@Chrchill, thank you for obtaining data relevant to the title of this thread! Can we all just debate the relevant data, please? :)>-
Let’s bring it back. (sorry for my part)
I feel like for – ever – UChicago was underrated according to USNews and other undergraduate rankings.
Some are shocked to see them at #3, tied with Yale, but ever since I was a kid, I thought (wel, I was led to believe. lol) that UChicago was very tip-top. So to me, it’s a long time coming, and the rep is catching up to the quality that’s always been there.
Excuse me :))) I started this thread !!! Don’t blame me for tuning this into a shopping, safety and racial relations discussion.
@Chrchill no good deed goes unpunished! LOL.
Data? That’s data?
Like most 30+ page threads, this one has gotten off track. It happens. Yes, 5+ pages on UChicago/Woodlawn/Washington Park/Hyde Park dynamics and perceptions of South Side crime in general may be a long detour. On the other hand, I don’t see a reason to aggressively police an extended discussion of these issues here as long as the issues at hand are relevant to the university (talking about crime in Mount Greenwood or the BDS movement may be a little outside the box).
The university’s relationship with the community is going to play a major role in determining the future course and the effects of UChicago’s “meteoric rise.” Said relationship is already being affected in a number of ways by changes that have contributed to the College’s rise. If this thread is only here so posters can fawn over any ranking that features UChicago in the top 3, 33 pages seems a tad long.
Yeah, this got way off course. Anytime posters start bringing up how others may have cited “fake news”, you know that things are going downhill from there… Better to stay on topic.
@JHS -
Americans largely self-identify as living in a suburb.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-suburban-are-big-american-cities/
Those kids you know that came from college towns would likely self-identify as growing up in a suburban area.
If more than half of the population identifies as living in the suburbs, and the suburbs are synonymous with raising kids who apply college, it is a small step to conclude that at least a plurality if not an outright majority of kids attending elite colleges come from suburban homes.
As for crime rates, the published crime rates in Hyde Park are about 70 percent higher than the crime rates reported for the country as a whole. Since Hyde Park has such elevated crime rates compared to the rest of the nation, it is easy to assume that most kids who attend UChicago are coming from areas with lower crime rates.
@Zinhead is making a good point (and I said that earlier). Most kids REGARDLESS of where they are coming from, are not going to be used to the level of crime on the south side. We were musing on another thread as to the reasons behind the drop in applications and it was posited that the news coverage regarding the rise in crime rates might have been a factor (I think this was prior to someone from Admissions citing “confusion over the choice of admission plans” during one of the admission events). In 2016 violent crime went up precipitously from the (already high) levels in 2015 and that’s been in the news, for better or worse (note: it’s not like the press is actually making up the numbers - violent crimes, shootings and murders did, indeed, increase!). Most parents don’t pore over the Chicago Tribune crime map - they hear “crime” “Chicago” “southside” and go from there. Also - fairly or not - the South Side has had quite the reputation of being “the baddest part of town” for decades now.
admission rate 8 percent, same as last. ;
It is likely true now (as it was 50 years ago) that three-quarters or more of Chicago students have only ever lived in low-crime neighborhoods, whether in the suburbs or moderate-sized cities or even small towns. Yet those kids opted to come to a University in an urban neighborhood with some enhanced level of danger in and around it. We tend to assume that they did this IN SPITE OF the neighborhood or because they downplayed its dangers. I speculate on the other hand that many of them actually wanted to live in a more edgy and more dangerous neighborhood, to enjoy some proximity to and experience of poor black people. These things were true in my case and for those of several of my friends long years ago. The neighborhood was part of the appeal. Kids studying sociology and related fields and budding political activists must especially feel that way. But also a certain type of kid who just wants a different sort of experience - call it a walk on the wild side (with apologies to Chicago author Nelson Algren) . Where else to find this than in the heart of the bad old south side of Chicago?
Remember too that most of Chicago’s undergrads are idealistic political liberals or even radicals of some stripe. Wouldn’t it be consistent with those convictions to embrace living in one of the oldest racially integrated neighborhoods anywhere in the country and not to be deterred by the presence of poor black people in adjacent neighborhoods?
What do you say about this @HydeSnark? Did you or any of your friends come to Chicago at least partly because of and not in spite of the neighborhood?
@marolow1: :-? [-( :-q
@marlowe1 It’s definitely true that UChicago’s location was very appealing to me as a city kid bored out of my mind in suburbia. But I don’t know if I would call it a walk on the wild side - while it is true that people are attracted by the service and activism opportunities here, there isn’t much romanticizing the South Side.
@marlowe1 You’re right on many counts. A fair number of students interested in politics prefer Chicago’s surroundings to Cambridge or Princeton (for instance). The community, with its activism and the chance to engage with many issues outside the classroom, was a big draw for me personally.
That said, I don’t think Hyde Park is particularly integrated. The neighborhood is diverse, but there’s a clear divide between the U of C campus and satellite commercial zones on the one hand, and the rest of the neighborhood on the other. It’s less stark than the divide between HP and Woodlawn or Washington Park, but it’s there. In this sense, one could argue Hyde Park is a microcosm of the greater Chicagoland area.
@DunBoyer that disparity existed historically as well. Could have more to do with the location of the university. Students (who are going to be a more diverse crowd) will naturally live closer to school, so the farther away you go on any side (N, W, S) you will see a higher percentage of permanent residents who reflect the neighborhoods and surrounding area (in this case, heavily AA). The north side of Hyde Park and Kenwood also includes many black families of means so the lack of integration, at least to some extent, obviously reflects some conscious choice.
In another thread a prospective student singled out the Hogwarts atmosphere in describing why UChicago was his top pick. Now I have never read a word of the Harry Potter books (Treasure Island was more in my line) but I reckon I have some vague idea of what this student had in mind - gothic architecture principally, but perhaps also some sense of studying mysterious ancient texts with wizard-like profs. (Correct me if I got any of that wrong.) Well, Chicago has the architecture, and it also has the wizard-like profs and devotion to ancient knowledge. Most of the kids now applying to college read these Potter books in the not very distant past. They must have been influenced by the “world view” of the books to some extent. Does all this add up to giving Chicago an edge in the eyes of some significant number of kids choosing between it and schools with neoclassic architecture and less ancient mystery? This is not to suggest, even fancifully, that an 18-year-old is going to make the choice of a school solely or even substantially on such a basis, but could it be a subliminal or anyhow contributory factor? The kid in that other thread seemed to say so.
First the University of Chicago abandoned the core curriculum begun during the Hutchins era, then they abandoned their mission of making a University of Chicago education available to brilliant kids who didn’t happen to have top grades. What was the purpose of these changes? So that commenters on College Confidential could brag about how selective the University of Chicago has become?
Yes and so that employers find them more attractive.
@marlowe1 my kid loves the architecture and she also loves Harry Potter. Based on our experience with campus tours, it seems that every college/uni that can claim even a tangential resemblance to Harry Potter has done so! UChicago has also sent an e-mail to D17 recently assuring her that the school was “Zombie-Ready” (it was a marketing piece about the student-run organizations). A very different world from my generation. Personally, I think that advertising Harry Potter is in keeping with the philosophy of the university. UChicago has always had the viewpoint that ideas were serious and not much else really was. It’s far less taken up with itself than other institutions are. Having a little fun with the architecture is exactly what you’d expect from the school.
@JBStillFlying I believe you’re right in suggesting that the Hogwarts atmosphere isn’t just an overlay but something symbolically expressive of the true Chicago elixir. If the admissions people are now having a little fun with this idea I applaud them. Also, consider this: Over and over on these threads kids agonizing about choice of school say things like “I want to fall in love with the place”. You don’t fall in love with rankings, graduation rates, employment prospects or even academic programs, important as these are. You fall in love with what you can see and feel - with architecture, atmosphere, a dream of meeting like-minded people. Today’s more serious students are gravitating to Chicago in part because it has always been a serious place filled with serious people where the emphasis is, as you rightly point out, on knowledge itself. True, but there is an often-overlooked emotional aspect to being seriously immersed in one’s studies. The dirty little secret is that it’s damned sexy. Plato knew that (vide The Symposium). The architecture plays its role: there’s nothing frivolous about those gray Indiana limestone facades, covered with vines and gargoyles. They have always been there, but perhaps it took the adventures of Harry and company to make them seem kind of cool. Harry may lead the kids to Plato. This is an underestimated component of “the meteoric rise”.