@85bears46 - I tend to like Helmut Jahn as well. We loved his proposed design for what became the Harold Washington Library and were pretty disappointed at the hideous thing actually chosen. Had to work nearby for a couple of years and gaze at it daily. However, speaking of Harry Potter, I now envision that building as a pink version of Gringotts and if they’d just add the fire-breathing dragon on the roof, it would look quite interesting. While it might at first be mistaken for a Universal Studios ride, it would no doubt attract thousands to the library and also provide some entertainment for those getting on or off the Eisenhower, or residing in the nearby Metro. Correctional Facility.
Ah, the Ad Building (later Levi Hall), unloved if only for its name, the scene of student occupations, the place you went (if you turned left upon entering from central campus) to obtain punch cards from the Registrar officially registering you into the courses you had signed up for, where (if you turned right into the Bursar’s Office) you got student loans and made tuition payments. There was even some sort of bank in the place because I remember lining up to withdraw cash and deposit pay cheques.
When I finally completed payment of my student loan roughly a quarter of a century after taking it out, a loans officer in the Bursar’s Office sent me a nice note congratulating me and returning the student i.d. that had formed part of my file. A guy with a heart can exist in any environment.
Along with its other unlovely features there was this glitch in the design - the building stood smack in the path by which one would normally exit the central campus for the bookstore - and hence there was always a regular flow of pedestrian traffic up the stairs on the east side, through the revolving doors, through the congested lobby (of people turning left and right on real business), out the revolving doors on the west side and down the stairs on that side - and then the process in reverse (lugging books). I noted, however, a couple of years ago that a simple and elegant solution to this problem had been effected - the building had been pierced by a tunnel, which incidentally produced a long westward vista looking through the building from the center of the campus (to match the one looking eastward through the newly created gate at the University Ave entrance). I don’t know when all that happened, but it was a fine idea - encouraging the eye to look THROUGH the building and not AT it. Certainly it was a much better idea than the original design for the ad building, which would have projected it as a concrete bunker into the center of the campus rather than lining it up with Cobb and the others on the periphery. It may be a sore thumb as it is today, but it would have been a concrete fist if that plan had been carried out.
In the discussion of UChicago dorms above I didn’t notice anything quite like the barrage of complaints that can be found on an 8-page thread on the Brown website entitled “Parents shock at Dorm Condition”. Though there were some defenders and some pooh-poohers most of the parental commenters echoed the OP in describing their shock at such conditions as “dirty walls, carpet and drapes”, “peeling paint”, “brown rusted air vent”, rooms “dingy, dark, dirty, depressing”, “couldn’t stand the smell - very stinky”, bathroom “filthy, stained, dimly lit, with dirty grout, stinky, tiles painted rather than replaced”, “not just old but very low level of maintenance”. And so on. Along the way similar comments were made about Amherst (“unimpressed”), Dartmouth (rooms “beat up”), Penn (“gross”) and even Harvard (“bad”). I gave up after about the fourth page of this, thanking my lucky stars I had never sent a kid to one of those hell-holes!
depends on the house. some fared better than others in the move
@tennismom7 Just read this and this is EXACTLY how we feel. It was SKETCHY how they misled us during the lottery, provided zero details and over-promised to get us to commit. On top of that the boosters claim we were supposed to somehow know the odds ourselves, know dorms don’t have AC, know the distance door-to-door to food commons? Give me a break. Better yet, give us I-House families that same $1500 off they apparently gave upperclassman to go to the Vue53 apartments.
@BrianBoiler That’s a bit dismissive about door-to-door distance concerns during a summer morning when it was 70 degrees and a light drizzle? How is that same walk at 0 degrees at 8am? Or 6 inches of snow and 11pm? And not just once during a leisurely summer day, but everyday for 7 months as an 18 year old girl. How is it when you forget something at home and have to quickly walk there and back? There’s nothing great about walking far further than all your classmates to food and class.
@coldbrew22 you are so right. I’m sorry for spending my Friday to help you feel better.
I’m curious who should live in IHouse? 3 of the 6 dorms dont have a/c. All one has to do is read the website. I’m not an alumnus my son and I had been to campus for an hour and a half and between reading the website and asking a couple questions during our tour we found out everything we needed to know.
Have any of the upset parents been to campus. IHouse is on campus. Go do your own experiment. Before you claim victim status at least try it out.
As far as 0 degrees at 8am, I’d be twice as quick. But I’m not a Floridian and have lived in winter my whole life. The point was there is little difference to the quad from North, South, or IHouse and to get a feel for myself on how safe it is. If you dont accept it, sorry. But, also accept my opinion that you are being unreasonable.
Count me in among the mystified as to how 0 deg. or 6 inches of snow is somehow going to slow you down. Ice is another matter but that’s not something to deal with till several months in. And it’s not like the sidewalks or streets are left unattended (though it’s possible to slip on very thin layers of ice!).
Chicago is a metro area with millions of people. Somehow they all manage to get to where they need to go despite the lack of 70 degrees throughout the year.
18 year old girls are just as capable as anyone else in getting to the dining hall or class in all sorts of weather. Learning to pack up her stuff and account for everything before taking off is a life skill. After all, someday she might have to commute several miles to work every day. Forgetting something at home or the office will get real old then.
We’ve been on campus a half dozen times, another visit isn’t going to alleviate the frustration. Google confirms it’s 0.7 miles EACH way to a meal swipe, no need to break that down into steps. It’s an isolated dorm, with a culture people have characterized for years as flat, and my daughter’s in a single. Pre deposit dialogue about housing with the college was misleading, and I’m not the only parent in this thread to feel this way. Information on the website about first-year spaces in each dorm was non-existent, so there was really no way to even make an educated guess about your chances. And we were led to believe most people get their top 3, yet curiously nobody mentioned that North Max and South were likely full before RDs and non athletes could even deposit. I’m sure just an oversight and not an attempt to hook everyone. Right. And paying the same exact fees as families in the better, in-house food, AC-equipped, far closer to campus dorms is a hard slap to the face.
And you boosters claiming same fees are to promote SES diversity are full of it. They’re charging us all the same fees for the worst, least requested dorm BECAUSE THEY CAN. They have us hooked and are taking full advantage of their leverage. It’s greed. Oh well, I guess the donation envelopes will be light. Or maybe my daughter will want to transfer out after a year. Guess we’ll see.
North has engineering woes aplenty. Half of Max smelled like sewage last quarter. South is as far from the quad as I-House. Snitchcock and B-J are full of weirdos like yours truly, and neither has A/C. Stony is everything you’re complaining about, taken to some sort of extreme. Off-campus apartments are dingy. Vue 53 has all the socializing and sense of community of the DMZ.
Complaining is easy (though doing so sight unseen takes dedication). People in each of these places like their corner of the woods enough that a majority will stick around.
We can play this game all year.
“We can play this game all year.”
I wonder if @coldbrew22 will make it that long. Hopefully her daughter will, assuming she likes it, and that one parent’s wrath won’t discourage her from continuing on.
Every college charges what they do because they can. Not much of a shocker there.
If the physicalities of the dorm experience make up the primary take away from a year on campus (not the friends you make or the classes you take), then I fear the U of C -or indeed most other schools- may not be the right landing spot.
DunBoyer cracks me up.
All I know is that when my son got his acceptance, we were jumping up and down, crying and laughing all at the same time. Being put in I-house would not have tempered that reaction at all.
@UCMom19 Good for you! Perhaps if Chicago was the only elite university recruiting my daughter, our standards would lower and we would put up with anything too. And I’m sure many families aren’t so keenly aware of the specifics of every dorm, so they may yet still be oblivious to the specifics.
@coldbrew22 - which other elite universities accepted your daughter?
This is starting to get interesting. I’m beginning to doubt you really exist, @coldbrew22 , as your posts become ever more insulting, outrageous, entitled and immune to every sort of evidence and reason. Or else you’ve simply had 22 brews too many. If anyone wanted to construct a perfect simulacrum of a Harvard reject disappointed to be at bush-league UChicago, they could do worse than read your posts.
Are you really so full of blind rage that you feel it’s acceptable to insult the child of a person who simply made a statement about their personal happiness?
@coldbrew22 - I empathize with your worry about your daughter. You have some valid points about the distance from your kid’s dorm to the dining halls. But attacking other parents and their children isn’t a good look and won’t help you or your child.
This is a hard time for all of us who are seeing our kids move away. We’re excited, worried, hopeful and emotional - this is normal. Everything is likely to feel “bigger” than it is. I’d like to respectfully request that you pause on the attacking. It isn’t helping you or your daughter and it’s needlessly insulting others who have nothing to do with the issues you mention. Your daughter surely feels the additional stress from your rage, even if you think you’re keeping it confined to yourself and this board, so it’s not helping her either.
Give it a pause for a few weeks. The decision is made, so take the path that increases your daughter’s chances of success and happiness. Enjoy her for the next week and a half. Help her move in. Meet some of her hallmates and try the walk around campus as a family. Operate as if it will be OK. Keep supporting your kid and keep an open mind.
And if by Thanksgiving your daughter still hates it and it all sucks, feel free to come back and blast away knowing you at least gave it your best chance to work. If you can keep the blasting directed where it belongs, you may even find that the other parents become your best allies in dealing with the college.