<p>UChicago is my top school right now. I was accepted EA, which was like the greatest feeling ever. But I am a naturally indecisive person, so I want to know more. They advertise themselves as really quirky, I just want to know if that is honest. Quirky can mean a couple things, but usually either for hipsters or just really weird. Is it one of those? Is it more complex? So my question is, for anyone who goes there right now, what is UChicago really like? What's the social life like? What is the student body like? Is the workload unmanageable? What's good about it, what's bad about it? Total honesty would be appreciated.</p>
<p>bump, I’m interested in this too. Any UChicago student or alum here on CC?</p>
<p>Lots of hipsters here. Like, maybe 20% of the student population. Which really isn’t that much, actually, in comparison to peer schools. Quirky means quirky in an intellectual sense of the word… at least that’s what it means to me. As a student here, I wouldn’t describe myself as quirky (nor would I use that word to describe most of my peers), so you should probably have someone else answer that.</p>
<p>Social life is fine. Unless you’re a hardcore jock (in which case you probably wouldn’t be admitted here anyway), you’ll find a group of friends to hang out with. Incredibly diverse intellectual interests here as well. Lots of polymaths.</p>
<p>Student body is smart. Like, our average SATs are higher than Harvard’s smart. Much more intellectually-inclined on average than Ivy Leagues, though there are more people who are here for the prestige than we’d like to admit (maybe 25%?).</p>
<p>Workload is not unmanageable. Lots of work, but the average GPA is like a 3.3, so it’s not impossible or anything. On average, we probably have a slightly higher workload than peer schools due to professor sadism (and student masochism).</p>
<p>What’s good about it? Someone else can answer that. What’s bad about it? That the University has to be so hardcore about everything. As you’ve probably heard, Chicago is scheduled to have its biggest blizzard in decades tomorrow (with anticipated 20 inches of accumulation). Almost all other Chicago-area schools have already announced cancellation. UChicago (and some of my professors) has already announced that there indeed will be class tomorrow. So, the administration is a bunch of jerkoffs who don’t care about student well-being. This is also the reason why we have a 2-day reading period before finals week whereas other schools have an entire week off. If the University wants to be hard, that’s fine… but when it sacrifices students’ mental and physical well-being, that’s when I think they cross the line. And they do that way too often. (Admittedly though, this is partly the student body’s fault. They’re so fscking masochistic that they just tolerate all of the administration’s BS and sometimes even encourage it.) Rambling ended.</p>
<p>^Would you say that the overall intellectually stimulating academic experience somewhat compensates for the University’s “hardness” and the indifference of the administration? </p>
<p>Well at least in the application process, UChicago was perhaps the most cooperative and friendly school to me.</p>
<p>Yeah, it usually does. Plus, despite the fact that there are some weeks in which you just want to die, when you look back on it after the quarter’s over, you think, “Holy crap. Did I really do that?” It’s a nice sense of accomplishment, usually. And conversely, there are those times that you get As when you don’t deserve them and then you start to feel guilty. Chicago’s a strange place, and it screws with your head sometimes. However, it cultivates a sense of personal responsibility. Chicago is grade-inflated enough that you won’t see a significant change in your grades between working pretty hard and working yourself to death. So ultimately, you’re responsible for how much you learn.</p>
<p>And despite the fact that I’m complaining about Chicago’s utter lack of snow days (seriously, they’re non-existent; I don’t think there’s ever been a snow day in the history of the University)… it’s not like I even have to go to class those days. Even if I skip, it won’t impact my grades. There will just be a sense of guilt that I’m not pushing myself hard enough if I do indeed decide to skip class. This atmosphere of un-escapable self-responsibility is the true cause of misery at Chicago. Which is why I say most of the administration’s terrible decisions are encouraged by the students’ attitudes.</p>
<p>Ugh. That’s the disgusting truth. It’s us. Just us.</p>
<p>Thanks! This is really helpful and informative. I am just undecided right now between a couple schools. If anyone else has anything to say about the school, I would definitely like to hear.</p>
<p>phuriku, if you could do it all over again, would you still choose Chicago?</p>
<p>We really do bring it on ourselves. We put up with all these demands (both reasonable and patently unreasonable) because giving up is unthinkable. Because there’s a special kind of thrill in pushing yourself past your limits. Because ultimately, we love what we do. I’ve said it before, but I think that’s the real commonality among kids at UChicago.</p>
<p>There’s this guy I know who is…shall we say, ambivalent about UChicago as an institution. Hates the students, hates about ninety percent of the Core, and I think he may actually be programmed to roll his eyes whenever someone says “life of the mind.” The other day he was on one of his regular tirades about his o-chem class, ranting away–and then suddenly he stopped, turned to me, and said, “No, seriously, though. You’ll love o-chem. It’s great.” This guy enjoys taking organic chemistry midterms! He may actually look forward to them. And he is what I mean when I say we love what we do here.</p>
<p>You don’t have to enjoy o-chem–or taking midterms–to fit in at UChicago, but if you can’t imagine yourself getting so excited about an academic subject that it makes you utterly masochistic, you may want to reconsider coming here. I know people who hate the Core, but love UChicago (plenty of them). I know people who can’t stand their fellow students or the self-importance of a school that forces every incoming first-year to listen to a speech on the aims of education–and still, overall, they seem to have enjoyed their time here. But I don’t think you can be happy at the University of Chicago if you don’t love the pain at least a little.</p>
<p>^^ What he said.</p>
<p>hume15: Yes, undoubtedly.</p>
<p>(Oh, and the University might cancel classes for the first time in history tomorrow. The law school and business school both canceled classes earlier today, so I’m hoping that the University as a whole will take their examples.)</p>
<p>Actually, I’ve heard tell that the university canceled classes in '99 because the temperature dipped dangerously low. (-20 during the day or somewhere in that ballpark.)</p>
<p>But don’t quote me on that. For my part, I admit that I still want to go to class tomorrow.</p>
<p>Well, I got an e-mail from a professor earlier who said that the University had never canceled classes in his 25 years as a professor (and that therefore he intended to have class tomorrow). But he’s old and going on senile, so hey.</p>
<p>Must. go. to. SOSC.</p>
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<p>She. ;)</p>
<p>I like how they waited until two in the morning to tell us they were canceling class.</p>
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<p>Difficult or not, UChicago seems to be really exciting. :)</p>
<p>Consolation prize: the epic inter-class snowball fight. Main quad, 3:00. Who’s going? :D</p>
<p>Not only did they cancel class for the first time in the history of the school today (so says my RH), they canceled class TOMORROW too! The U of C does have a heart. </p>
<p>I am extremely happy here and would do it all over again. I’m actually ambivalent about studying abroad because if I go, I will miss out a quarter here with all the great discussions, brilliant professors and the single-minded intellectual atmosphere. </p>
<p>Of course, we all have our bad days. Certain weeks can be very very stressful, but I feel it is worth it in the end. When I go home for breaks and see my high school friends again, I am always astounded by how much intellectual ground I have covered since I saw them last. The quarter system can be both a blessing and a curse.</p>
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<p>That was fantastic.
Oh, and I’m pretty sure the server for the webcam of the quad went down at about 3:04 . . .</p>
<p>I love it here. It’s like being in a bubble. Everyone is interesting, everyone talks about interesting things. Occasionally I realize that if I objectively looked at my life as it exists right now, I would laugh. A lot. The people make the place, and these people are crazy and amazing.</p>
<p>The quarter system does some interesting things with your stress level, but all in all its very manageable - though things do go very quickly in comparison to semester schools.</p>
<p>While the core and etc are nice reasons to want to come here, I think that it really comes down to the people. I self identify as quirky, but I don’t really think that means much. If you think that you belong here, then you probably do, and you’d probably be doing yourself a service. I’d be happy to answer more specific questions, but that’s all that really comes to mind immediately.</p>
<p>If you happen to be a chronic procrastinator, you will be unhappy here (there is no punchline). Well… sometimes. School isn’t all about academics here. At least it’s easy to pretend it isn’t. Case in point… I spent about twelve hours in my dorm library during the first snow day… doing my work … while the similarly work-loaded people behind me ruminated on the secrets of life for what I think was five straight hours. This kind of conversation can get tiring once you get past the cleverness and reach at the smug sense of intellectual superiority people tend to have around here. I’m sure you can argue this isn’t the case, but I really think if people look deep inside themselves, they can get at the inevitable faults of being surrounded by more or less similar-minded people for many, many weeks at a time. Self-congratulation. Here, generally hidden in the form of proclaimed masochism, dejection, what have you. You seen those self-deprecating t-shirts? Metaphysical boners.</p>
<p>Levi-Strauss made me hate categories, so all I’m gonna say about the student body is that they’re smart and nerdy. Even the jocks are nerdy. Don’t get me wrong. We still dance to this kind of stuff: </p>
<p>SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS</p>
<p>As for quirky, I’m not sure that means anything. What kind of person doesn’t have quirks? My opinion is that the school gives out the “quirky” image intentionally as normal-person code for “It’s okay. We accept weird people.” Some folks here are pretty freaking weird, but the good thing is they generally have amazing qualities to balance it out. Even the a-s-s-holes are kind of charming.</p>
<p>If you think a school of people who like to build snow tunnels and igloos in a blizzard aftermath sounds cool, you’ll probably like it here. Just gotta suck up those grades.</p>
<p>btw, you will get smarter at UChicago. Not just in the old-timey experience-wisdom sense, or the street-wise sense, or the generic knowledge base sense. You will get SMARTER. You will think better. You will become so much more of a self-congratulating genius it won’t even be funny. </p>
<p>(I’m not really criticizing people for being smug self-loving creeps. Think about it. When was the last time you were like, “Holy ****! That was tiiiight! Did I just come to that conclusion all by myself? Awwwww yeah! High five, lefty! Sweeeeeeee-”</p>
<p>Yeah. That’s already you, isn’t it.)</p>
<p>P.S. You will not turn into a mad scientist or an ineffectual supervillain here. Just… very close to it. Don’t worry about it. :)</p>
<p>I got that warm fuzzy feeling after reading you guys’ posts. I think I made the right decision to pay up for UChicago. Continuing the talk, anyone want to contribute on dorm culture?</p>