CMC VS U of Chicago VS Carleton

JHS
Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:22:14 +0000

I would rank them as significantly different experiences, as unalove suggests.

Chicago is a major research university justly famous for its Economics department, and with a strong, if uneven, and I believe quant-oriented, Political Science department. If you tote up famous professors, or international name recognition, Chicago is going to win hands down. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into a good undergraduate learning experience (or into a bad one, either).

Carleton is a small liberal arts college in a college town not so far from, but not exactly close to, Minneapolis. It is probably considered the academically strongest overall midwestern LAC – roughly the midwestern Swarthmore – and attracts similar students, including many students like you who might also be attracted to Chicago. CMC is a social-sciency liberal arts college on the edges of Greater Los Angeles, part of a closely linked group of adjacent colleges which, together, have somewhat more undergraduates than Chicago does. CMC is very much less well-known than some of its sister colleges, but has an excellent reputation among those who are aware of it.

All three colleges seem to attract and admit really smart, motivated students, many of whome share the OP’s interests. (And lest anyone doubt the impressiveness of CMC students, I want to make clear that I find xiggi very, very impressive.) All three provide great educational opportunities. None of them provides any kind of golden ticket to future success – that’s up to the student.

So you are left with the big differences: Do you want a research university, with a larger, more research-oriented faculty, and many grad students around, or a liberal arts college with fewer faculty, more committed to teaching undergraduates, and few or no grad students? City, suburb, or country? 5,000 undergraduates or 1,400? Midwest or California? Core curriculum or not? How much math do you want with your Econ and Poli Sci? (At Chicago, the answer will be “lots”.)

Also, you may want to note that, in part because of the Core, double majors are relatively rare at Chicago, unless there is a lot of overlap between their requirements.