<p>Hello everyone! I posted this on another thread but have not received many replies.... However, the ones I did receive were quite insightful. Please let me know your opinions.</p>
<p>Thank you for looking and helping me. I am having trouble deciding between the two and can't seem to decide. My career aspirations are in finance (banking). However, I know my preferences can change. I know they are totally different schools, and each of them are on the opposite side of the spectrum location wise. I don't have a preference for a small liberal arts school vs a large research institution. I have already went to Chicago's accepted students day, and it was very good. I will be attending the accepted students day at Williams as well. I am not a hardcore academic. However, based upon my own observations, not everyone at UChicago is either. Nevertheless, I do have a lot of respect for people who pursue academia in general. Besides quite a bit of weightlifting, I do not play sports. I would enjoy attending and watching sporting events. As far as future employers in the finance industry, which would they prefer to see I attended? Which has better connections? Will Williams be seen as less "prestigious", as superficial as that sounds? I know this year, UChicago had an 8% acceptance rate and Williams had roughly 17%. Does that have any significant meaning? I am very fortunate to be int this position and will appreciate any input one has to offer. Also, any other comments about the environment and types of people at these schools would be great!</p>
<p>Both have excellent prestige in the financial world. Stop worrying about that. Williams gets fewer applications, but you can bet that the average sophistication and access to power of Williams applicants far exceeds the average for Chicago applicants. That doesn’t mean Williams is better, of course, it just means that it doesn’t attract lots of applications from people outside the Establishment. When you are applying for finance jobs, however, you will be applying inside the Establishment, where Williams is perfectly well-known and much respected.</p>
<p>If you want to see high-quality sporting events with lots of people in the stands . . . you are out of luck both places. I think a higher percentage of the student body probably watches games at Williams, but the absolute numbers are going to be about the same. People go because they have friends on the teams, and kids on the teams are a bigger percentage of the class at Williams. I do think Williams has more traditional “school spirit” than Chicago, but Chicago’s somewhat sarcastic take on school spirit is a lot funnier.</p>
<p>Williams and Chicago are two absolutely excellent institutions with (a) very similar values, but very different approaches to attaining the same result, and (b) utterly different physical surroundings. They both “work” sensationally well. There is no reason why you can’t succeed completely at either of them.</p>
<p>Just calm down, and focus on what is really important. Which one feels more like the perfect college to you? Which one is going to inspire you the most, give you the most energy? Then pick that one, and don’t look back.</p>
<p>(That said, let me note two things: (1) Maroon looks better on more people than purple. (2) Is there a more stupid moniker anywhere than “Ephmen”? Critical issues like this may help you make the right decision.)</p>
<p>After you have gone to both accepted students day and still could not decide, you could flip a coin since you would win either way. Williams is plenty prestigious and do not pay too much attention to acceptance rate because it is a flawed metric to gauge the quality of a school anyway. Trust your guts. If you know you like one more than the other without knowing exactly why, that’s your gut feelings telling you. Nine out of ten times, it’s the right answer. Good luck.</p>
<p>I think I’m going to answer this one selfishly, and tell you to pick Williams, because that then leaves an open bed for a wait-list UofC student. ;)</p>
<p>LovingHarvard, if you want to have shot to get taken off from the waitlist, you may want to consider changing your cc account name to “LovingChicago”. </p>
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