I’m an admit at all 3 – try and convince me UChicago is the right school for me.
I’m interested in going to either data science/machine learning or management consulting at a top firm like McKinsey. I’m also open to the idea of getting a phd in either econ/math/stats from a top program. All else equal I like being in a bigger city over a smaller city or rural area. I’ll likely major in Applied Math, Comp Sci, and (only for UChicago) Economics.
With that said, I’d like you all to convince me that UChicago will be better for me than the other 2
Frankly this is a bad way to choose. Hopefully you have visited the schools. I personally like the YouTube videos students at these schools put out, they give you a better idea of what each school is about.
OP, I shall be very honest with you. If you need strangers on Internet to convince you in a few paragraphs to come to U of Chicago, I don’t think UChicago is the right school for you. There are literally thousands of applicants who would like to take your spot because they love the school and understand why the school fits them better than any other schools.
That said, I second my fellow UChicago parents/alumni that you should visit all three schools and decide on which one fits you best. Good luck.
Here is the problem. Most people can only give you first hand knowledge of one school from the perspective as an undergrad. I can tell you why I like UChicago as the parent of a current first year. I can not tell you why it is better than your other two choices obviously are great schools too.
Why UChicago? All three will give you a great degree. I think UChicago will do a better job of teaching you how to think. I believe Brown has an open curriculum and UChicago is known for the CORE which is a very demanding 1 1/2 curriculum that exposes you to many disciplines. At the other two I think you can avoid it if you want to.
My son has no regrets in picking UChicago and if asked to do it again he would have.
You are very fortunate to live in an age where you can do all the research you want to make a decision. But, you also live in a time where you might have too much information causing analysis paralysis. I think your best bet is to go with your gut.
You can’t go wrong with any of those choices. I’ll let the people who know more about UPenn and Brown speak about them, but as for Applied Math and Comp Sci - especially big data, UChicago is a good place to be right now. The math department has been known for years as one of the top math departments in the US and several of my son’s fellow math majors chose UChicago over MIT specifically for the math department. And in case you hadn’t heard, UChicago recently lured away the head of the UCal Berkeley comp sci department, built him a great new building and are ramping up the comp sci - especially data analytics as we speak. Oh, and Bill Gates is not only a trustee but sent his own son to UChicago. It’s a pretty exciting time to be a math/comp sci person at UChicago and the graduates of those programs are highly sought after.
I won’t even attempt to convince you which is the best school for you among the three as I just want to enjoy that I have discovered someone who applied to both Chicago & Brown.
Largely because of the Core - but also because of the underlying culture and UChicago type of student - you should only opt for this school if you really do want to become educated in a broad way. You made no mention of that aspiration in your original post, which leads me to think that you might not be well-served by Chicago.
Congrats on your acceptances and great choices. All three schools will serve you well, but if possible, go to all 3 schools’ admitted student days and sit in a class, talk to the students in the cafeteria, maybe the faculty, walk around campus, then think about it for a day or two, and maybe it will become apparent which school would be the one you can call home for the next 4 years.
Regarding the comment above about Bill Gates…I do believe his son is attending now but I’m pretty sure he’s not a trustee. Satya Nadella (Current Microsoft CEO and Booth grad) is, though.
My daughter’s first choice was Brown until she visited UChicago, where she applied to and was admitted ED. She loved both even though they are very different universities. She did not care for UPenn at all though.
Q: An aside - would i be treated as a second-class citizen compared to Wharton students while recruiting for top companies?
A: That isn’t allowed at Penn. Students in all schools have the same interview opportunities on campus. Employers can’t only talk to Wharton students and most don’t want to anyway. Students from SEAS and SAS land consulting jobs all the time.
I’ll likely major in Applied Math, Comp Sci, Economics, or Statistics. You can probably take a blend of all of those, if you wish. Penn provides a lot of flexibility to do this.
The Penn alumni/student network is extensive and internship and job placement is excellent.
■■■■■■■■■■ about a student applying both to Brown and Chicago is wrongheaded and basically anti-intellectual. It's easy for a student to like both enough to apply. If students like the idea of the Core, they can fairly easily replicate it for themselves by judicious course selection at Brown, and many students do just that. The only thing they can't replicate is sharing the common curriculum with everyone. But even ardent Chicago fans have to admit there are plusses and minuses to that. My daughter was a huge Core fan when she was applying, and she's a huge Core fan in retrospect. But spring of her first year at Chicago, she was saying "I wish I had given more thought to Brown."
I know several kids who applied to both Brown and Chicago. None of them was unintelligent or unthoughtful. Some chose one, some the other, some neither, and some had the choice made for them.
Among my kids' friends, the one who went to a brand-name consulting company whom I knew best was a kid who went to Brown and had a great experience there. It was mostly centered on extracurriculars, though, not the classroom. Class was just something he did to be able to keep working in his extracurricular and to qualify himself for what would come next (Bain, then Harvard Law School). That attitude wouldn't work well at Chicago. What people do in class is very important to them there, even the people who are really committed to other things as well.
One thing to look into – while in most of the world, Applied Math is very popular, and a mainstream thing to do, Chicago barely has an Applied Math program. It just created that major a couple of years ago. Of the three colleges, Chicago has by far the most pervasive math culture, and the highest percentage of people majoring in math, but hardly any of them do Applied Math. And I think if you look at the Chicago Applied Math curriculum, it’s barely distinguishable from its straight math curriculum. At Chicago, people are really into mainstream theoretical math. In addition to the formal Core, there’s something of a math core as well.
(Also note: If you are serious about a PhD in Economics, Chicago has a special variant of the straight Math major designed specifically for people who want to apply to Economics PhD programs. It also has a great Statistics department as well.)
Another thing to look into – At Penn, the vast majority of people who want the kind of career path you are talking about (not the one involving a PhD in Economics) will be in Wharton, not CAS. And there will be a lot of them. People make way too much of a big deal about the difference between Wharton and CAS, but there’s no question that the Wharton students find it in their interest to cultivate the myth that CAS students are second-rate.
@Publisher - maybe you can clarify, but I didn’t interpret your post as ■■■■■■■■■■■ but instead just pointing out how interesting it is to have open minded people who recognized the merits of two very different yet awesome unis. Were you ■■■■■■■■■■■
