Watch out, it's your new college rep!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>I may be familiar to you already, as I have been posting at CC for quite a while, first in high school and early college as Gracello, and now as UChicagoPSAC. I am a current UChicago undergrad who works with admissions counselors through the Prospective Students Advisory Committee as the office's Web Content Director- my co-web director Jacqueline and I maintain a presence on Facebook, Twitter, our own in-office web programs and blog, and of course College Confidential to make sure that prospective students have a good opportunity to connect with the College and UChicago current students online. </p>

<p>Though this position, I am taking over Libby Pearson's role as UChicago's official College Rep- so, you can feel free to ask me questions about student life, programs, and general application questions, and I will answer them as promptly as possible. I will not comment on "chance" threads, read though application materials, comment on your scores or activities, tell you exactly when admissions decisions are coming out, or talk to you about specific financial aid questions, so please do not ask me to do this. While I can generally offer my experience in applying to other schools, I also will not compare between schools, as I have only ever been a college student at UChicago, and so have no grounds for comparison with other colleges and universities, no matter how much I may WANT to try and compare them :)
I am happy, however, to answer any and all questions you may have about UChicago in general and whether or not it might be a good fit for you, what you might expect as a student here, and of course to wax poetic about how dearly I love being a college student. </p>

<p>So, go ahead and ask! For applicants to the class of 2014, please feel free to join your Applicants Facebook Group, which you may find here: Login</a> | Facebook
If you have any specific questions about your application, financial aid, etc, please contact your regional admissions counselor; you may find their contact information (listed by which states they represent) here: <a href="https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/php/contact/%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/php/contact/&lt;/a> . Use this resource sparingly- if you can find out the answer on your own, I encourage you to do so. Perusing the collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu website can be quite informational and relieves quite a bit of strain on the regional counselors' inboxes :)</p>

<p>Looking forward to answering your many questions!</p>

<p>Grace, UChicago '11
Web Content Director, Prospective Students Advisory Committee</p>

2

<p>I emailed my regional counselor a week or 2 ago and I haven’t gotten a reply yet, should I expect one?</p>

<p>Instead I’ll ask you my questions.</p>

<p>Those 50 postcards with the mini-essay questions I sent in, are those kept and looked at during the admissions process? I’m not expecting them to help or hinder me, just curious if they’re even looked at.</p>

<p>And how are the research opportunities, including stuff like availability of grants; are they plentiful or only for really specific certain things?</p>

3

<p>Regional counselors tend to take vacation over the summer, so don’t sweat it if you don’t hear back from them right away- they’ll get back to you. If you have a question you think a current student might be able to answer, e-mail <a href=“mailto:psac@uchicago.edu”>psac@uchicago.edu</a>, and the tour guides working in the office will answer it. </p>

<p>Haha, on the postcards- yes, we do look at them, and no, they’re not figured in the admissions process. While we really appreciate the plentiful (and often hilarious) postcards we get back, it’s really just a gauge of how people like our postcards and what kinds of students we’re looking at for next year’s class, and has nothing to do with your admission. </p>

<p>Research opportunities are plentiful; grants can be more specific, but often if you’re in grant territory your research advisor or lab will make you aware of grants available to undergrads in your area. Most research job postings for undergrads are posted at frogs.uchicago.edu; definitely check it out for a good idea of what might be available to students on campus.</p>

4

<p>Ahhh gotcha. Yeah I liked those postcards. Good to know they’re not factored in though or they probably wouldn’t be able to take me seriously.</p>

<p>How’s UChicago’s Psychology program? I saw somewhere online that U of C’s psych program was ranked 9th in the nation, but that ranking was from 1997. Is it still pretty strong? Are any of those 80-something (haha, you guys really do a good job of making sure the world knows about your Nobel Prize winners) Nobel Prize winners Psych professors?</p>

5

<p>Are undergrads allowed to take or audit courses at the law school? If so, is that commonly done?</p>

6

<p>It’s possible to do, but not easy. Same goes for the business school and the school of social service administration. Options for this, and specific courses, should definitely be talked over with your college adviser; let your adviser know that this is something you’re interested in, and they will let you know if it is possible and help you get in to the course when the time comes.</p>

7

<p>On psych: PSYCH IS AWESOME. (note: I’m a psych major). The psych department has a number of really, really outstanding faculty members, many of whom are considered to be at the top of or the best in their fields; Susan Goldin-Meadow, who studies gesture and language acquisition, and John Cacioppo, who is studies social neuroscience, are a few of the stars; there are many, many other professors who are really fantastic. Undergraduate research opportunities are plentiful; many labs will start you off unpaid to train you, but if you show commitment to the topic, you can start as early as your first year and move up to eventually working directly with the professor or pursuing your own research topic.
One thing you should know, though, is that UChicago psych is focused very much on the science of psychology, and not counseling. If you come here interested in learning about the brain, biological psychology, human interaction, social psychology, doing research, etc. you will be quite the happy camper; if you’re interested in going in to counseling, social work, etc. you will be unsatisfied, and should either know that you’ll need to definitely seek graduate school in counseling or perhaps find an alternate undergrad path.
This is the psych department’s website: [Department</a> of Psychology](<a href=“http://psychology.uchicago.edu/]Department”>http://psychology.uchicago.edu/). Have a look at some of the faculty profiles and research foci- there’s quite the variety of things to study.</p>

8

<p>I was seriously hoping you were a psych major when I asked that question. Sweet. I have absolutely no interest in counseling psychology; I really wanna do social psych and health psych research.</p>

<p>Are/were you involved in any research?</p>

9

<p>Yep. I’ve worked with a grad student in Goldin-Meadow’s lab studying the role of gesture in early childhood language acquisition, and did a short research project of my own for a class studying whether children are able to retroactively apply newly learned language forms to their recollections of the past (they aren’t). I’m looking for a new project, as my grad student has now graduated, but it was a really cool experience; I basically got thrown in to being interested in language acquisition research because their lab had an opening and I wanted a lab job, but I’m looking for something in biological psychology or neuroscience.</p>

10

<p>That’s pretty cool. Are psych majors required to do research?</p>

11

<p>You have to either have research experience or take an approved research methods course (which is basically just a class that gives you research experience). An outside research project is required for honors in the major.</p>

12

<p>Do you have any idea how do pre-med students usually do, in terms of how well they deal with the course load and such?</p>

<p>Also, I’m interested in minoring in South Asian languages. Is there a department website?</p>

13

<p>I too, am interested in the pre-med aspect of uchicago. are gpa’s generally low? and what is the med school acceptance rate. i remember someone telling me uchicago is not the place for premeds to go because the gpa is a killer.</p>

14

<p>I was planning my first-year schedule, and it turns out to be surprisingly relaxing, and it turns out that I can graduate within three years. (I plan on majoring in Biological Science.) I think people are just exaggerating UChicago’s difficulties. UChicago’s curriculum is definitely doable! If you do your work and avoid taking multiple extracurricular activities, there is no reasons why someone should be getting anything lower than a B. Also, definitely spread out the humanity classes of the Core. Don’t take more than one humanity class in each quarter. UChicago actually has one of the highest medical school enrollment rates (85~86% per graduating class).</p>

15

<p>^thanks for the info …that sounds assuring</p>

16

<p>Does the University of Chicago have a good Political Science program, or something to do with international relations, political economy,etc?</p>

17

<p>Yes, definitely, and political science is one of the most popular majors at the University for this reason. Students interested in political science have a lot of opportunities to become in political science activities on campus, namely, MUNUC and CHOMUN, our two main Model UN organizations; one is the college’s model UN program, another runs a model UN summit for high school students, and both are considered to be some of the top programs in the world. In the summer, political science students have some of the more amazing internships I’ve heard of- working for think tanks, consulting firms, etc. You can do many things with a political science degree; while a lot of people do go on to law school, others are able to find careers in a vast number of related fields. And, of course, while I’m going to say that the program is excellent, I encourage you to look at the departmental website: [Political</a> Science @ Chicago](<a href=“http://political-science.uchicago.edu/]Political”>http://political-science.uchicago.edu/)
to look at professor research and teaching aims, grad student placement, and activities to see if it looks like a good fit for you.</p>

18

<p>@Anajurs, here is the departmental website for South Asian Languages: [Southern</a> Asia at Chicago](<a href=“http://southasia.uchicago.edu/]Southern”>http://southasia.uchicago.edu/)
Root around for a bit to find the undergrad section. As a general note, most departmental websites are conveniently named “department.uchicago.edu”, or can quite easily be found through Google.</p>

19

<p>Hi Grace,
I’m a prospective '14er and I have a few questions, not deal breakers but I’m curious.

  1. Do you feel like the house system restricts first years at all in the social scheme of things? Do they still make friends with “outsiders” and other upperclassmen, or are their associations almost strictly kept to in-house people?
  2. Do you have any recommendations for students coming from warmer climates? Do you find that students don’t get out much because of the weather? I just ask because I had a cousin who went to school in up state New York and almost failed out because he wouldn’t leave his dorm room for fear of the cold.
    Thanks!</p>
20

<p>Hi, I was looking at the average SAT and ACT scores of admitted students, and I noticed that based on ACT to SAT coordinance charts, it looks like U of C accepts “lower” ACT scores than SAT scores. Is there a preference between the ACT and the SAT? I have taken both and I did pretty much the same on each. Does the school see SATs more often than the ACT? Is there a bias?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>