O-Week will include more than anyone wants to know about safety and getting around, etc. The fact is, you work into it little by little anyway. You don’t need a lot of special information to go from dorm to class to library to dining hall, and that’s all you do on any number of days. When you decide to be a little adventurous, generally it’s with a few other people, one of whom may already be familiar with the area because of having grown up there.
Traditionally, Snell-Hitchcock filled up first because it’s small, pretty, and centrally located, has very strong traditions, and has a high number of upperclass students who stay. It appeals to people who are nuts about the University of Chicago and put down their deposit the day after early admissions results are out. I would guess that North is second because it’s the newest and shiniest, and because most students want to live north of the Midway if they can.
I’ve never seen precise information on country-by-country breakdown of international students. Almost all of the international students my kids knew were from Korea or Singapore. One from Israel. I don’t know that there are lots of kids from Western Europe.
I don’t know that there’s a standard reaction to no longer being the #1 best student. Most people, I think, are thrilled to have peers, when maybe they never had real peers before. That’s certainly how I felt. Some people feel challenged to work harder to keep pace with the people who seem to know so much more. That’s how my wife felt.