Consolation

unalove, I think this was more a case of drawing a dud host. My S, who is a perfect fit for the U of C in virtually everyone's opinion, was hoping for kids as interesting/engaged as those at CTY--not an unreasonable expectation of the U of C, IMHO. Didn't happen. I think that the university would do well to consider recruiting hosts who are actually willing and able to *host* in some meaningful sense. (He stayed in BJ.)

BTW, I do have some experience with the school, having been a grad student there eons ago.

CountingDown

S stayed at BJ Sunday/Monday. Had a terrific time! He stayed at Shoreland on a previous visit. Consolation, I'm sorry your S didn't find "his people," as my S puts it. A friend of his also did CTY for a number of years and chose Chicago precisely because he found friends like the folks he had met at CTY.

jack4640

haha that alpha delt party... I had to go by to pick up some money from a friend (and I'll be totally honest, I wanted to look at the lil prospies). It was a lot like senior prom. Don't worry if you accepted, O-week is a lot more fun.

If it felt like many people lacked social skills, well... yeah, most people do. There are cool people that make up for it I think I have a prospie tomorrow, should be fun.

You have no idea how pervasive and far-reaching the CTY network is here. It's like being in the mob.

newmassdad

Thought you might enjoy hearing about my D's experience 4 years ago.

We dropped her at the airport on Wednesday, and she flew into Midway, took the bus and overnighted in I house. Met up with host, with whom she had nothing in common, Thursday.

Meanwhile, wife and I took a mini vacation to the Hudson River valley above NYC. Friday morning at about 7:30 AM, I got a text message basically saying D was really sick and was throwing up all night. Called her and learned that when she threw up the first time, her host left the room never to be seen again. And she felt really bad....

Started calling numbers at the university, but only got answering machines. Around 8:30, connected with someone. Got a call back a short time later from an admissions aid who could finally help. Turns out one of the admissions folks (Jerry, don't remember his last name) was also a dorm head. He rescued our D and put her under the care of his wife. They even washed her sleeping bag and got her feeling well enough to be able to fly home Saturday.

End result was that D was so impressed with how they handled this, and the TLC she received, that it removed her doubts, even though she never got to see the classes and meet with the activities folks she wanted to on Friday (since she was sick in bed).

ohio_mom

Consolation -
"I think that the university would do well to consider recruiting hosts who are actually willing and able to *host* in some meaningful sense. (He stayed in BJ.)"

The hosting is all volunteer .. I think what the university could do is remind them that guests were coming a bit more assertively. When my son hosted, he forgot entirely about it ... but was luckily reminded by one of the girls in his house (just in time).

corranged

Remember that these overnights feature 400+ prospies, so you can't be very picky about hosts. I guess that works out to about 1/4 of students in housing hosting a prospie, and if you consider the fact that many rooms are doubles it really works out to be more than that (roommates often "share" a prospie since adding two people into a double room can get pretty crowded). They often need to beg people to host. Hosting can be fun, but it's also inconvenient in a number of ways. The hosts are told to give the prospie a place to sleep. It's nice to entertain them, but it's not part of the job description. It's the job of the prospie to go out and talk to people and have a good time.

Anyway, as I've said, I hated my overnight, and I'm very happy here as a student. There are certainly some people here who lack social skills, but there are also hundreds of incredibly cool people. (Some people even belong in both categories!)

beefs

My host was freaking awesome. I won't name names but he was in the Shoreland. Yes, the best dorm ever.

unalove

Yeah, I can think of a lot of singular hosts that could leave a bad impression on somebody (i.e. "Is everybody like here like them?) the saving grace (so I think) is that a visiting student gets exposure to lots and lots of students... even on a typical night in BJ, you'll have a lot of people in the lounge watching TV, people in the stairway arguing about Kant, people going to Bar Night.

But yeah, some hosts are going to be hands on and amazing and some are just going to host because they owe somebody a favor.

chicagoboy12

whats CTY?

newmassdad

CTY = Center for Talented Youth, a program run by Hopkins that has a big summer camp program. AKA Nerd Camp, but the attendees mostly love it.

glasses

They also offer courses online with personal grad student support.