So I’ve been luck enough to be accepted into both The University of Chicago and Columbia University and I plan to major in economics. From what I’ve researched I know that Uchicago’s economics program is one of the best in the world. Additionally, Ive also heard that Uchicago does a great job in helping its students get internships. Obviously these two factors have a strong influence on where I would go to school and i would love to get more insight on Uchicago’s economics department and internship/employment opportunities. Thanks so much 
Congrats! That s amazing, they are both great schools so either way you will be receiving a great education! Chicago does have a very famous economics department, indeed, it is one of the best in the world. Colombia does have the ivy league brand name attached to it. Either way you’ll be receiving a great education!
Also, I intend to work in marketing and advertising, so how good is uchicago at feeding into these fields?
Columbia. At Chicago, students spend a lot of time talking about the Ivy League and reassuring each other that they are just as good. It goes tiresome. And NYC is nice that Chicago.
I would go to the school you like the most. The curriculums at both schools will be challenging and both schools are well respected. I think the facilities, campus and administration are nicer at UChicago, but prestige obsessed people would tend to favor Columbia at this time, especially if they are obsessed with the ivy league name and/or want to work on Wall Street. However, you have to decide where you think you will be happiest because you will likely be spending four years at the school you choose. I presume you visited both schools? If you are a big city person and love Manhattan, then Manhattan and Columbia would be the place for you. If you like a campus environment with the opportunity to go into a big city once and a while, then UChicago may be the place for you. A lot of people who end up at UChicago opt to go there over comparable ivy league schools. Some at UChicago may be insecure about not attending an ivy league school, especially some who prowl on this site, but I think for the most part the student body at the school is very nice, inclusive and happy . I don’t know how it is a Columbia. Best of luck with your decision.
If you want a sense of some of the differences between Columbia and the University of Chicago – otherwise very, very similar places – read this article about a woman who went from a faculty position at one to the other. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/14/the-petition Similar stuff has also happened with another Chicago to Columbia transplant, Rashid Khalidi (who attracted extra attention for his friendship with the Obamas in Chicago). Personally, I would rather go to college in the atmosphere at Chicago, but there are those who would prefer Columbia.
The piece in the New Yorker says a lot about the offstage political pressures at Columbia. However, without having any opinion on the merits of the situation described, I have some skepticism about whether we’re getting an unvarnished tale here. The author of the piece seems to have fallen in love with the protagonist.
I have read of some very intense intramural feuds there as well. Not long ago half the English department was not speaking to the other half, and this too made it into a piece in the New Yorker.
These high-tension dustups at Columbia may have something to do with being roughly at the center of the universe, so that campus shenanigans wind up in the pages of the New Yorker rather in those of the Hyde Park Herald. If the mattress-toting Columbia student had been at Chicago, would her mattress have launched all those news stories and taken her to stardom and a degree in performance art?
You either love this sort of stuff or you don’t. Chicago has always had very bright and intense types from the east coast, but there’s an underlying Midwestern earnestness, if not plainness, that gives the place its essential tone.
That was exactly my point, marlowe1. At Columbia, there’s quite a lot of playing to the bleachers, and many people – faculty, students, administrators, and especially alumni – are thinking about How Everything Will Look To Others. Plus all of the media and most of the donors might just as well be on campus all the time. That produces a lot of grandstanding. Chicago has more of an ivory tower feel, and the premium is on civil debate, not on showing off for any community outside the university. There’s a wide range of ideological positions among the faculty and students at Chicago, but getting caught being strictly ideological without a firm basis in fact and logic is a terrible faux pas. People actually listen to one another, respond to their points, acknowledge good ones, adjust their positions. As a result, hardly anyone there is a doctrinaire anything. It’s lovely, and very impressive to witness.
I couldn’t agree more, JHS. There is a notably different ethos at UChicago than at most East Coast Ivy League schools, and it has a lot to do with exactly the qualities JHS notes. Personally, and as someone who has lived in Boston for the last 30 years, I love the less doctrinaire, less ideological ethos of a place like UChicago. It has its limitations, perhaps, but IMO they’re far less serious than those of the East Coast alternatives.
lol you really have no clue what you’re talking about. What you’re saying would be a better description of a place like Northwestern or Johns Hopkins because I can assure you that the vast majority of people give little thought to whether they are better or worse than HYP.
What you notice most about Chicago is that they are forever referencing Ivy League colleges, or telling you how they are just as good or even better. Contrast this with most Ivy League colleges where they never talk about other colleges. UChicago students are amazingly insecure, for no good reason.
Moral to the story: do you really want to go to a place where people are so defensive?
People at Ivy League colleges never talk about other colleges? Are you crazy? People at Harvard are constantly dumping on Yale…
And for the millionth time, what you say about UChicago students is simply not true.