<p>so what do you know about it?</p>
<p>Yeah, good question... UChicago, from what I hear from these CC boards, is difficult to grasp... Is it the "best overall academic experience" as the princeton review says, with 4:1 faculty/student ratios? does it have the most nobel profs of any university? is it really that good? then why don't you hear more about it, and why do so many people prefer other universities when UChicago is so good...</p>
<p>also, whats with the reputation of being a "geek" school?</p>
<p>and the 40% acceptance rates? </p>
<p>Surely, judging by all this, UChicago must attract a very specific type of individual, but what?</p>
<p>Is UChicago going up, or going down?</p>
<p>I would like to know this as well, a fellow torontonian I see. Yeah</p>
<p>You don't hear more about it because it's name isn't "Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford". How many people know of Cornell, or even Caltech compared to Harvard and Yale? People prefer other universities for precisely the same reason, or because they need some form of Division I athletics. It's considered a "geek" school because it arguably focuses on acedemics more than any other school in the country, and has Division III instead of I athletics. The 40% acceptance rates are simply due to a smaller applicant pool, which while not as "super-elite" as Harvard is also more self-selective because it is such an involved process (the essays are truly unique) compared to a Common App school. According to US News it is bouncing around (I believe it has been everywhere from 8th to the low 20s to 14, where it is today), and the average SAT score has gone up a great deal in the last 10 years.</p>
<p>Is that good enough for you?</p>
<p>U/Chicago is one of most relentlessly intellectual and first-rate colleges in the US.
I think the old mantra about being "where fun goes to die" is overblown but there's no mistaking that its focus is on intense academics. </p>
<p>Funny, just tonight I ran into a sophomore at Columbia who turned down Chicago because he "didn't want to spend four years in the library."</p>
<p>Over Christmas I had the chance to ask the son of a friend how he like Chicago. (This is his first year)....He's always been a top student and said it was "the best. I love it"...He's made a ton of friends and, of course, is working extremely hard.....</p>
<p>One link sums up what my son loved about Chicago and why he applied EA this year. It's a speech given by the Dean of Admissions in September to the entering freshman class. Funny, poignant, inspiring, intelligent, classy. </p>
<p>Does anyone know how much of the undergrad teaching (if any) is done by T.A.s at Chicago. I know students at Cornell, Harvard, etc. who complain bitterly about this.</p>
<p>"The Princeton Review has also rated the University as having the "Best Overall Educational Experience" for undergraduates among all American universities and colleges (the student-to-faculty ratio of 4:1, ranked the second lowest amongst top 50 American Universities, allows for small class sizes and exceptional faculty interaction)."</p>
<p>They told us class sixe is usually 18 with 25 being a larger class. The very largest is they Chem 101 type classes, but then you have labs of 18 with that.</p>
<p>Can't find fig's on TA's though. The same source has a chart but n/a for Chi and others.</p>
<p>Is campusdirt a reliable site? I looked up Chicago, and it rated the profs very high 'for the classes taught by profs'. These are apparently student surveys.</p>
<p>Chocoholic, any review site is going to have questions. Take the info you get and cross-reference and compare with other sources. I think the best thing to do is use those sites to highlight issues, both positive and negative, and then examine those issues with input from as many sources as possible. </p>
<p>People are generally more motivated to complain, so I think that there's actually a negative bias to those sites. In that light, if the U/Chicago input is generally positive, that's a really good sign.</p>
<p>As to your specfic, I think Chicago does get high marks for its teaching by profs.</p>