<p>Hello, what can you guys tell me about U of Chicago. Impressions? experiences?</p>
<p>It seems to be a top tier college with 2nd tier admission numbers (35% admission rate i believe). Why is that?</p>
<p>What are its strong areas? weak ones?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance</p>
<p>The admissions rate may seem high, but the applicant pool is very self-selecting; so it's a misleading number. It has a great reputation for its core and its quality of education. A very strong economics program, but completely lacking an engineering major. </p>
<p>Again, it's a very selective school; don't let the high acceptance rate fool you.</p>
<p>For more particular information I'd steer you towards the school-specific forum. We're all University of Chicago, all the time.:</p>
<p>Chicago's admissions numbers are hard to compare to other top 20 or top 30 schools. For example, while I might compare its academic and social experience to Columbia, Columbia has a much lower admissions rate than Chicago because Columbia is an Ivy in New York City and Chicago is not an Ivy in the fabled "Second City" to New York.</p>
<p>Chicago also lacks big-time sports.... our sports teams are DIII and not extremely reputed. Lots of top 30 schools that have lower/similar admissions rates to Chicago have very good sports to back them up (i.e. Northwestern, USC, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Michigan, Hopkins lacrosse, Duke) and the sports help contribute to the school's popularity among applicants.</p>
<p>I don't have a list of the top 20/30-ranked universities offhand... but the only schools I can think of that are non-superprestige and non-sports giants are Chicago, Tufts, WashU and Emory. I don't know what those other schools' admissions percentages are, but I believe they are or have been similar to Chicago's. (Those schools also compare well to Chicago in terms of size and location).</p>
<p>The U. of C. is not for everybody, especially not for those who seek big-time prestige and/or big-time sports. Its draws tends to be its core curriculum, academic programs, overall intellectual experience and, for lack of a better phrase, toned-down student body. But if you're looking for a school where students care a lot about learning and don't care as much about big parties, Greek life, etc., then I think Chicago might definitely be worth a look.</p>