<p>Go with Chicago. I think you would go stir crazy in Williamstown.</p>
<p>tk - most merit scholarships these days are only $5000. $10000 is rare. I’m not sure if they still offer any full tuition merit scholarships to non-Chicago-area applicants.</p>
<p>classicgirll - I’m leaning towards UChicago mostly. If my financial aid appeal doesn’t go through, I’ll probably go to Williams. But who knows? I’m going to Amherst’s and Williams’s previews this month, and I might change my mind about Amherst (although I haven’t received their financial aid package yet).</p>
<p>muckdogs - I don’t think I will. Thinking back to my application, my supplement to Williams was about wandering through the same trail of the same patch of woods near my house as a child (middle-school, to be more precise) and loving these daily hikes so much that I wrote a fantasy novel about the kinds of people who lived there and how a human being might interact with them. I’ll appreciate the setting of Williamstown, but I would still prefer to have the resources of a large city.</p>
<p>Wait on Amherst’s package - it may offer a nice “in-between” as far as Chicago-Williamstown is concerned (although admittedly leaning more towards Williamstown) Also, if you are a more a U of Chicago “type” than I think you may find Amherst to have more of those “types” than Williams IMO. The Five colleges constortium also allows you to take courses at the other schools - activism and slam poetry wise - the Five Colleges might in fact trump both U of C and Williams. I love U of C but not at 18K more per annum.</p>
<p>Amherst’s package came out to be $54,000.
None of my packages are final though. As soon as the final ones come out and I’ve gone to both LAC previews, I’ll start asking more questions on this thread.</p>
<p>I gotta say Williams then given the cost difference. You could appeal to Chicago or Amherst to match Williams but if they do not - Williams</p>
<p>I submitted my deposit to UChicago tonight!</p>
<p>I had always known UChicago would best fit me, but the cost difference made me hesitate. As it turns out, Williams estimated my aid package on old tax information; when we asked them to recalculate our aid package using my family’s most recent tax information, they said we were no longer eligible for financial aid.</p>
<p>Congratulations on getting through this wacky process and winding up at a place you seem to love.</p>
<p>ha. Just a caution. Its way tougher to get into UChicao for graduate school. After all, the university’s fame originated from its graduate school divisions.</p>
<p>Looks like FStratford has been doing some UChicago searches lately.</p>
<p>Yes I am. I don’t want people to go to UChicago for the wrong reasons, like hmm… they think they can easily go to graduate school there. Or that poor Asian 17 year old girl from Hongkong deciding to go to Vandy because hmm… there really is no difference between racism in the American South and the large northern and west coast cities.</p>
<p>Gee, some people are blinded by their loyalties to their alma maters they inadvertently gloss over facts (lie). This board is not at all good to those looking for honest advice.</p>
<p>
I’d be happy if frequently resuscitating such threads were a bannable offense, at least among those who should know better. I don’t think there should be any place on CC for people with agendas, which such posters almost inevitably (and very transparently) have. They care far less about helping the original posters, most of whom have already picked a college or even graduated, and more about inserting their little bit of propaganda.</p>
<p>FStratford recently claimed that professors from Harvard or Stanford are desperate to jump ship for Chicago, among other laughable claims about other universities. Take his opinion for what it’s worth…very little. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Dude its common knowledge in academia - academics want to be at UChicago because professors have a lot more power, funding and flexibility there than in any other research university in the world. Over there they are treated as gods.</p>
<p>And they get the same salaries (if not more) than other universities</p>
<p>AND there is a good chance that they might end up working with or be a Nobel laureate themselves. (although historical performance is not a sure predictor of future performance)</p>
<p>So yeah, I stand by what I said. </p>
<p>You should probably talk to PhD students from the Ivies, MIT, Stanford, Duke, OxBridge or London. They’ll tell you the same thing</p>