@schlegelkopf - congrats to your daughter! My D17 is a first year and loves it.
One option to assist the transition to the rigors of college, the quarter system, and UChicago in particular might be to start off with three rather than four courses. You are allowed to register for up to four during pre-registration, but three is also a full load. Others might start with four but drop before the Drop deadline if they feel too overwhelmed. Others still take four but don’t overdo it with honors (the regular track is rigorous too). Finally, her math and (if applicable) chem placement will help ensure that she enrolls in the right level for those subjects. She will be challenged, but she doesn’t need to live in a constant state of feeling overwhelmed as long as she chooses her courses wisely and stays on top of her work. She will learn much more once she commits and starts reviewing the pre-registration materials over the summer.
Others will have better opinions on the res. hall question - my impression is that Snell-Hitchcock is hard to get into because it’s the smallest dorm and has a lot of single rooms. Of course, how quickly a dorm fills up will also depend on how many upper class students decide to leave for other lodgings around Hyde Park. Last spring/summer a larger-than-expected number decided to stay for the fall so Residence Life was scrambling to place all the 1st year students. Some of the returning students got moved to Vue53 which is a new luxury apartment building maybe a half mile or so north of campus (but still firmly within Hyde Park). D17 really hopes the same thing happens to her when she’s a rising third or fourth year :)) She loves her dorm but luxury digs are nice too.
When you arrive as a new student you will attend a week of orientation called O-Week. My daughter told me that they covered safety and I believe the older students in the houses and/or your RA’s will reinforce these common-sense principles. Students on this forum can fill you in as to their personal experiences with the CTA (the public transit system consisting of elevated train/subway and busses) after midnight but my impression is that the college kids do take it in groups late at night with no issues. During O-Week she’ll go out to dinner with her house at least once and groups of new friends will probably also want to hit some restaurants in Chinatown or the Downtown area. CTA passes are an automatic item included on your bill and are distributed as soon as you arrive on campus. There are other modes of transportation as well (Uber, Zip Car) but CTA is the cheapest since to the student it’s “free” 