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Chicago is just like any other college, with just a slightly more academic feel.
What I mean by this is that kids are kids wherever one goes (i.e. like to have fun, hang out, eat, enjoy life, etc) and Chicago is not a totally different universe.
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That's a really good way of putting it. When I first came here, I was expecting Chicago to be more extreme in its difference, but now I'm pretty sure that anybody who likes school (enough of the time) and is good at it will like it here. I think JHS and I have a running thesis that most Ivy League kids would be happy at Chicago and vice versa.
Also, consider that you have kids at Chicago who applied to all kinds of schools, and chose Chicago over another option. While some people know Chicago is for them right off the bat, some people are here because they didn't get into Stanford or Duke (i.e. they wanted to go to a well-rounded party/academic school). The Stanford/Duke rejects find what they are looking for, too.
I'm hoping to make this thread about other general questions that are going to come off over and over again or for kids who don't think they have any questions but would rather just read a consistent narrative, and that particular, situation-based questions (if you have them) get their own threads.
11.
Pretend the University of Chicago closed and you had to transfer to other schools. Which ones would you transfer to?
I think my first choice would be Reed, because Reed seems to have a lot about what I like in Chicago-- great academics, excited, happy people, a city, AND A FOREST.
My ideal school is at the intersection of academic and offbeat. For that kind of school, I also like Brown, Columbia, Yale, Carleton, Bryn Mawr, Oberlin, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Vassar, Bard, Pomona, Haverford, Rice, Colorado College. I think I would be happy at just about any school, though those are the ones that strike me as being most up my alley.