<p>I come from a very small high school that doesn’t offer any AP or honors classes (I took a few AP’s online though) and I am worried that I will be way behind when I start classes next fall. Does Chicago do a good job of catching people up? Will I just start at lower level courses?</p>
<p>The AdCom liked what they saw. If they didn’t think you could make it, they wouldn’t have accepted you. Freshman retention rate is 97-98%.</p>
<p>Atlas216:</p>
<p>You will spend two full years in the core as a result. If you are OK with this, it is not a big deal. Nor will you be at any intrinsic disadvantage with regards to course content, since the people in your classes will normally not have met the threshold to place out of a given subject (even if they have already taken it). The only exception I would say is calculus, where a lot of students who have taken AP level / honors courses with success still opt into the standard sequence, since it is all that is needed for their major (e.g. biology, economics). </p>
<p>That said, there is a definitely a sizeable group of undergraduates at UChicago who max out their AP credits, and as a result either graduate in three years or spend their fourth year doing rather advanced or graduate level coursework. As a first year, where academic interactions with your fellow classmates tend to be high over the dinner table and such, this cohort may seem a bit intimidating. But you should not let their intellectual snobbery and you will not doubt find some here and there get to you. They are simply ahead of you, not better than you. The admissions office is implicitly presuming that had you been afforded the same opportunities they had, you would have likewise seized upon them fruitfully. </p>
<p>In my opinion the more salient difference for students coming from less vaunted high schools is not on concrete knowledge side, but more on the work ethos end. Graduates of relatively meritocratic, nationally known feeder high schools tend to a have a palpable leg up on the competition in that they have already been exposed to an academically intense environment where they are just one of many top performers. In contrast, if you are coming from a HS where 2-3 hours of HW, Sunday-Thursday is enough for straight As, you might be in for a really rude awakening. This is not some type of scare tactic, but to offer a line of first day wisdom from my HUM prof, this is the real deal, time to step it up.</p>
<p>Well you did scare me a bit uchicagoalum, but the honest response is appreciated.</p>
<p>DPuppy123:</p>
<p>Famous professors do teach undergraduates. For the most part it is difficult at the U of C to get a graduate students only teaching arrangement, because other faculty will find it to be unfair to them (unless you are tied to a professional school). However, one counter example I can think of offhand in economics is Nobel Prize winner James Heckman, who is adamant about keeping UGs out of his classes (for the most part). Meanwhile, all the other economics hot shots either teach UGs directly or have accessible graduate courses that motivated fourth years can take. Additionally, the school does not have the endowment money like Harvard or Stanford to keep around a sizable number of six figure salary research professors who rarely interact with students. No doubt it wished it could though. </p>
<p>However, a famous professor does not necessarily make a great teacher, and vice versa. You really have to look into course evaluations and speak to other students to see if Dr. Superstar is decent at lecturing or a tolerable grader. Such due diligence is well worth it.</p>
<p>
I suspect there are more students who could “max out” but don’t. UofC does not particularly encourage the use of AP credits, especially for science majors. </p>
<p>In fact, if you look at the AP credit table, you would see that languages and math account for most of the specified AP credit opportunity. Most AP courses count toward elective credit, but how useful is this if one wants to do a decent major? Answer; not much, because most of your electives will go toward requirements for the major.</p>
<p>In the sciences, one really needs to read the “fine print”. In for several majors, AP credits in the respective discipline will not be useful:
</p>
<p>One should also note that you don’t need AP credits to take graduate level classes your 3rd or 4th year. I know one kid who had never taken spanish at all and was taking graduate level spanish classes her 3rd year. And she was a science major. </p>
<p>UofC is well known for letting undergrads into grad level classes, when the student and the faculty think they’re ready. This has little to do with AP credits. It has everything to do with guts, talent, and intellectual hunger. </p>
<p>Your mileage may vary…</p>
<p>The computer science department has been known to let even young undergrads into graduate classes, given the appropriate background and motivation.</p>
<p>One of the courses for which I was a TA at Chicago had a mix of undergrad students, grad students, and medical students. S1 has a had a couple of courses in something called Comparative Human Development that had both grad and undergrad students. The faculty and TAs can be diverse as well. He had one course taught by a well known MD, who had med students serve as TAa and required his Residents to join the class for discussions from time-to-time, S1 loved it.</p>
<p>They get to play with the big boys/girls early. Which is one of the advantages of having a strong postgraduate presence at the school.</p>
<p>To DrDom:</p>
<p>I chose Northwestern for law school partly because after doing research on it during the application process I really fell in love with it and partly because it is in Chicago. The students that I talked to at Northwestern Law all seemed genuinely happy with their experience - something that wasn’t very common among other law school students. I’m a lifelong Chicagoan and, while I wasn’t dead set on going to law school here, I love the city enough that staying here and being able to go to a great law school makes me very happy. Before settling on Northwestern, I had also been considering Georgetown, UVA, and Michigan. I did apply to the U of C law school, but I kind of wanted to get out of Hyde Park and into a different University system…</p>
<p>I’m not sure that the U of C itself did anything to help me prepare for the law school admissions process, with the possible exception of developing my writing ability. Writing a good personal statement / letter of interest is something that I don’t believe I could have done without the training that the U of C gave me in that area. If I could stress one thing to current students at the U of C who plan on applying to law school, it would be that you should do everything in your power to keep your GPA high. I was what is known as a “splitter” in the admissions process - I had a 98th percentile LSAT, but a GPA that hovered right around a 3.0. My low GPA was due in large part to some medical issues I had during my first two years that I couldn’t have done anything about, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that the law school admissions process is much, much, more numbers oriented than the college admissions process is. If you have great letters of recommendation, “soft” factors, and a good personal statement, that’s great, but if you don’t have the LSAT and/or GPA to go with it you won’t stand a chance. So, basically:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Keep your GPA up. The U of C name will help you in admissions, but it can only go so far.</p></li>
<li><p>Study for the LSAT. Don’t blow it off. It’s not an easy test, but it is learnable if you put the effort into doing it. There are many great websites out there that also help with the research process when you get to the point of applying. You can find most of these through google, but, I’d recommend checking out:</p></li>
</ol>
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<p>hmlee - great advice on the law school admissions process. When I was at U of C, students didn’t realize how numbers-oriented the law game is until it was too late. In talking to some of your fellow classmates perhaps considering law school, do you have the sense they have a better understanding of what the admissions committees expect? I knew a lot of Chicago undergrads during my time at U of C that would study a week for the LSAT, or not really even think about law school as an option until fourth year of undergrad. Do you feel most of your peers were more prepared than this?</p>
<p>HMLEE Thanks for the advice. I will pass it on to my son.</p>
<p>Getting into Northwestern law with a 3.0 is remarkable. Congratulations. It appears they did consider the source. And, you must be quite talented in many ways.</p>