crideme

what are the differences in term of location, internship opportunities, social life, dorms, and study abroad. I plan on pursuing international relations???

jack4640

hold on one sec and i'll type up answers to every one of those questions

JHS

One of the areas in which they are very far apart is location. Chicago is located in Chicago, Illinois. It's near Lake Michigan, sort of toward the southwest end of it. Emory, on the other hand, is located in Atlanta, Georgia. Tufts seems to be in a place called Medford, Massachusetts that no one who doesn't go to Tufts every hears much about.

On the other hand, every one of them has dorms, internship opportunities, study abroad.

ohio_mom

Congratulations on having such wonderful options!

We visited Tufts - I am not sure if housing if assured for all four years or not. You can walk to the T stop from Tufts, and that puts you in Boston proper very quickly. I liked Tufts - my son didn't for no particular reason I could ever determine.

Will you have the chance to visit any of your schools? If not, I would suggest comparing the departments of interest for each.

cottonwood513

UChi vs Emory, son accepted at both--now at UChi

Better financial aid experience with University of Chicago. Emory wanted more info, independent letters confirming info and harder to communicate with, back and forth. UChi best financial aid of all acceptances.

Heard (via student survey guidebook) you really need a car to get around Emory. Car really unecessary at UChi.

Seashore

Great choices! I don't know much about Emery, but I know something about the other two.

It's as easy to get to downtown Boston from Tufts as it is to get from Hyde Park to downtown Chicago. And Boston is much more of a student town than Chicago.

I personally like the house system at Chicago in comparison to the Tufts dorms. Tufts has found that students like freshman dorms, and that's a pretty major focus. For upperclassmen, Chicago and Tufts are similar, in that students tend to move off campus into houses and apartments that are as close or even closer to their classes than the dorms were.

Study abroad is a much bigger deal at Tufts than it is at Chicago, and IR is one of the most popular majors. In fact, housing is not guaranteed for junior year, because so many students go away. (It's not a problem to get housing if you want it though.)

Chicago and Tufts have different feels in that Chicago is about the "life of the mind" and theory, while Tufts emphasizes bringing what you know to help the community and the world. Both Chicago and Tufts are excellent places to get to know your professors.

Good luck! Let us know what you decide.

unalove

Tufts is one of the few places that when I visited I immediately thought, "Hm, I could fit in really well here" and everything I read about it (and the people I know attending) makes me think it's a really nice school. Even the Tufts posters on the CC boards are really, really, really nice. The adcom, when I visited four or five years ago, was also among the best I have seen.

I wanted a little bit of a more charged intellectual environment, and that's why I ended up choosing Chicago over Tufts, and over the other many wonderful schools I could have gone to. You might feel differently, though, in what you're looking for, and may make another decision.

UCLA, Ph.D.

Emory or Tufts are not in the same class as Chicago.

Sheed30

Go to Chicago. Trust me, it's the place to be.