We are super excited to announce another exclusive live forum event featuring Justin Klein (a.k.a. @JustinAdmUChicago), Associate Director of Admissions at University of Chicago.
The event will take place here in the comments section below on Thursday, March 23 from 8-9pm ET.
While juniors start looking at college options for next fall, this AMA is an excellent opportunity to get some of your questions answered directly by the admissions officer at a top school.
The AMA is FREE for all registered users. If you don’t have an account yet, REGISTER NOW!
Make sure to submit questions for the live event by commenting below. Also, fill out the poll below and let us know why you’re excited about this event.
**Please note that the event will cover only admissions or student life related questions, anything off topic will be dismissed and comments may be removed.
University of Chicago is obviously a wonderful school and I spent a portion of my childhood living in the Chicagoland area.
Unfortunately, Chicago is routinely named one of the most corrupt cities in the United States and multiple UChicago students/recent graduates have been killed due to the crime level in the city in the last few years. Yes, directly on the campus is “safer”, but it is an island in the middle of rampant violence.
Why should my STEM daughter with a 1590 SAT/straight As/likely top in her class/“sparse country” state/individual state champion in multiple extracurriculars, including a sport for which UChicago has a team, consider applying to UChicago given the overall crime in the city once she steps foot off the campus?
The topic for the AMA was chosen by UChicago. The school has a core liberal arts curriculum and @JustinAdmUChicago will be here to answer questions from prospective students about why one should consider a LAC, as well as shed light on all admissions matters at UChicago.
My child is waitlisted. He is highly motivated by UChicago, the Core Curriculum amongst other things.
If he checks the waitlist option of being considered for enrolling in fall 2024, will it lower his chances for being considered for enrollment in fall 2023. How do you decide which option you offer to a candidate?
Also how important is the video when you review the application? If a student has not submitted a video in RD application, is it possible/a good idea to submit one after being wailisted?
@BLB, yes, @JustinAdmUChicago will answer the questions during the live session and you will find the answers on this page when you come back to the site.
With on campus antisemitism on the rise, as well as recent issues at UChicago, what is the university doing to protect its Jewish students from BDS-motivated harassment?
It would be great to hear about some of the things that you love the most about the University of Chicago and what sets it apart from other top universities. Thanks!
Thank you everyone for attending today’s live AMA w/ UChicago! We’ll go live shortly and I’m excited to welcome @JustinAdmUChicago to another exclusive College Confidential event. Justin will answer your questions in the next hour. Make sure to ask all your questions by commenting below.
Hi everyone! Sorry for the brief delay, I wound up having some trouble signing in! My name’s Justin Klein and I’m an admissions counselor at UChicago. I graduated from UChicago with my BS in Mathematics back in 2017 and have worked in our college admissions setup since. I’m thrilled to be here answering your questions about UChicago and liberal arts more broadly! UChicago is a mid-size liberal arts college within a major research university, and this dual identity – along with our location in a large urban setting – gives our students some unique opportunities. If I’m not able to get around to every question here by the time I have to jump off, please do reach out! You can email admissions counselors at collegeadmissions@uchicago.edu and current students at askastudent@uchicago.edu. You can also find the contact information for your regional admissions counselor online here: Contact | College Admissions
@Ichthydion, great questions! I saw there was lots of interesting conversation about the definition of liberal arts and hopefully I can shed some light on what that means in the broader higher ed landscape and why our liberal arts identity is so important to us here at UChicago (and therefore why we wanted to speak about the subject in this AMA).
In general, liberal arts in the modern era refers to an education focused first on the development of critical thinking skills to prepare a student for a variety of academic and professional paths (Wikipedia has a solid rundown of the roots to which Western liberal arts can be traced, if you’re interested in learning more from that context: Liberal arts education - Wikipedia). As a bit of a short-hand, you can think of liberal arts in contrast to pre-professional or vocational programs where the education may be more focused on job- or industry-specific skills in the classroom. This doesn’t mean that professional education doesn’t exist at a liberal arts college, but rather that it is viewed as an extension of the foundational academic skills. At UChicago, you’re not going to major in your job title. You’ll find that each of our majors has a high degree of flexibility baked in, so the name of programs will be bigger, broader topics that provide varied pathways inside. This is a fairly liberal arts approach.
Liberal arts curricula are often characterized by rigorous general education requirements where each student will gain academic skills in a number of different areas. The justification for this is that we want our graduates to be able to address big and complex problems, and those typically will require communicating with people with different backgrounds and skills. Diversifying your skills is a necessity, in that sense. At UChicago, we use the terminology “Core Curriculum” (Academics | College Admissions), and our Core is designed to give students access to a wide array of academic skills while not restricting the exact classes and topics available. Each Core subject has many distinct courses to choose from, with the goal that every student can find a class in each requirement that they’re excited to learn more about. So, to a more direct answer to your question, what I think makes UChicago stand out among liberal arts colleges:
• Flexible and extensive Core;
• One single, mid-size College – over 50 majors and over 50 minors offered, and all courses are available to all students rather than requiring an application to take courses in another division;
• A major research university with global reach – more than 80% of our undergrads participate in research and we have a presence on every continent around the world;
• World class Career Advancement programs including the largest internship program of its kind
The intersection of these resources in the scale available at UChicago is what makes us stand out, in my opinion. While you’ll find some blend of these characteristics at a handful of schools, each element is super accessible at UChicago. Sorry for the novel
Thanks for the question and sharing your background! For some context here, I grew up in the Chicago area and moved into the city for my undergrad and have spent around a decade living in a handful of neighborhoods throughout Chicago. I’m sure I’ll reference my personal experience at some point in my answer, so this is the context that I’m bringing to the conversation.
When it comes to safety in the city, the reputation that you’re referring to runs counter to the lived experience of actively being in Chicago for many. Chicago hasn’t been immune to the rise in crime across the country (I won’t get too much into statistics, but last year’s preliminary stats tend to show around a 10% climb nationally and comparing this trend to different localities can be helpful context), but in general living within an urban environment means living around lots of other people. All universities are going to provide tools that students can take advantage of to be safe and comfortable while accessing all the wonderful opportunities in a cultural hub like Chicago. Part of this is knowledge shared both formally (Orientation Week for new students is extremely comprehensive) and informally (UChicago’s new students and older students live side-by-side, mix together in classes and clubs, and those older students are an invaluable resource in many ways). Another part of this is transportation, and our students have unlimited access to 24/7 UChicago shuttles as well as unlimited access to the buses and trains throughout the city. This makes it easy to get around quickly and safely and in my opinion transportation is the biggest single factor in being safe whether you’re in a big city, small town, or anywhere in between. And yet another part is the way we tie into the broader community in Chicago from the research we do in the Urban Labs, to student clubs like Peer Health Exchange that teach health courses in local public schools, to the local businesses and non-UChicago groups that have access to resources at our maker space in the Polsky Center. This is just a handful of examples, but hopefully it gives you an idea of what we’re up to if you want to look into it further. Anecdotally, I’ve felt very well-prepared to live a full life in Chicago safely in part due to the resources and education the University provided me, and that’s not unique among the thousands of students who pass through our institution each year. If you’d like to speak with a current student who is still living on campus, I encourage you to reach out to askastudent@uchicago.edu.
So, with all this in mind, why should your daughter consider applying to UChicago? UChicago is well-equipped to prepare her for living outside of her own home community, and in a place with unparalleled research and professional tools to get ready for the next step after college. We invest heavily in the tools that students can use on a daily basis to enhance that safety experience in the present, as well as investing in the communities around us to be good partners to those who aren’t part of our immediate community.
PS as a former athlete here myself, I strongly encourage talking to the coaches if she hasn’t done so yet as they can be a great resource for navigating the college search!
