Sorry, Clery Act.
Thanks for the comment. My daughter does not live in the Chicago area so I’ll have her try an overnighter to see how she feels on campus. She is not worried about the neighborhood.
My experience with lots of people who live in the general Chicagoland suburbs is that they have absolutely no idea what Hyde Park is like. They don’t spend any time there, and their attitude is largely shaped by stories they heard 20 years ago – like some of those repeated here – or by what they may glimpse out the window of their cars from the Dan Ryan, miles from Hyde Park itself.
It’s an integrated urban neighborhood. It’s obviously affluent. People who are not affluent are allowed to pass through it on public roads. There are lots of peer colleges in similar neighborhoods, including Columbia, Penn, Brown, Hopkins, USC, Berkeley. I’m not certain MIT, Harvard, and Tufts are so different. Yale, which is right in the middle of downtown New Haven, is arguably worse. People worry about all of the above, because they worry, but the kids there are generally safe, at least from the outside world.
There’s a lot of the same dynamic with the Penn neighborhood here. People who live in the area but never go there have a bizarre idea what it’s like, including people who were undergraduates at Penn but cowered on campus because they were afraid to leave. A few years ago, I had to spend a day going door to door in an area about a mile from Penn with an off-duty cop, interviewing people. On our way there, he was telling me what a terrible neighborhood it was, and I told him I had lived there for a decade (although at that point I hadn’t lived there for 15 years) and he was going to be surprised. He was surprised. It was, as it had been, a lovely, friendly, integrated neighborhood with strong social cohesion. Hyde Park is like that, but nicer.
“My experience with lots of people who live in the general Chicagoland suburbs is that they have absolutely no idea what Hyde Park is like. They don’t spend any time there, and their attitude is largely shaped by stories they heard 20 years ago – like some of those repeated here – or by what they may glimpse out the window of their cars from the Dan Ryan, miles from Hyde Park itself.”
I think you’re absolutely correct in this assumption. There is little reason for your average Chicagoland suburbanite to go to Hyde Park unless they have a personal connection there, and so the strides that it’s made in recent years (and the presence of affluent people there) largely escapes notice. One of the reasons, though, is because there is really little retail and relatively few restaurants which would draw non-locals in.
@JHS, I’ve visited friends and/or attended admitted students days at Columbia, Penn, Hopkins, and Chicago…and attend Yale. Not sure how anyone could conclude that “Yale is arguably worse” now in terms of feeling safe compared to these 4, unless the emphasis is on the arguable part (I know you are a Yale alum, maybe things were different then?). Safety was something I considered when deciding on where to attend and NYC, Philly, Baltimore, and Chicago are most definitely big urban cities and the college campuses are amongst those cities.
How often do you leave campus, @cttwenty15 ? How often are you more than a block or two from a building Yale owns? There isn’t a whole lot going on in New Haven outside Yale, so the issue of safety in the surrounding community isn’t very important to Yale undergraduates. The campus is, and feels, very safe. (So does Wooster Square, for that matter, or running to East Rock – the only places that aren’t Yale where people I knew went regularly.)
Chicago is more interwoven with non-university stuff in Hyde Park than Yale is in downtown New Haven, and of course there’s a LOT more to do off-campus in Chicago, so more people are doing it. So they have more exposure to the surrounding community. That’s also true at Penn, but to a lesser extent, and not true at all at Columbia, where you can get on the Broadway subway line without crossing a street.
If you chose Yale because you thought it was a lot safer than Chicago, Penn, or Columbia . . . well, you lucked out! You chose the right school for the wrong reason. All’s well that ends well . . .
The campus is safe and gorgeous, @JHS, but your points are well taken, and let me redirect this thread back to the OP before the hijack police are called. @Greta65, Your concerns are completely valid. These are personal decisions and one person’s definition of urban delight can be another’s urban terror. I found that overnight visits after acceptances not only sealed the deal for me, but also for my mom. Ignore the pomp that abounds during these days, and your D and you will quickly begin to have a feel for which university is the right place. Until then, D should cast a wide net, as this process is a crap-shoot (unless holding a LL), and school preferences can change between October and May.
If you’re interested in safety at UChicago, read “The Geography of Fear: Perceptions of Safety in Hyde Park, Chicago” in this issue: http://sociology.uchicago.edu/cjs/pdfs/CJS_2014_Vol.1.pdf.
The biggest determinants of reporting feeling unsafe in the area are being female, being Asian, years lived in HP, and what your peers think.
It is very easy to check reported incidents that occur within the confines of UChicago police patrol:
https://incidentreports.uchicago.edu/
This past week the most complaints seem to be intoxication, and theft of unsecured laptops/phones. One mugging in an alley, several stolen locked bikes and 2 incidents of gunshots south of campus.
My 4th year S, who comes from a semi-rural hometown, knows to walk with friends late at night; never leave electronics alone ever; and if someone tries to mug him just hand over what they want. Being vigilant about your surrounding is very important, but he has never felt as if he couldn’t walk to or see any of the city when he wanted-including midnight excursions to the Promentary Point waterfront.
S is living in Hyde Park now for 8 years and my husband and I have visited him numerous times. I have also spent quite a few full summers in Hyde Park. The positive news is that the negative reputation of Hyde Park has resulted in a safety network that quite a few other universities lack. We all feel very much at ease in Hyde Park. Do not think that we are coming from an extremely criminal area. On the contrary! We are living in a very dense urban area where surprise, surprise you can still keep your doors wide open, where young people are still standing up for the elderly, where your cell phone is waiting for you in the administration office of a huge hospital because once again you left it lying on a chair in one of its many, many waiting rooms, etc. We are just a bit more careful when walking around in Hyde Park, but that’s all we do.
@JHS Add Duke. They aren’t in the greatest area of Durham.
Interesting thread and I appreciate all of your views. DD received a LL last week. We are all very excited, and will be visiting again in April.
“Hyde Park: Black and White, united against the poor.” - UChicago prof. (It’s a joke. Grain of truth: Chicago is highly segregated by race/class, and violence is correlated to that.)
Do you mind posting stats for your D? Just wanting info on what UChicago is looking at for LL? What does the LL state?
@goingnutsmom, I don’t have the exact language but the gist was keep on keeping on and you’re in. 2370, Subjects 780 & 800, 4.0/4.0, leadership etc.