<p>I want to be somewhere where people are fiercely, intellectually curious, where I’ll be embraced for waxing philosophical about books, and where I live and learn with people like you guys. I just want to get in so badly! Good luck to everyone</p>
<p>@ElPsyCongroo
To answer your question at the risk of sounding contrived and a little cliché, I am most attracted to the Life of the Mind at Uchicago. I honestly believe that the students at Chicago are not only there to learn, but love to learn for the sake of learning itself. Even more though, I get the sense that many at Uchicago also want to do something great with what they learn and effect peoples lives in a positive manner, they see themselves as citizens of the world. Does that make any sense?</p>
<p>The core. I will probably suffer but I want to challenge myself and force myself to look at things from different perspectives.</p>
<p>Guys I’m hungry for some Sofrita. Sorry to get food involved. But up North they have Sofrita in Chipotle. Ever so more than in the South. Random info. XD</p>
<p>I am looking forward to UChic’s administration and who actually writes all those emails to us because they are hilarious. //nerd alert//</p>
<p>@sofritachipotle you got me reply to this thread after seeing your profile picture and your post. I am hungry.
I am in love with the quirkiness of UChicago, from its strict academic atmosphere to the essay questions. It’s just good to spend four years busy thinking not drinking and drunk driving. The coffee shop in the basement of the religious studies dept building is one of my fav, by the way.</p>
<p>@sofritachipotle Lol this is probably such a dumb question but what exactly is Sofrita? All of my friends are Chipotle addicts but I’ve only eaten there a couple of times haha</p>
<p>Howdy from Texas! Hope everyone is doing well, good luck to each and every one of you! </p>
<p>@JustinTheory UMich is a fine school by all standards, I am not trying to trash it (sorry if it came across that way). It def deserves its public ivy status and yes you do have a good point on the rigor. However, I don’t think the two are similar. UMich has a very loose “liberal arts” schematic in LSA. You can just pop in some AP/IB credits and slop through a good chunk of classes if you take many APs or IBs. With this, it doesn’t offer the deeper thinking and passion that UChicago evokes. The CORE is a must for this, as it connects all the branches and takes students to the trunk and roots of the Tree of Knowledge, instead of isolating them at the uppermost branches. That’s why a lot of people on this forum applied to Columbia as well, for its CORE (albeit different from UChic, it’s still a CORE). We want that deeper and higher level of thinking. We want to see cross studies and cross fields connect. We want to challenge ourselves and be well rounded. UChicago offers this marvelously. And, as someone else mentioned, CHICAGO. The opportunities and resources are endless here. Ann Arbor is a great town, but it cannot match the resources and tools that Chicago itself opens to us. I’ll try to see if I can find the direct quote, but I know that UChicago is rising so fast as a powerhouse that the Dean of Admissions for Columbia (I think) acknowledged UChicago as the “Next Great American Institution” in a writing sample or a public release a few years ago. Finally, academic record and uniqueness aside, you are the final reason I am applying to UChicago. I want to meet amazing people in college, and UChicago is infamous for its student population. UMich has a good student population no doubt, but a lot of those people are probably sports crazed fans and others who aren’t as…dedicated (for a lack of a better word) as we are. As for the arrogance, you have a point, UMich is larger so statistically my chances of meeting an arrogant or prudish person is higher there due to sheer numbers. However, the campus just has this feeling I cannot shake. That, and I was so impressed with how nice and sincere UChicago people are when I visited this summer. You would think that having so many world class students in a place would create a snobby and stuck up atmosphere with students you wouldn’t like to meet, but it was the exact opposite. The air was practically charged with excitement and I could see the genuine excitement on students all over campus. UChicago may have been originally known as “Where fun goes to die,” but with that death UChic has been reborn, rising from its ashes, and becoming a true force to be reckoned with. Agh, this speel makes me fall even more in love. Sorry about that, JustinTheory. But do you understand what I am trying to say? </p>
<p>@Applicant15
Well put, I certainly agree with you in all respects. If nothing else, I am trying to change my mental image of Michigan in the event that it is indeed where I end up. With that said, I have a very similar idea of Chicago as a heaven for intelligent, inquisitive individuals who’d rather discuss the sit in a lecture hall and stare blankly, but I can’t help but wonder if I’ve built it up to much in my head? I absolutely believe Uchicago is the closest any university is to that sort of environment, but their admissions are also masters of advertising ( they were able to drop their acceptance rate from 30 to 8-9% in less than a decade ).
Either way, I’m exceptionally excited/nervous/what have you, and Uchicago remains my #1.</p>
<p>You said you visited this summer, you didn’t happen to attend the summer session did you? (Sorry to harass you with questions, but what school are you from, you mentioned you’re from michigan?)</p>
<p>Hey everybody, I know I am 34 pages late to the game, but I’ll join on in anyway. Greetings from CA. </p>
<p>I read most of the thread but I didn’t see many who picked “What’s so Odd about Odd Numbers?”. I am curious how some of you may have tackled that prompt—maybe creatively, analytically, or both. I had a lot of fun just thinking about that one, but the end result was less ambitious than I had liked it to be. After a while, I realized this was a psychological/philosophical question that warranted more than just a statistical, or even mathematical, answer. </p>
<p>On a unrelated note, I am also curious how many statistics majors are on this thread. It would be fun to chat about stats, regardless of outcome. </p>
<p>Good luck to everyone!</p>
<p>@mjordanw21 I’m also from CA! What area you from?</p>
<p>I think I saw that someone did the odd numbers prompt but I can’t remember who… he or she related odd numbers to hipsters if I remember correctly. </p>
<p>@mjordanw21 I did the odd numbers one and took a risk by writing a short story from the perspective of one! I still like my essay after reading it a month later, but I’m not sure it was necessarily what they were looking for since I didn’t talk about myself at all.</p>
<p>@alleycat2 That actually sounds quite interesting!</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, how many people wrote something for the optional favorites essay?</p>
<p>@wethemusicmakers I’m SF-ish. You? </p>
<p>@alleycat2 That’s definitely creative and ambitious! I never addressed myself personally, either. I did a statistical analysis concluding that numbers, in general, cannot simply be viewed on the mathematical level because human interpretation and interaction introduces biases in ways that can influence our behavior.</p>
<p>Anyways, the thought process is supposed to show how you think and who you are. If you like your essay, then that’s a good sign that it is a genuine reflection of you. </p>
<p>@JustinTheory I did the optional essay on my favorite book/character/archetype, and I probably got carried away. It was supposed to be a laundry list, right?</p>
<p>@mjordanw21
That’s a possibility, honestly you could probably get away with anything so long as it’s in English and not a short novel. Joking aside, I’m sure you’re fine.</p>
<p>Your essay actually sounds very close to something I wrote for the ‘odd numbers’ prompt, how did you connect human bias to the idea of odd numbers?</p>
<p>@JustinTheory I did the favorites essay but in bullet point form. I expounded on a few of the things on my list :)</p>
<p>@mjordanw21 That sounds so cool! Definitely seems like something that could get you accepted… it sounds super interesting! I would like to read yours if we both get accepted haha! And I think it seems kind of half and half for everyone on here between writing laundry lists and essays for the favorites</p>
<p>@JustinTheory Interesting, I figured a good amount of people would go down that route. Feel free to ping me through DM—happy to share more there. </p>
<p>@ElPsyCongroo I want to go to UChicago because I think there’s no other university in the world with such an absolutely passionate culture of learning. I mean, being surrounded all the time by people who are genuinely curious is something that I still struggle to wrap my head around. It would be amazing. I’m about to rewrite my entire Why UChicago essay so I’ll just stop because you don’t want to read it and I don’t want to think about it too much when I barely have a shot at all. </p>
<p>@mjordanw21 I wrote a list with short descriptions of each thing. If it had to be a particular format, they’d tell us, and it sounds like your essay really expresses your passion for something which is definitely a good thing!</p>
<p>@JustinTheory i do heavily agree with @applicant15 on umich. maybe it’s just me because i have an urge to get away from michigan, but the caliber of the umich students (not all of them, just from observation) does not appear to be as high as uchicago’s. my high school doesn’t send kids to top schools. the smarter people go to umich. some of them are very intelligent, of course. but the in-state boost also allows the acceptance of the slightly less accomplished who love to party and just tailgate for football games. the difference between the in-state and out-of-state applicants is bigger than you think, or at least that’s my experience with my school and reading college confidential. the differences between the two schools are the culture and the number of students (which isn’t really a bad factor unless you dislike big places. i don’t mind it). while ann arbor is a very nice city and it would enjoy going there for college, chicago is very different (and even more appealing to me than ann arbor!).</p>
<p>i feel like i really shamed the school here. these points are definitely just the minuses though. the pros outweigh the cons, and i am hoping that im accepted to the coE!</p>
<p>@justintheory: I did! I mentioned my favorite artist (with an EC link) and my favorite tv show (hahahaha) and somehow managed to draw a link between the two LOL</p>