Thanks MidwestDad3. From what you know, do you think a larger school or a smaller school would be better for a person who is very selective about their friends? I know some people who can get along with just about anybody, but I’m more of a person who tends to prefer a few close friends that I can connect with. In other words, what size school should I look at to form close friends rather than a ton of you-know, “eh” friends?
Chicago is at the top of my list. I can cosign what you’re saying about their advertising and their mail. One of the first pieces of mail I ever got from any school was UChicago asking what oddball intramural sport I would invent and what I would name my team. While it seems from CC posters that that image of Chicago is becoming a thing of the past, I don’t believe that it can be wholly fabricated, just like you.
Cosign the Northwestern suggestion, but it is in the Big 10, so sports have more focus there.
Since we seem to be attracted to similar aspects of UChicago, I guess I’ll throw out some schools I’m applying to. While Chicago is arguably the quirkiest, most bear similar characteristics and fit in a similar theme. No guarantess you’ll like them, but you might:
Northwestern, Kalamazoo, Vassar, WUStL, Brandeis, Macalester
About finding a few close friends you can connect with (also one of my hopes), I think that student organizations might be something good to look into. While bigger schools have more of these, you might just get swamped. I looked for schools with organizations that I would be interested in but were still small (10k> undergrads)
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Not to burst your bubble, but U of C has used a similar mailing campaign for at least 8 years (when my D1 got mailings from them that sound similar). D2 was accepted two years ago, and was somewhat disappointed in her fellow prospies and visit hosts at accepted students weekend. They didn’t really fit the vibe that the mailings give off, in her opinion (I thought the same). Just her experience – but the good thing is that U of C only has EA, so you don’t have to commit if you get in without a chance to compare to other schools. And your mileage may vary, it may match what you are looking for.
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Yes, UChicago does have more students who come for the US News rank and end up drinking away their sorrows because they didn’t realize the core existed, they can’t solve differential equations for the life of them, and they didn’t get into UCIB than we would like, but the life of the mind is far from dead. Your D may have gotten exceptionally unlucky on her prospie weekend - I spend mine sitting in the lounge being given advice about which math classes were most fun (“Take IBL Calc or you will regret it!”) from everyone in the house while a prospie and a 2nd year argued about Aristotle and my time at UChicago as a student has been no different. The dorm matters. Getting put in Snitchcock or BJ or Breck will yield a far different experience than South or Max P. A friend brought back stories of walls full of vodka and people wondering nude across the hallways. I was in one of the first set of dorms, she was in one of the second set.
Yup, walls full of vodka in Max is exactly what she ran into. And a host who slept through her pickup time. We both thought a lot of the prospies were obnoxious in presentations, too – more laxbo than life of the mind. Turned her off, she went to Mudd.
Pity. For all the things UChicago is doing to increase the yield, it’s strange that they don’t do a better job matching prospies with dorms. They have distinct cultures that may appeal to some more than others. Those worried about Chicago being “where fun comes to die” can have their so called fun and those who want to be surrounded by eggheads can be.
Interestingly enough, my host also missed his pickup time because he was studying for a midterm and was busy in the reg. He sent his roommate instead.
The laxbro culture here does come as a bit of a shock to some people. I was also admitted to Mudd though I made the opposite decision as your daughter and I have to say that the relationship between my life and the Chicago fratty people is similar to Mudders and the CMC fratty people from what I observed when visiting. They might occasionally show up in my classes and they live fairly close to me and I see them from a distance but aside from that we move in totally different circles.
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OP you should take a look at Carleton. It is smaller than U Chicago but might be closer to the kind of school that actually pulls off the vibe you are looking for. It could be a fantastic fit socially as well… or not… you’ll have to visit to find out.
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Would not recommend Northeastern for this student. NEU has co-ops, which are unconventional, but isn’t unconventional in the way this student specifically wants. It’s too large & pre professional, IMO, for what this student is looking for.
Maybe Colorado College? They have “breaking bread” with professors, classes in professors homes, professors are called by their first name, etc. Block plan with a lot of opportunities involved. Certainly unique/unusual.
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Warren Wilson College and Sarah Lawrence are fairly non-traditional
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Yes Colorado College has the unconventional block plan which creates truly unique opportunities within a block for extended field trips (geology goes to Bandalier for 2 weeks; film studies goes to Sundance etc. etc.). Students get to know professors well.
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I went to Williams, and while it’s no Deep Springs, Evergreen, Hampshire, or Bennington, it fulfilled all of those requirements for me (and then some!).
- Oxford-style tutorials. Amazing.
- Yup.
- I felt like it, yeah. Not like Hampshire, where students are involved in virtually every decision at every time, but a good spirit of cooperation, imo.
- Definitely.
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The University of Chicago of Hutchins’ time was not exactly a bystander when black people attempted to move into predominantly white nearby neighborhoods in the 1930s, only to meet with resistance from racist white residents.
Mary Pattillo, in a chapter titled “Race, Class, and Neighborhoods” in *Social Class, How Does It Work?/i writes:
Chancellor Hutchins may have made significant curricular and other reforms at the University of Chicago, but he was certainly not ahead of his time when it came to racial equality.
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In that time period, racist white residents were hardly unique to the residential neighborhoods around the University of Chicago. It’s fair enough to criticize Hutchins, or Edward Levi, for their roles in managing neighborhood transitions in the 1930s and the decades that followed. But what was the eventual outcome?
How many other elite, private universities find themselves located today in a middle-class, multi-racial residential community like Hyde Park-Kenwood?
Rich white people did not pick up the University of Chicago and move. That’s exactly what many residents, businesses and factories did all over America. Maybe that’s not saying much, but there are limits to how positively “unique and unconventional” a college can be in addressing the deep, systemic problems of a surrounding community as big and complicated as the city of Chicago. Arguably, what UChicago and other “elite” private colleges could be doing today is relaxing a bit on their elite exclusivity to identify, admit and support more talented, low-SES students. The town-gown relationship (including activities of its private police force) may need some work too.
HS students looking for a unique and unconventional college should keep these problems in mind.
It’s one thing to run an “alternative” school for 2000 students somewhere in rural New England.
It seems to be harder for an urban research university to innovate on a larger scale, with real impact, without walling itself off as an exclusive Ivory Tower.
WELL!! 
Ummm, are you suggesting that the University of Chicago merely (successfully) moved the walls (first racial, later SES) a bit outward to include the surrounding Hyde Park neighborhood rather than being content with keeping them at the campus boundaries? (e.g. by promoting the replacement of housing where low income people lived with more expensive housing so that low income people could not afford to live there)
^ You’re pushing this fairly off-topic, and I don’t know the history in enough detail to make hard claims about whether UChicago’s role in community development has been, on balance, positive or negative. When I lived in HP (which was years ago) relatively low income people could afford to live there (and did live there). It was a multi-racial community (mostly black and white then) of 30,000+ residents. Not just a couple of blocks.
Median household income in Hyde Park today is ~$60K, according to realtor.com figures.
That’s a few thousand dollars above the Illinois median.
That’s not Georgetown (DC), where the median is ~$119K.
It’s not Palo Alto or Princeton.
It’s not even Evanston, Cambridge, or Berkeley.
Again, I value everybody’s input. I never thought I’d receive this many responses! I’m still absorbing all this information.
DetroitLeper, I definitely think we have similar interests! Northwestern and WUStL are in my top 10. Brandeis is not far, either.
For the past 3 days, aside from all the schools that were mentioned, here are the other names that interested me. These would be my schools that I would “reach” for (with consideration of my interest, Marketing – more on that below) : Indiana University (Bloomington), UNC Chapel Hill, Notre Dame, and Penn State. I’ll still have to look into each to see more, but I think I’ve heard many people being very satisfied with Penn State.
Yes, I’d definitely need clubs and extracurricular activities. As someone who can’t just rely on academics to keep themselves going, I need community service, clubs, student leadership, and music ensembles.
That’s interesting, hearing about how the college didn’t fit the postcard, as well as the “walls of vodka”. I plan on visiting UChicago, and from first glances, I might be able to tell something. But I’ll definitely take into consideration the experiences shared by intparent and YogoSothoth.
Northwestern would definitely be a better choice than Northeastern for me. From what I understand, Northeastern seems like a very factually-minded type of school. Northwestern, however, is known for their stellar music program, which I’m also interested as well, although I don’t plan to major in music. But if a school is known for their amazing music program, it must say something about the type of people attracted to the school as well.
I must say, a block schedule is appealing to me, but I don’t know how many schools have it. I’ve never experienced it before in my life, and I’ve always thought my school district should implement one. I enjoy a little bit of routine (such as physically going to a place to hangout, work, learn), but I hate having to do the EXACT same things everyday. I always like variety and to mix things up. In school, I would always fall asleep, because some classes were exactly the same for every day of the school year. Same time, same style, same people, same everything. Throughout the years, I’ve discovered that I’m initially opposed to some things, but when I force myself to try and just go for it, I often find the results rewarding. Maybe I’m not always open to everything, but when I get past that initial rejection, I also surprise myself at how I handle situations. So I guess this also applies to the kind of school I want. I want a school that is organized, communicative, with the extra flairs of being respectively apart from the norm, pushing the boundaries, and creating new definitions of the word “college.”
Forgive me, I realized I haven’t said what I’m interested in pursuing, although I think I’m one of those people that surprise others and myself. I get the sense that anything could happen to change my mind in college, but right now, I’m interested in marketing (which isn’t a major at some schools), which is the umbrella over advertising. I like how marketing combines everything – economics, statistics, sales, media, journalism, communications, psychology, finance, public relations. And most importantly, whether people realize it or not, everybody needs marketing and marketing principles. Companies need it to sell products, organizations need it to gain supporters, candidates need it for votes, and movements need it for strength. It’s also a little bit of understanding what people like and how they react, and all in all, I think I could apply marketing principles to a lot in life.
So, right now, I’m declaring my major as BA with a focus in Marketing, and I’ve decided to stay on this path, and if I veer on to a different path, so be it. I’d rather have a course to follow and then make my choices, rather than start completely lost and end up nowhere. And again, this is also kind of a part of my personality that I want in my college choice. A college that sets out to be something, but can turn into their own version of that something in the end and be unique.
Knowing history is important, but I think more important is what we learn from history, or how we change and adapt based on the historical knowledge. It’d be interesting to know what UChicago has been involved with recently, regarding race and social issues.
After seeing everybody’s contributions, I just have to say that this is a great resource for me. I wouldn’t be able to hear of this information anywhere else, so I’m really grateful for everybody who commented. I don’t know if Marketing and the type of college I’m looking for mix well, but again, I’m all ears for suggestions. I’ll continue to apply what I’ve heard to my search, but in light of Marketing, I’m really looking into Penn State. Has anybody spent time there recently?
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Gonna say, your list of schools is all over the place and almost none are U of Chicago-like. Notre Dame? Penn State? Not much (ahem… any) overlap there in vibe.
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Northwestern, if you’ve got the stats and finding.
Yes, I’m still trying to balance the type of school I like and what the school has to offer for people interested in marketing. I realized that a lot of schools don’t offer as many marketing-oriented programs than others, and marketing is not a common degree itself. Again, just trying to get a sense of a little bit of everything, but thanks for the input.
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