<p>Thanks @eddi137. Yes, we are extremely proud of our son’s achievements so far. I believe the internship he did last year (which he found on his own), his extracurricular activities and his extremely congenial personality (unlike mine) were the main reasons for his success in the job market. He continues to get unsolicited invitations for job interviews. He also has a paper published in a well respected peer-reviewed journal.</p>
<p>I am not a regular visitor to this forum and I don’t really enjoy sticking my neck out to share my observations. I fully expected some people to come out of woodwork to refute my assertions. </p>
<p>@snipersas, I am glad your experiences at uchicago have been vastly different. I am sure you haven’t been caught in the middle of a gun fight and pray for your life either … Our son has long forgotten that incident but as a parent I can’t. It still scares me. Wish you all the best.</p>
<p>My son would never come on a public forum like this one to complain about uchicago but as a parent, I feel obligated when I read someone characterizing opting to go to UW-Madison as settling for something inferior.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information, UWHuskyDad. Good luck to your son’s future employment!</p>
<p>Dipali, my daughter is a first year at the college too. </p>
<p>From the second hand experience I have shared some observations with you regarding the academics. </p>
<p>Some courses are hard, and much harder than the courses with the similar titles in high school, she has said. You need to read a lot before discussing in the class and after that you need to write meaningful essays for hum. There will be many problem sets (many difficult ones) for math too. Science courses (physics and chemistry) require a lot of time (8 hours per week instructions and labs as well as discussions in addition to homework, lab reports, of course mid terms and final). The quarter system is very fast paced compared to the semesters in high school.</p>
<p>She thinks she is a typical student among the freshman - strength in some subjects and weakness in others. Like your daughter she works hard and is used to 4.0. Before she has left for college we have tried to convince her that a B or B+ would be good enough when considering the caliber of UChicago’s academic reputation. I do not know if she has really bought it but she seems fine to get Bs. After two quarters she has managed to have grades toward more As than Bs. Of course she is not interested in pre-med or law so GPA should not have meaningful impact. </p>
<p>Before each quarter we discussed her courses and tried to mix the hard courses with easy courses so she could feel better when a B came with an A. Again she has weakness and strength.</p>
<p>I believe your daughter is bright academically and should not have problems if she wants to go to law or medical schools. Have you contacted the Career Advance office to obtain the profiles of the students admitted to the top medical schools and law schools? If your daughter is on the right track she may take off a little bit pressure?</p>
<p>I hope your daughter will feel better this spring quarter.</p>