<p>My D was accepted to UChicago and very much wants to go there. BUT, I am very worried about all that I have heard about the intense, competitive academic environment and workload. She is very smart and an excellent student, but I am worried she will have to work all of the time to keep up. (I attended a top college, but it seems like she will have to work much harder at UChicago than I did in college...) I am also worried about how restrictive the Core is...making it that she won't have flexibility in choosing her classes. Do students actually like the Core classes? Any advice would be appreciated.</p>
<p>It is intense; it is academic. I don’t think it’s competitive at all – at least my two kids there never experienced it that way, and neither did their friends, and neither did our relatives who also went there. Quite the opposite – cooperation and collaboration are rampant, and talking about how well you are doing is a big social faux pas. Maybe there are some competitive corners, but overt everyone-for-himself competition seems to be discouraged.</p>
<p>The Core at Chicago is a Chinese-menu thing – there are really a fair number of choices for each of the elements. The core of the Core – the special classes that you can’t place out of or substitute something else – really only amounts to 9 classes, which is only about 20% of the number of classes most people take. And 2-4 of those will be “Civ” classes or art/music/drama classes, where there are really a ton of options and the courses aren’t intense at all. The core of the core of the Core is 5-6 classes of “Hum” and “Sosc”, where the choices are somewhat more limited, and somewhat illusory since there is a lot of overlap between the choices. If she goes to Chicago, at worst she’ll live through that. At most, she’ll love one or both of them and have her interests and direction permanently altered.</p>
<p>Whether students like the Core or not seems to be a mixed bag. Almost everyone likes the IDEA of the Core, and they seem to like having some key texts that everyone has studied and thus can discuss with others or use as a point of reference without worrying that no one will understand the references. My humanities-oriented kid hated Hum – at the time, she thought it was a waste of her time, although in retrospect as a fourth year she thought she needed to learn some of what was being taught there and was too arrogant to understand that. She liked her Sosc course a lot, though. My non-humanities kid thought his Hum was the best course ever. He really disliked two of the three quarters of Sosc, and the third turned him into a sociology major.</p>
<p>Thanks for this info… I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>I have a son who is a second year there. </p>
<p>I completely agree with JHS. The standard is high. My son never had to study at HS: never really spent time preparing for any test.</p>
<p>He said, at U Chicago, he finally realized that he actually have to spend time preparing for exams and test. But, his GPA is way north of 3.5. Based on my observation last two years, if he was to be satisfied with 3.2-3.3, he probably could maintain his happy HS life style.</p>
<p>Even so, it’s not like he is studying ALL the time. He is doing a lot of other things. Some of the extra curriculum activities he initiated and recruited other students for are very time consuming, and probably he spends more time doing these than studying for the courses. </p>
<p>And it’s NOT competitive, based on his observations he shared with us. He and his friends are all helping one another. A lot of cooperation and collaboration. Looks like he frequently spends hours helping other students in math and econ, and given the way he makes it sound like a no big, unusual deal, I tend to believe that that’s general atmosphere, may be not as much time as he spends, but a good mutually supportive behaviors on the part of the majority of the students. </p>
<p>They all read each other’s resume and cover letter for summer internship application and comment and critique. Upper level students are connecting younger ones with the internship opportunities they had in the past. </p>
<p>Of course, there must be ultra competitive zero sum kind of kids too. But, we are looking at general, prevailing environment, and my sentiment is, your D should not have to worry about the atmosphere defined by predatory students intensely competing against each other on a zero sum basis.</p>
<p>I let my son turn down a full ride scholarship to go to U Chicago as a full pay student. Every penny I spend for his education at U Chicago is the best money I ever spent. If your D is the kind of kid who already likes U Chicago, she will thrive there. The other day, he joked that he should send a sincere thank you note to Harvard for the rejection since he is so, so, so very happy at Chicago. </p>
<p>Caveat: I am not there, but maybe the reality is completely opposite. I am just reporting based on my son’s experience and observation.</p>
<p>Just a couple of additional notes:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You would never pick this up, but it’s really significant that hyeonjlee has an impression consistent with mine. Neither of my kids spent any time hanging around economics/business types, which is what hyeonjlee’s son is, and which represents a sizable percentage of Chicago students. When I said “maybe there are some competitive corners,” I was hedging because I knew practically nothing about the experience of those students at Chicago.</p></li>
<li><p>Extracurricular activities were really important to both of my kids. Kid #1 did a lot of paid work – at one point, she had four different jobs, and the university had to cut back her hours to keep from having to give her benefits. The jobs ranged from working in the hipster coffee shop to doing oral history interviews. She also wrote for and edited student and university publications, tutored grade school kids in Woodlawn for a couple years, and was a member of a political group. Kid #2’s non-academic life revolved around a club sport that he did seriously for 3+ years (practice every day, frequent weekend competitions), and involvement in an area of the arts that rarely involves less than 20 hours a week of work (for some of which he gets paid), often more. Both had to learn how to do well in Chicago courses, so they didn’t have gaudy GPAs, but both had roughly 3.8 averages for their third and fourth years when their extracurricular work was at its most demanding. I should add, too, that spending 30+ hours/week on nonacademic stuff has not kept kid #2 from being very involved in scholarship in his major field, working on a scholarly journal, and applying to PhD programs with full faculty support.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>They both also liked parties. Kid #1 knew where every party in the university was, and attended a good number of them. Kid #2 has cut back a lot, and limits his partying to his three areas of interest (sport, EC, academic department) – but that still generates a fair amount of parties.</p>
<p>Now . . . does all this create some stress at the end of each quarter? You bet. But I have been really impressed by the overall experience of my kids and their friends. Academics are always central to their experience, but are not by any means the only thing they do, or even for some the most important thing. Their lives are very full, and they learn a lot. What more can one ask?</p>
<p>another thing I was really impressed was how much individual attention he gets from his faculty members. His best discovery - his residential master (a faculty who lives in an apartment integrated into the dorm building with his wife). He spends hours and hours with this faculty and considers talking to XXX course as worth 50% of the tuition. My son claims that XXX taught him how to “read” for the first time (and my S has already been a voracious reader) and “write” (I thought even as a HS student, S was a terrific writer!). XXX reads his resumes and cover letters and critiques them. They exchange long thoughtful email on philosophy of education and what not. S onces forwarded one such correspondence from XXX, and it was about 5 pages, single paced. S once told me that when he was eating with this faculty and his wife, after 30 minutes his wife exclaimed “XXX, your face is beaming!”</p>
<p>Not to that extent, but still, when/if he wants, he can easily spend couple of hours at a time anytime he wants with any faculty he is taking a course from. At the end of the term, S sometimes forwards to us the final papers he submitted and returned with comments from the faculty. Several times, I saw the “returned” digital paper was more than twice the length of the original (meaning, the feedback and critique by the faculty was longer than the original paper written by my S). (no, S is not mama’s boy 
We talk a lot about philosophy of education, social issues, etc, and those term papers were very much in the area of our discussion, so he wanted to share with us what his thoughts were on these issues and what kind of perspective he gained from reading the feedback on his paper).</p>
<p>By the way, most of my S’s HS friends are at top schools. And I know their parents too. My impression is, even among elite universities, this level of faculty access is NOT the norm. I hear at Harvard, for instance, you don’t get this level of faculty attention as a freshman students.</p>
<p>The overall impression I have formed so far is, U Chicago is the kind of place perfect for kids who are interested in learning. Not only they get terrific opportunities with supportive faculty, if they want it, but they get the same vibes from their peers. The synergistic effect is truly that of a life of a mind for the kids who want it and pursue it. This is what you can’t easily find in other schools. </p>
<p>I am told that a HS friend of my son who is going to another uber elite school really misses thoughtful exchanges he used to have with my S and a few of his HS cohorts. In his new school, he has yet to find such a group. Every time he starts a thoughtful discussion, somebody turns into a dirty joke. (My son’s HS was a very tiny (60 kids per class) public magnet school where they send about 30-40% of their students to top 20 universities - but no sport teams! So, it is possible that for some of students from this HS, the college experience is actually watered down version in terms of the intensity of the thought exchange. </p>
<p>My S partied a lot during the first year. I think he toned it down during the second year: he got it out of the system. Even so, I know he spends a lot of time with friends just hanging out and chilling. He brought a few of them home this past spring break, and I gave them the best compliment a parent can give. “Please tell your parents that if any one of you guys were to be my kid, I would be thrilled!”</p>
<p>Do I sound like a used car saleswoman on U Chicago’s payroll? No, I am not 
I am just a very satisfied parent who is so gratified to see her son thriving beyond her wildest expectation at U Chicago. Of course, this is just our story. There may be other students and parents who sincerely regret having picked U Chicago. I actually saw a post from an unhappy mom who can’t stand her son doing mumbo jumbo on quasi intellectual stuff she considers all hot air and nothing more!</p>
<p>I’m not the OP, but thanks JHS and hyeonjlee for the informative and detailed (as always) posts! I’m really looking forward to this Fall!</p>
<p>You need not and should not worry at all. As you said your D is smart and is an excellent student, she will be able to adjust. If she has no doubt that UChicago is the right school for her, then give her your blessing. She will be fine. As a parent, you will have to let go sooner or later. You should just sit back and watch your kid grow and mature over the next few years. The UChicago will provide that kind of environment and setting for her to do that.</p>
<p>I did my Ph.D. work at Chicago, was a TA, and was always impressed with the quality of the undergraduates. When S1 was admitted, I was thrilled. He now has a well paying job he loves. Recently, I was able to attend professional events where he was also in attendance. Even though I have been advocate of the Core and the rigor of a Chicago education, I was taken aback by the range and depth of his knowledge as I overheard him speak with Ph.D. students, professors and a range of accomplished business executives. He was as at ease giving suggestions for experimental work in behavioral economics as he was discussing philosophy, literature, or social theory. A (very accomplished and respected) friend and colleague was also present at one of the events and commented, “You can really tell he attended the University of Chicago.” At that moment I had it confirmed that paying full-freight for Chicago was not only worth every penny, but was the best investment I have ever made.</p>
<p>My son is a 3rd year and I agree with the other parents. My S’s first year required him to acclimate to the intellectual environment and he learned pretty quickly how much he had to work to get the grades he wanted. His favorite activity is actually to read more, to audit classes he’s interested in instead of doing formal ECs. I guess he feels he wants to soak in as much as he can while he’s there. I think there is variability of faculty access, graduate student involvment, quality of student services and quality of academic advisors but overall is has been a good experience. My son also turned down substantial scholraships to attend and it has be financially difficult for us but we are happy that he is happy at UChicago.</p>
<p>Another way of looking at this:</p>
<p>I graduated from the College back when it was admitted 38% of its applicants and I believe the average SAT score was around a 1400/1600. By the numbers I was a very average admit for UChicago-- back then-- and was probably a slightly-higher-performing-student than “average” at UChicago. I found the rigor of the College fine- not a walk in the park, but nothing outside of my expectations or abilities- and many of my peers (half of whom were lower performers than me) had similar experiences. </p>
<p>Now that the acceptance rate is 15% ish and the average SAT is 1500/1600 ish, I have a hard time believing that anybody accepted to the College is not COMPLETELY capable of getting the work done in a way that is reasonable. Unless the academic standards shot off the charts as well, what the numbers tell me is that UChicago can now afford to be more academically selective along with everything else, and the students whom admissions felt were marginal once upon a time, when the school was less selective, wouldn’t even make the cut now.</p>
<p>Let me also add that I came from a very academically rigorous high school where we were constantly told that college would be a breeze compared to our workload in hs. Many of my classmates came from less-than-challenging high schools, and I imagine that a student or parent of a student who was underchallenged in high school but showed admissions a lot of academic promise might feel a little worried about the big step up. What I noticed was that there was considerable support for the students who needed a bit of an extra boost in their first year (writing and harper tutors) but that after a few weeks, most students did their own thing and were working at the pace of everybody else.</p>
<p>I’m a current student at the University of Chicago, and while I do believe that the academic program here is very rigorous, it is not impossible. I worked hard last year, but I spent more time at baseball games, eating dinner downtown, acting in plays, walking in student run fashion shows, and interning than I ever had time to do in High School.</p>
<p>The amount of time that you spend studying really depends on who you are as a student, but in my experience UChicago is not in any way as competitive as you are afraid that it is. Indeed, it’s been quite the opposite. My friends and classmates have proof-read my essays, helped me with my problem sets and brain-stormed projects with me. If you wander down into the basement of the Regenstein library at night, you’ll find out the true meaning of a ‘collaborative zone’. People support each other. </p>
<p>I also spent time with the Harper tutors, who are there to help you with any academic struggles, and professors always have office hours, where you can go and ask questions.
It’s a challenging academic environment, but there are support systems to help you.</p>