<p>I’m just a prospective student (and an international one at that), so I’m probably the least clued-up person who’ll weigh in on this thread, but for what it’s worth, I reckon Chicago has some pretty bloody brilliant science available. </p>
<p>My reasons for thinking this are twofold:</p>
<p>(1) Chicago has a knock-over superb maths major, the Gourman undergraduate rankings have it at fifth, and at the graduate level, it’s used to complement the unparalleled economics programmes; plenty of economists will tell you it’s precisely this emphasis on quant methods which makes Chicago econ so utterly wettingly good (OK, plenty of others will tell you that Chicago-trained quants caused the present crisis, but they (a) don’t understand maths and therefore have their responses skewed by a deep-seated inferiority complex, (b) are wrong); in any hard and most social science, the most useful skills you acquire will be mathematical ones, simply put, maths is the key to understanding and getting into almost everything, and Chicago’s maths is apparently very, very serious business;</p>
<p>(2) Chicago’s physics (something else I’m also very interested in) is top notch, in large part because of punishingly difficult, rigorous maths blablablah, but also thanks to the access to world-class labs, (Argonne and Fermilab), at which undergradiates can and do get involved in research, if you believe the propaganda I’ve been sent anyway.</p>
<p>So, in summary, Chicago probably does have a hardcore hard science culture.</p>
<p>That said, I share your concerns about the Core and so am looking forward to being enlightened by others as much as no doubt you are. </p>
<p>While I recognize that acquiring the ability to effortlessly write witty and eloquent prose is a great thing in and of itself (life of the mind and whatnot, eh?) and that it will earn you respect and if sufficently demonstrated, added value on the market, I’m not sure that’s easy to accomplish. As one person here in England put it to me in terms I certainly don’t condone but which nonetheless sort of reflect a nagging, worrisome sentiment I have: “Ew! You’re going to the States?! But they’ll put you in a packed hall and have some ghastly second-rate African-American lecture you about his (or more likely her) pain” (or words to that effect). OK, it’s a gross and unfair generalization of the US collegiate system before even going into the potentially offensive casual racism, but you kind of get the point. There’s always the possibility we’re signing ourselves up for a mind-numbing orgy of pretentious droning where up-themselves fools confuse discussing post-structuralism in sentences that average over four syllables per word with actual intelligence. </p>
<p>That’s a worry alleviated as far as I’m concerned by the fact Chicago does overall seem to be a place for genuine thinking rather than babbling hot air, and if they train people to write with programmes as intelligently designed as those training students to do regression analysis 'til it’s coming out their arses, we’re sorted. </p>
<p>Once more, I really don’t know all that much, other than that it’s based on the above evidence I applied, and am probably enrolling. If anyone with more of a clue (i.e, 99% of this forum) wants to have a go, it’s probably going to be fair play.</p>