers unconditional? (Are all students guaranteed admission regardless of the final grade?)
The short answer is “no.” The long answer is . . . longer.
Admission offers usually say that they are subject to continued satisfactory performance, or some phrase like that. Many colleges (but few of the elite ones like UChicago) expressly require graduation from high school. The colleges receive a transcript from the high school, and they review it. But there are never – or at least I’ve never heard about – specific standards for final marks, such as are common in Britain and elsewhere.
In practice, it is extremely rare, almost to the point of being unheard-of, for elite colleges to withdraw admission offers based on unsatisfactory academic performance in the last term of high school. If a student gets a couple of bad grades, he or she may get a letter from the college asking for an explanation. I know several kids who have been through that. One C, or any number of Bs, won’t likely trigger that; two Cs or any D or F probably will. However, acceptable explanations include things like “I had senioritis and didn’t feel like working” or “I fell in love and forgot to complete my assignments,” as long as they are accompanied by a promise to do better once in college.
What does happen, still rarely but much more frequently than never, is colleges withdrawing admission offers because of non-academic issues: school discipline, crimes, discovery of lying on the application. Admission offers have been withdrawn or delayed (i.e., the student had to wait a year, or wait until January), for things like getting caught with drugs on a school trip, racist posts online, killing your mother, and plagiarism.
Silly question. U of C is on the quarter system, and I see the course path for my D as Autumn, Winter and Spring. Are there courses offered in Summer, and are they needed? Do students spill over into summer to makeup or meet a double major? My daughter will be playing lacrosse there. They have a “Fall ball” season, very short 4 weeks or so, but the main season is February through May. I was thinking that would be a harder term because of training and traveling demands. Anyone have a student-athlete there?
@JHS this made me chuckle. My daughter showed up in my room last night with a long face, asking if UC would withdraw her acceptance if she gets 2 Bs, one in Calc BC and on in Physics BC. I kept a straight face, but barely;). Good that she is concerned! All I have ever heard is if there is a behavioral/legal/discipline issue with an accepted student, or total disregard for grades/failing.
There’s a small chance that grades would be taken into consideration for things like placement; however, the placement test and AP scores are going to count more.
Courses are offered in summer - most students wouldn’t need them. However, with an extended athletic season spanning two quarters during the academic year, it might be worth looking into just in case. It’s conceivable, for instance, that your student should take only three courses in the fall, in order to adjust to the fast pace of the quarter system, and then three each in winter/spring due to LaCrosse. In that case, Summer might be helpful. Keep in mind that this is just a theory, not a recommendation. Also, F/A (if applicable) would require a separate process as the normal academic year amounts are not extended into summer.
You can search for summer courses on the link below here to get an idea of what’s currently offered, and if you click on “College Core Requirements” on the right you can see what falls under “Core”:
Also, the Summer Language Institute runs accelerated courses that, among other things, satisfy the College FL requirement:
https://summerlanguages.uchicago.edu/
There are mixed opinions on whether to take summer courses. Some believe - and this is a good reason - that the students work very hard enough during the year so summer is a time to relax a bit and/or do an internship or PT job. Others have had kids do accelerated F/L in the summer with mixed results at the time. Hopefully those posters will weigh in again. In the end it’s going to depend on individual circumstances or interests.
We had mixed results with the summer foreign language course, to put it mildly. It only qualifies as “mixed” because it did satisfy the foreign language requirement; it didn’t satisfy anything else.
My kid placed out of the first two quarters of Latin, so he only had to take on quarter of Latin to satisfy the foreign language requirement. (NB: based on the placement test, which effectively was to translate three short paragraphs, each one representing the standard of completing one successive quarter, the standard for one year of Latin at Chicago was ridiculously high, much higher than it was for any living language.) However, he desperately wanted to learn a living language. After a lot of discussion, I agreed to a plan where he would take intensive Arabic during the summer (he had a part-time job in Hyde Park he could continue during the summer on irregular hours), but only on condition that he take Arabic II the following year. I don’t think a single year of any language is useful (except maybe Latin or Greek at the University of Chicago). Anyway, he did fine in Arabic I during the summer. But he lasted all of two days in Arabic II, because it was clear that the summer Arabic I had not covered all of the material that the regular Arabic I course covered. He might have been able to tough it out if he were willing to make Arabic the center of his universe, but he was also taking two lab courses. So, so long Arabic II, and so long actually retaining anything from Arabic I. It was a complete waste of time and money.