How cut-throat is U of C?

[aristotle1990]

<p>

The one thing they don’t do is obsess about grades, or worse, talk about them.

No talking, yes, No obsessing, no.</p>

<p>The University of Chicago is not a “competitive” school for the same reason it is not a political one; the students tend to be somewhat withdrawn, and there is no strong sense of community. Morale is not especially high either, probably because a lot of students simply do not want to be here. (This also might explain the university’s astonishingly low yield. Have a look [url=<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/01/26/most-popular-colleges-national-universities.html]here[/url”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/01/26/most-popular-colleges-national-universities.html]here[/url</a>]. Where’s Chicago? Third page, flanked by Indiana University–Bloomington and University of Minnesota–Twin Cities.)

With the data on their systems, the professional school admissions staff can probably push a button to run a regression of GPAs vs. major, undergraduate institution, and standardized test scores. I don’t think that “reputation” is likely to fool them for long.

Best point on this thread. You can go on and on about how great and rigorous your school is, but admissions people have enough data to cut through the nonsense. (The average GPA here is about 3.3, I think, which is roughly the average GPA at other schools.) Blaming bad grades on your alma mater will not work on these people.

after all, what is an “A” hum paper? how is it different from an A- or B+ paper

Or an A+ paper. (They’re not uncommon in some of the “fake” hum sequences.)</p>