Does UChicago live up to its "extremely hard" reputation?

ssn137
Thu, 19 Mar 2015 17:46:09 +0000

Going to Chicago is a bit like joining a cult, and one that has its own unique culture. College alumni separated by decades can make (mostly dumb) Kant, Durkheim, or Foucault jokes that other alums (and current students) will understand. Part of the culture is working hard. That’s probably due in part to Chicago’s image as a more “theoretical” place, something that was amplified by the high ratio of graduates to undergraduates on campus (although the College has roughly doubled in size in the last 30 years). So, too, it may be that Chicago students are driven to work more vigorously by the spur of rejection from HYPS, although Chicago students, on average, are probably more talented. More famous peers tend to get the very best students academically, but other considerations (wealth and fame legacies; athletics; various types of diversity–income, geography,etc.) also drive a big chunk of peer institutions’ classes. While Chicago’s admissions office would probably want most of the kids who end up at HYPS, Chicago seems to value straight academic ability more highly as a general matter (recognizing that grades/test scores are an imperfect measure of ability). Those kids probably tended to work harder in school before college, and the Chicago environment helps amplify that tendency once they get to Hyde Park.

Choosing Chicago requires something of a “happy warrior” approach to rigorous work. Most students want to do the work, do it well, have time for fun, and eventually become very loyal alumni who couldn’t imagine having gone to college anywhere else.