Northwestern and UChicago Visits in a Day?

RedshoesMom · May 15

Hello all!

Is it possible to visit both Northwestern and UChicago in one day or is that crazy talk?

We'll have a car and the tentative schedule is: 9am at UChicago and NU at 1:30pm. (Thursday)

OR, we go a day later and start at NU at 9:45, then UC at 2pm. (Friday)

A quick Google map check says the drive between the two is about 45 min. (Plan an hour?)

Thanks!

yucca10 · May 15

It's doable but not a great idea. Unless you're already familiar with the city, you'd want to explore the schools' neighborhoods, they are very different.

ProfessorPlum168 · May 15

it's probably around 45 minutes between NW and UC if you drive at noon. The question though is, are you staying closer to NW or to UC or somewhere in between? Somewhat hard to find parking at NW so keep that in consideration as well.

Once you do get out of the Hyde Park/Kenwood area where UC is located, the area does become very different. Somewhat similarly, the same holds true for Northwestern if you wander a bit southwest of the campus.

RedshoesMom · May 15

We're driving from Milwaukee and our intention is to do quick visits. Thanks!

momzhood · May 15

Really have to disagree some of ProfessorPlum168’s points. It’s not difficult to find parking at Northwestern (NU, not NW) as there is a parking garage at the relatively new visitors center/admissions on the lake, near the Arts Circle. Can’t get much easier than that for a potential student. Semantics, maybe? but “a bit southwest of the campus” lies a terrific college town filled with all the restaurants and bars a city of 70,000 could expect to have. Going several miles south of downtown Evanston will take you to Howard Street which is the border of Chicago and has recently been revitalized (Peckish Pig - great restaurant!). Going more west as you go south in Evanston will put you in a rougher area but it is not where many NU students need to be. As far as the original question, yes, you could do both but try to avoid Chicago rush hour and use Lake Shore Drive. Beautiful drive but hellish before 9 and after 3. (I used to work in Evanston, commuting from Chicago, and have had students at both UChicago and Northwestern.) Have a great visit! Both are wonderful colleges in different environments.

CAtransplant · May 15

We did both in one day on the Saturday before Easter. It was hectic and probably not ideal but also we had less time between the tours. The Northwestern one was at 9:30 and I think was supposed to go to 11:15 and the U Chicago one was supposed to start at noon with an hour-long info session followed by a tour. @momzhood is right, parking for the Northwestern tour was one of the most convenient parking situations for a tour ever - and I've been on a lot of tours - in the parking lot right next to the beautiful visitor center. We knew that U Chicago parking would be harder and planned in advance to use the lot that they recommended that is about a 10-minute walk to the start of the tour. we left the Northwestern tour about 15 minutes early as we felt we'd gotten enough of an idea and we were about 5 minutes late for the start of the U Chicago info session. So leaving a good hour between is just barely enough time I'd say. But it is do-able and we lived to tell about it!

DWM1967 · May 15

Yes it's possible to visit both in one day. I went to both schools (NU for undergrad and Chicago for B-school) and it's totally doable. The time spread you outlined in your post should work out just fine.

By the way, what's up with people on this discussion board referring to NU as "NW"? Northwestern is one word, not two.

ProfessorPlum168 · May 15

oops I meant to say that parking is hard to find at UC....
The west part of Evanston (southwest of the campus) between Evanston High going south to the Chicago border is for the most part not really nice. But you can say that about a lot of elite school campuses for some reason, including Berkeley.

ProfessorPlum168 · May 15

if you're coming from Milwaukee you definitely want to do the second schedule, the one that starts at NU first. If you do UC first you will be running into traffic the whole way down LSD to downtown.

RedshoesMom · May 15

Thanks, everyone! I appreciated the additional tips on parking and places to eat. Looking forward to visiting!

hebegebe · May 15

I have done this twice, once for each child. It makes for a busy day, but is still doable. We even squeezed in meetings with professors at both universities.

Northwestern and UChicago Visits in a Day?

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