<p>There is a profile of Scav Hunt, titled "The Hunter Games", in the July 2 issue of the New Yorker magazine, written by an author who "embedded" herself in this year's Hunt. Here is a quick preview link-- you can view the whole article if you have a subscription (or relatively easily find a PDF copy online if you are a crafty Googler). </p>
<p>Four</a> Days at University of Chicago’s Scavenger Hunt : The New Yorker</p>
<p>How many of the kids from U Chicago participate? Is it like the Ditch day at Caltech where everything shuts down and the whole student body revels in the experience (probably tough to do over the longer time frame)? </p>
<p>Read several online articles about the hunt and read the items list for 2012, I love it!! Nothing like a bunch of really smart kids blowing off some steam!</p>
<p>There are varied levels of participation-- in some dorms (Snell-Hitchcock particularly) nearly the entire house participates and the environment is gripped by Scav for the four days, while others have some dedicated Scavvies and others who don’t know Scav is happening (except when they stumble upon something silly in progress). Two years ago Scav held a Guinness Book world record breaking event, for which 924 people were present at once.</p>
<p>The article says participation is around 10%.</p>
<p>10% seems really low. I’d say 10% are ferociously committed, and probably another 20% (at least) contribute in some way or another.</p>
<p>I don’t think the “ferociously committed” are anything close to 10% of the students. Maybe 200-300 people, some of whom aren’t undergraduates. But I agree that probably something like 1,000 students are involved to some extent during the hunt. Basically, the teams making a serious attempt to win – only 4 or 5 per year, and not that winning is really the point – have to have at least 100-200 people participating on some basis to do what they do.</p>
<p>Yeah, JHS - I forgot - the college has expanded a lot, but I’m not sure if the number of ferociously committed students has expanded too.</p>
<p>My 10% number came from my days at UChicago - when we had maybe ~3800 undergrads, and you had maybe ~100-150 people from Snell Hitchcock who were really into it, and then maybe ~50-10 from Burton Judson total, Shoreland, Pierce, etc. </p>
<p>Total, for 3800 undergrads or so on campus, you probably had about 300-350 really committed individuals for scav. Probably a shade under 10%, but around that percentage.</p>
<p>It depends on what dorm you are in honestly. I was on the BJ Team, and I would say 60-70% of people participated, and probably about 80-90% participated for Snitchcock. MacPierce probably had around 40-50% participation, but MaxP and South had very small numbers-probably way less than 10%.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the article yet, but I have talked to people who have, and apparently our very own “UChicago” makes a guest appearance in her non-virtual identity.</p>