Sell Me on UChicago, Please!

JHS
Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:10:50 +0000

Wow. There are a lot of stereotypes in this thread.

My Chicago kids were both very social, and neither had much of anything to do with varsity athletes. One was a hipster, the other a little nerdy by choice. Their social lives did not revolve around their houses, at least after Thanksgiving of their first years (one lived in a dorm with an anti-social reputation, the other in what was then the most social dorm); extracurricular activities, their majors, and plain old random connections were far more important in building their friendship circles.

I only know one kid from recent years who really hated being at the University of Chicago, and he was a football player of the type who thought that he had to go to DePaul to score with women. He had a cousin exactly his age who was a future NFL draftee living like a god at a top national program, and I don’t think the Chicago kid ever quite got over the difference between their experiences. He certainly wasn’t typical of most athletes at Chicago – I know others, not through my kids, who like it just fine, but they don’t spend any time wishing they were at Penn State.