<p>When i first embarked on this admissions process, i was the usual ivy league applicant lookin to get into as many top 10 colleges as i could. Sooo, i applied to chicago and cornell, each early, Cornell being the binding one. I’ve recently(as in yesterday) regretted this decision and now feel like maybe Chicago is where i belong. Im contemplating withdrawing or sending my ed cornell app to rd in order to have the option in april or may or whatever it is.</p>
<p>What i wanna know is…</p>
<p>1) Is Chicago not only where fun goes to die, but also where people like me who are not as in love with learning as most chicago students end up being lonely and bored with the school? I think im gonna wanna party at least once in a while.</p>
<p>2) Is grading very difficult at chicago …for example, would i have to study hours a day for the b+ or would anything in the b range be decently attainable?</p>
<p>im really trying not to come off as a slacker or as somebody that doesnt want to do work, just that ive never pictured my 4 years of college solely or primarily(like 80 pecent of the time) studying. im just trying to get a feel for what im in for.</p>
<p>There are parties at Chicago. Especially on the weekends.</p>
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<p>Depends on the class, but usually, you can get a B in any class as long as you work 5-10 good hours a week on it. Last quarter, I got As and I didn’t really work that hard. In fact, I feel like they’re rather undeserved. I’m pretty sure that in those classes, there were no grades below a B-, and this is probably the case with most courses.</p>
<p>It also depends on your major. I know Biochem majors who do not sleep.</p>
<p>Oh, and as a sidenote, as for the one party I did go to last quarter… the conversations were still weird. I swear, I heard the word ‘aleph-null’ like 5 times from 5 different people.</p>
<p>I’m not an econ major so I really can’t tell you how hard the econ major is… I’ve heard it’s very very difficult, though.</p>
<p>I like to say that “Where Fun Comes to Die” is only as true as you make it for yourself. If you like to hang out, watch TV, go to parties, and do normal people things, you’ll find people to do them with. The slogan is something that Chicago students use to poke fun at themselves and that outsiders ask about with fear. I think of “WFCTD” as similar to RISD’s cheer for its non-existent sports teams: “Go Nads!”</p>
<p>Every year there’s always a person or two who wants to establish their internet reputation as “the person who’s gonna bring the fun back.” That person is inevitably ridiculed once school begins, because he or she realizes that there were parties before he or she came.</p>
<p>Phuriku is absolutely right in that workload varies widely by major. I think that happens at every school. As an English major at Chicago, I can say that the friends I have who work harder than me include a bio major at Cornell, an engineering major at Cornell, a comp lit major at Smith, and a journalism major at Syracuse. Chicago is not the only school in the country that offers students rigorous programs.</p>
<p>Like courseload, I’ve found grading to be very inconsistent. This quarter, I got an A- in a course that I felt I hardly worked for (a course for my major) and a B- in a course I did much more work for.</p>
<p>I don’t know how the recruiting at Chicago compares to other elite schools, but I do know Chicago degree will take one far in fields where the prestige of a degree matters. I have a few friends whose parents are in finance and banking… all of them go wide-eyed when I mention Chicago. (Two of them wanted their children to go).</p>
<p>Additionally, a Chicago diploma signifies that you’ve got some killer analytic and writing skills, something that will come in useful wherever.</p>
I’m not sure what you mean by this; after all, half of all Chicago students are below average in their love of learning, if it could be measured, but this doesn’t sound like something a student who is a good fit for Chicago would say.</p>
<p>what i mean is, im not gonna sit in my room on a saturday night reading plato for the hell of it when i could be out with friends at a jazz bar or at a sports venue. unfortunately, my perception of chicago, although very possibly flawed, is that its a place where students will sacrifice their free time after necessary studies to read and study and research even more forthe sake of reading and studying and researching.</p>
<p>greennblue – What do you mean by “half of all Chicago students are below average in their love of learning”? Are you talking about the 50% of students below the median GPA? I’m not sure I understand what you claim.</p>
<p>beefs – Like unalove said, you can and will find people at Chicago that would prefer to go out to a bar or watch sports rather than read Plato. However, many Chicago students don’t think of, say, reading Plato as ‘sacrificing free time’. If you really do dislike studying or learning outside of ‘necessary studies’, that’s an entirely different issue far bigger than deciding to go to U(C).</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I think greenblue was making the not-very-interesting observation that, in any population, about half of the population will be “below average” (really, below median) for any quality that’s measured across that population. So, if you measured “love of learning”, half of the students at Chicago would have less “love of learning” than the other half. Of course, what beefs may have meant is that s/he’s closer to the median for some other population --say, high-testing, prestige-hungry high school seniors – where the median might be below the Chicago median. It’s all a little silly.</p></li>
<li><p>I suspect the relevant question is not whether you would rather read Plato than hang out at a bar on Saturday night, it’s whether you would be terribly upset to find yourself discussing Plato (or math concepts) at a bar on Saturday night. As unalove says, it’s easy to find people to hang out at a bar with, but as phuriku suggests, it’s not necessarily easy to avoid talking about brainy stuff.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>1) Fun doesn’t die. Yes, there are people who might spend free time doing intellectual things. Much less than you might expect, though, partly because, especially if you are taking four classes, you don’t feel much like spending your free time doing things that require cognitive exertion. Often academic stuff comes up in non-academic settings. But there are also plenty of people who do things in their free time that might be considered “normal” for the average person, like go to sports events or bars or concerts and say not a word about Plato, Marx, or “alpha-null” [which must be math or something, because I have no idea what it means/refers to].</p>
<p>2) The average GPA is in the 3.25-3.35 range. To get As consistently, you’ll have to work a lot. To avoid C’s, though, most of the time you just need to do what’s required with some effort (I think the relative lack of C’s is due, in part, to the fact that very few Chicago students completely blow off academics). Sciences and Econ are sometimes curved, which makes getting a poor grade somewhat easier, but you still are probably not going to fail unless you are really lazy/don’t care.</p>
<p>-But if you divide life into “necessary” studying and being freed from academics, Chicago probably isn’t quite the best fit. If you are repulsed at the idea of reading Plato for fun (and not just because you disagree with him) and can’t understand why anyone would, Chicago is probably not a good fit. On the other hand, if you are just very self-aware and realize that most of the time, you won’t actually want to read Plato on a Saturday when there are other things you could do, then you are just more realistic than many prospective students. {Many students are relatively academically starved in high school. Once the actual school work becomes intellectually challenging/stimulating, the need to read Plato on Saturday nights goes away}</p>
<p>1) Fun doesn’t come here to die. I’ve had a fantastic time at UC so far. I’ve made a lot of fantastic friends and have also done plenty of schoolwork and studied hard. You can be socially active and also get your work done and done well here. </p>
<p>2) The grading varies from class to class. I had a class this quarter in which I got an A but didn’t put a huge amount of work into the class. Also, I had a class in which I got a B even though I tried really hard. It varies. </p>
<p>-Come here if you like to do a lot of reading on a lot of different topics and discuss your readings and the author’s ideas not only in the classroom, but at meals, in the lounge, when you’re hanging out with friends, etc. Basically, the people I’ve met live and breath the stuff they’re reading. They’re very interested in a lot of it (not all of it!) and want to spend time discussing it. This isn’t to say that they’ll give up their Friday and Saturday nights to do extra reading - Most kids want to go out and have a good time. However, if there’s work to be done, I think that most students would give up PART of their Friday and Saturday nights to do that work. </p>
<p>-If you can, come for a visit and talk to current students and see how you feel.</p>
<p>im starting to feel like chicago is right for me…you guys have convinced me that chicago isnt what i thought it was…i dont want you to think i dont love intellectual conversation, but what i feel is that mostly in high school, the material that ive used(pretty succesfully) to discuss with intelligent friends has been picked up without purposefully reading and researching and going on wikipedia…i feel like its just come to me by doing work in high school and taking part actively.</p>
<p>When I asked my interviewer about the rumor that “U Chicago is where fun goes to die” she completely agreed with the statement. She was an English major and told me she often did classwork on Friday and Saturday nights. I was shocked that instead of selling the school she was almost making me not want to attend. Is Chicago different from any other top ranked school? Will I be cooped in my dorm room on Friday and Saturday nights like she told me?</p>
<p>Chicago has changed over the years. (Even over the past 3-4 years… recent alumni do not even recognize their institution!) I think your interviewer was just being honest with you about her experiences, and letting you know that if you choose to attend, you will be doing quite a bit of work.</p>
<p>I don’t think Chicago is the kind of school you can “sell” very well. It’s right for some people and it isn’t as right for others. If it’s right for you, or if you find what you like about it and ignore what you don’t, I don’t think there is a better place on earth. I think it’s almost perfectly right for me, but I think that’s also because I know when to put down the books and when to knock around downtown or watch a stupid movie on TV with housemates. School and schoolwork doesn’t really stress me out, even when I have a lot of it to do.</p>
<p>You’ll find kids doing all sorts of things on Friday and Saturday nights. Some do work sometimes, but most don’t. I think that’s normal for almost any college. I don’t think I’ve ever done work on a Friday and Saturday night, and I’ve never felt like I had to. The students whom I see as working the hardest and getting the most stressed out about working are usually first-years who are pre-med. Balancing science courses, core courses, the stress of a new school, and the rigor of the school is difficult. I was concerned about a few of my first-year housemates towards the beginning of the quarter, but towards the end they began to get the hang of things and seem to be much more relaxed and happier. They’ve made friends, they’ve found things that de-stress them (playing with the resident heads’ baby, knitting, watching reruns of Grey’s Anatomy, listening to bad 80’s music) and they’re having a good time.</p>
<p>^^ True. A lot of people have a “go out” night and a “stay in” night.</p>
<p>What I meant to say, though, was that I have never worked on a Friday or a Saturday night. Ever. Or if I have, I was doing it because I wanted to, not because I had to, and I obviously have no memory of it.</p>
<p>I use Friday and Saturday nights as pure downtime for me. For me, downtime is dinner in the city and/or a movie or a show of some sorts, or, rather, just ordering food from Giordano’s and finding myself in a friend’s room, facebook-stalking cute guys, talking about our classes, gossiping, etc. Sometimes downtime is just me staring at my computer for long periods of time.</p>
<p>Perhaps a better way of looking at it is, do you think you would do better / be happier if you were in the very tippy-top of your college class? If the answer might conceivably be yes (and there is nothing wrong with this in the least), you might want to add a college or two where you would likely be in the running for major merit aid. Then, you can decide at the end of April, after you have attended various accepted student functions.</p>
<p>actually no…i dont think i want that in particular. its weird because i was thinking about that today. do college rank students? for example if i were to apply to grad school would the rank 36/1000 be on transcript or only if one is the valedictorian like they do in high school. also, phuriku said that its harder to get a good gpa at chicago so ill be okay graduating with a 3.3-3.5</p>