| Loyola is a Jesuit school with three campuses -- the traditional residential campus on the lakefront in the north side neighborhood of Rogers Park; a downtown campus mainly for business; and a medical campus in the west suburbs. Traditionally, Loyola has been the stronger school academically, but went through some very hard times in the late 80s/90s both financially and administratively. Is now bouncing back. They just built a beautiful new high-tech addition to the library at the Rogers Park campus and have lots of other new construction planned. Still very strong in the health sciences, pre-med, nursing, etc. Rogers Park campus can be a little rough around the edges. Easy train ride downtown.
DePaul, which as I say used to have less academic cachet, rode a different train in the 80s, 90s, got to be a "hot" school because of its incomparable location in the trendy Lincoln Park neighborhood and because of the basketball team. Built a new library, new student center, new rec center, etc. Extremely appealing urban campus. Also has a second campus downtown for business and law. Still known best in town for accounting and computer science. Median ACTs a little lower than Loyola's.
Both schools have more girls than boys and are still not 100% residential -- though dorm numbers have risen dramatically since the 1980s, many students still commute.
Both schools take full advantage of their settings in Chicago for internships, cultural events -- and the students go out into the city for a good time.
Hope that helps. |