<p>If the costs were equal, UChicago would probably already be my choice. However, my dad is a professor at Wash U, making Wash U $20,000 a year cheaper than UChicago. My family is in a position where both can be afforded, but I don’t want to make them spend $80,000 lightly. My interests lie in Math/Science, areas where UChicago excels. Afterwards, I do intend to go to grad school. Basically, my question boils down to whether UChicago is worth a total of $80,000 more than Wash U if grad school is in my future(or even if it were not)? </p>
<p>I’d like to hear from anyone who is well acquainted with UChicago and its undergraduate departments in Math/Science or any current students. What would be your decision in my situation?</p>
<p>With a professor dad, it should be easy for you to figure out. Is there a specific area you want to specialize in where there is a nobel laureaute only available in Chicago and is that person actually teaching/training undergrads? If not, go to Wash U.</p>
<p>OTOH, if Academics is in your future, listen to your dad.</p>
<p>Well, if my dad were entirely in love with Wash U, I’d probably already be committed there. However, he isn’t particularly fond of the university and feels that UChicago would get me a much more solid overall education. I know UChicago ranks much higher than Wash U in most sciences(physics, chemistry, math…etc) for grad school, but do you feel any of this effect as an undergrad student?</p>
<p>I have nt gone to either of these two schools and dont have a kid in college yet so dont consider me an expert. If you were into pure science (as opposed to applied) you dont even need to go to college based on all the famous people in those areas. This home schooled kid won the intel prize in math solving some square root problem and is going to Harvard this year which makes all college education irrelevant for him. </p>
<p>You need to go deeper into what your interest is in and determine if there are some faculty members that you truly want to work with in those specific areas in either school. Chicago has stayed away from engineering in order to concentrate on science and liberal arts at the undergrad level and may be that helps them with the focus. If you enjoyed writing find X or solving some of those postcard puzzles they keep sending out, may be Chicago is the place for you.</p>
<p>In order to specify my interest, I would say that at the moment i’d go into whatever college I picked as a Physics major.</p>
<p>I guess you should say yes father and move to Chicago! Physics dept seems to be mindboggling based on the Alumni receiving Nobel prizes (so does chemistry).</p>
<p>[List</a> of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Chicago - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_affiliated_with_the_University_of_Chicago]List”>List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>It’s great that you’re thinking about the financial burden; plenty of young people don’t. But different families have different priorities as to how to spend their money. For some families, even intellectual and financially secure ones, the philosophy is something like “XYZ State is a great school and that’s where I went. That’s where you can go too.” For other families, the philosophy might be “I got to go where I wanted. My kid will do that too.” Talk to your dad. Maybe you having your choice is where he wants that $80K to go. Maybe not–but unless you’ve had the conversation, don’t assume that all parents’ first priority is saving money on college.</p>
<p>Get your undergrad work done at WUSTL and do well, then work on your Ph.D. at UChicago. You will probably not have to pay either. Grad schools are rather generous towards their students.</p>