<p>Another completely unprovable, unsupported assertion. I seriously doubt that you’ve had late-night heart to heart talks with “most” students at the University of Chicago. To put it bluntly, unhappy people tend to gravitate towards each other. </p>
<p>In any event, I already explained that this isn’t a case of my son telling me what I want to hear. He tells me what he likes and doesn’t like. He always has. About the U. of Chicago and most other things. You don’t know my son. I do. Very well, it so happens. And it’s supremely arrogant of you (in a way that few people other than someone your age can be) to suggest that I’m deluded because I’m pointing out that my son has a different opinion from yours. Some college kids are actually honest with their parents, believe it or not. (My son has told me a number of things about his college experiences – non-academic – that I would never have dreamed of telling my parents, in a million years!)</p>
<p>PS: Please stop making assertions such as your claim (if I recall it correctly) that you’ve out-argued everyone here. You haven’t. No matter how smart you are, you have neither the education nor the experience to do that. And claiming that you do detracts from your credibility.</p>
<p>May be others in this thread have posted this also, but the discussion on this thread seems have gravitated far away from the OP’s topic. IhateUofC has provided his opinions/observations in a manner that clearly shows that he is very passionate about it and believes them to be true and also reflective of the views of many other students. Others have refuted or disagreed with the comments of IhateUofC based on their own observations/opinions or the opinions/observations of people they trust. </p>
<p>I am sure this discussion can go on for another 30 pages but it is unlikely that it is going to lead to a change of heart and/or mind of the various respondents and possibly get more personal and vindictive. I think we should let this thread die. Obviously this is not going to remove the hurt or anguish that IhateUofC clearly has. I am sure that IhateUofC has options both within U of C and outside (including in other forums of CC) to try and get closure on the matter and I strongly encourage him to do so. From personal experience, allowing something to fester for a long period of time is counter productive for the individual. My 2 -c-, please do not flame me.</p>
<p>When were those golden days? As far as I know, UofC was always well known on the East Coast, especially among academics. A friend of mine, in his 40s, transferred from UofC to Reed because he liked the latter’s philosophy department better. The D of a friend of mine applied to both Swarthmore and UofC in the late 1990s; she did not get into Swarthmore, so she attended UofC, majoring in classics. She considered transferring out, too, until she found some off-campus EC that she enjoyed. The son of another friend of mine got into Chicago in the mid-90s, and studied economics. As I said elsewhere, I know lots of Chicago grads, most of whom attended it in the mid- to late 90s.</p>
<p>Chicago already had a great reputation in the early 1970’s in New York, at least at the school I went to, and my older sister’s school. As it happens, my sister went there, which is one of the reasons I didn’t actually apply even though I know I considered it. (I still have a letter I got from the history department there.) </p>
<p>It was, I think, highly-regarded in general. I just took my 1972 Yale Daily News “Insiders’ Guide to the Colleges” off the bookshelf, and the following are the first and last sentences of the Chicago profile: “The University of Chicago ranks as one of the nation’s foremost private schools, and its reputation is well deserved.” “No one should ignore Chicago when contemplating colleges, for it can provide a meaningful four years of involvement in community affairs, as well as one of the finest academic curricula anywhere in the country.”</p>
<p>“Why would students at Chicago be any more or less likely than students at any other school to tell their parents that life at the school was fine and dandy when they were really not happy, IHUC?”</p>
<p>Well Pizzagirl, because most of the parents on here seem to be living vicariously through their children and they also seem to be very controlling and judgmental. I know if my parents were like that I would just tell them whatever it took to keep them happy and off my back.</p>
<p>marite: I have no doubt that the U of C has long been well-regarded by sophisticated applicants. Academics like those you mention are probably the exemplar. But I do think that in the current climate, where college admissions has become a national obsession, U of C has attracted a broader range of applicants, including some who may be applying not because they’re attracted to the Core or the intellectual vibe, but because they’re seduced by the US News rankings.</p>
<p>True, enough, but that’s also true of practically every other school–especially those who’ve adopted the Common Application!
S1 applied to BOTH Brown and Chicago, saying he could see himself thriving at either.</p>
<p>wjb, please don’t lump me in with those who are not attracted to the core or who see starbursts because of rankings.</p>
<p>The core is a wonderful idea that is central to the University, it just needs some reform.
Secondly, I didn’t even pay much attention to US News rankings until after I was in and they announced UChicago messed up submitting their data. I was looking for a school that was the right fit, not one with the highest rank</p>
<p>I am not lumping you in with anyone, IHateUofC. I was not thinking of you when I mentioned some students’ motives for applying to the U of C. I have previously posted my position that your negative opinion of the U of C is entitled to as much respect as other posters’ positive opinions. Please understand, however, that you are not the subject of this thread, and that every post does not reflect back on you.</p>
<p>You weren’t per chance on the same thread I was (regarding newmassdad’s very accomplished daughter - I think it was called Experience of an Ivy Reject) in which it was made quite clear that UofC was seen by the daughter’s peers as, well, I suppose a “decent enough” school for the poor dears who didn’t get into the real schools?! </p>
<p>I think wjb is right. While a certain group has always known of UofC, it’s now a much “hotter” school because more people on the east are now aware of it through the USNWR rankings.</p>
<p>And you complain about ad hominem attacks? Ha. See, I’ve never disputed that your opinion is accurate for yourself. You, on the other hand, seem unwilling to concede that there are University of Chicago students who disagree with you, and assume that they must be lying to please their parents. I feel very sorry for you if you don’t understand the difference between a parent living through their child (I have my own rather interesting life, thank you very much!), and a parent who’s not embarrassed to take pleasure in their child’s happiness (just as they have empathy when their child is sad), and who actually is capable of honest communication with their child.</p>
<p>I do understand how bitter you are about your college experiences. But you really should learn to moderate your tendency – common as it may be – to universalize both your own experiences and your interpretation of them, and to dismiss as a fabrication any opinion that doesn’t confirm your own. The more you do it, the more rigid and unreasonable you appear.</p>
<p>But when were the golden days you mention? The people I instanced all applied before NMD’s D. I actually know NMD personally and have met his D. The important thing about her story is that she applied to several of these schools as well as Chicago, thinking that she would be happy to attend any of them. The sadness she felt upon being rejected did not have to do with the perception that UofC was inferior in any way but that she was rejected by other schools. There were other considerations as well, not to do with UofC’s character, but location and distance from home (at the time).
Had she been admitted to those other colleges (and clearly, it was their loss), she would have thrived there, too. And she would have been like an awful lot of other students at those schools. UofC is ranked #8 in a tie with Columbia. It can’t be considered so “inferior!”</p>
<p>Let’s keep in mind that not that very long ago, all schools were basically local schools. They attracted students from a well-defined catchment area. They still do; but they also try to reach out to applicants from different areas and to become national or even international institutions. I’m not sure that the various schools differ a huge lot from one another. Similar faculty; similar student bodies; and not so very dissimilar curricula when all is said and done. Which may be why the marketing has to go into higher gear than ever before.</p>
<p>To IHateUofC: I’ve noticed that you have tended to respond to many posters in a hostile or defensive way. It seems to me that you have taken some generalizations by some posters as personal attacks, and that you have put your own negative twist on some comments that seemed to me to be relatively innocuous. </p>
<p>We all see the world through our own preconceived biases, and individuals tend to respond to events around them in different ways. But you have revealed qualities about your personality in your posts that give me a good sense of why you were unhappy at Chicago; unfortunately I think you would have been equally unhappy at almost any other college. It seems to me that you set high internal standards and react with frustration or disappointment when those standards are not met. If your internal standards are unrealistically high, then you are bound to experience frustration and disappointment. </p>
<p>This is not meant as a criticism, just an observation. You seem to be a glass half-empty type of person, so you focus on negatives. It makes you unhappy. It also leads you to generalize in a way that magnifies your unhappiness – that is, when you heard other students voice complaints that echo yours, you assumed that they too shared your unhappiness – but a complaint or criticism is not necessarily indicative of overall dissatisfaction. </p>
<p>I think you will find a range of experiences and opinions at Chicago, as well as any other school, as well as a range of personalities. Many students will be quite happy at Chicago (or anywhere else), even if the work load is more intense than expected, the winters colder, the professors less remarkable, the fellow students less engaged – simply because they are more willing to accept and adjust to a reality that does not match their pre-conceived notions. Others are less likely to have constructed lofty pre-conceived ideas in the first place - they may be more skeptical about marketing hype, more likely to assume the worst and react with pleasant surprise to even a partial matching of expectations. </p>
<p>I don’t have any problem with you or anyone else adopting any screen name you want… but I do think that the “I” part of the name is most important. The person who calls himself “IHateXXX” has a very different world-view than the poster who chooses “ILoveXXX”, much of which fits under the umbrella of self-fulfilling prophesy.</p>
<p>Yes and no. I went to high school in Missouri and I looked all up and down the east coast during my search, as did my friends; kids from my high school (a public hs) went everywhere in the country, and when I wound up at NU there were kids from every state there. I think the real thing is that kids from the midwest and south have always strayed far from home if they wanted an elite education or to go beyond their state flagship, and now the college wars are so intense that the kids on the east coast need to do the same thing, and they think they’ve invented the concept!</p>
<p>“…you have taken some generalizations by posters as personal attacks…” Let’s just tell it like it is: most anyone who criticizes anything about UofC on this board is sooner or later personally attacked. And dare I say: how about letting the person who <em>feels</em> under attack make that judgment call? Imo, IHUofC has been ripped to shreds here! I don’t even want to speculate about what it says about parents who do that to defend a college their kid, or friends’ kids, or kids’ friends, or “mentee,” or whatever, attends or attended, or might have attended. Really, really creepy. (This is, of course, a generalization–not directed any one poster or posters here.)</p>
<p>mummom- You keep saying you are gone… Hard to stay away?? Most of us are open to criticism about schools- even Chicago. I think IHUofC has given us some good information, once we got down to specifics. As I said, I offer a lot of criticism of my son’s school. I hope it helps others. You, on the other hand, seem to want to MAKE personal attacks. I don’t see any “creepiness” in the defense of UChicago here. I see a lot of informative posts on both sides. I guess I find it a little creepy for a parent to have such a vendetta against a school the way you do. Geez- it’s a SCHOOL! It didn’t divorce you or even un-friend you on facebook!</p>
<p>Are there rules about coming back? Do tell.
Once again, stop and think. You are continually proving my point.
For the last zillion pages I haven’t even said anything negative about Chicago! I’ve just been defending myself. I sort of think perhaps IHUofC feels the same way.</p>
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