<p>hi cantwait!
you’re so brilliant to have gotten into those schools! those are precisely my dream schools!
can you give me some advice on how you managed to make it? the way you say it, it sounds like I’m exactly like you!
i’m not particularly athletic, but i like sports in general; and although i’m not the top in school, i’d say i fare about 2nd/3rd in school? and I quite like maths/science, though i’m not particularly special at it (i don’t win olympiads, but i do great in school)
do you have any tips for my application? thanks so much!</p>
<p>by the way, i’m doing to IB programme and am currently in grade 11. (going to university in 2015)</p>
<p>I am also in the situation that the OP wrote about. I was accepted to UChicago in early action, and was completely in love with the school, but now that stanford has accepted me, i have a big problem. I genuinely love UChicago and their purely academic atmosphere. It is there that i feel that i can open my mind to so much more, yet still retain a focus on physics, my intended major. But the fact is that Stanford is offering me more money, about $5,000 more, and its closer to home. My parents obviously prefer stanford because of the name and price, but i feel like id be a better fit at chicago. I love learning, but i dont love arrogance. I know both schools will have a certain level of arrogance… But i just feel i will meet more " real" people at chicago. My mom keeps saying that at stanford i wont be missing out on academics and the prestige associated with the school will help me considerably in life. But i dont know. Im not looking for the name and what i really want is a way to closer reach… Enlightenment, i guess. </p>
<p>Anyway, in response to above poster’s question, i would say write those essays with as best a mix of orginality, honesty, and high quality efficiency as you can. Make sure to write something that sounds real. For chicago i wrote an essay answering the prompt, “where’s waldo?” Instead of writing some corny essay about how waldo is inside your heart or that he represents my dreams and aspirations, i just wrote a humorous and imaginative story of his paranoia and how he ended up in s mental institute. It was very fun writing it and im sure it helped me get in. At stanford, for the what matters most essay, i considered writing about hell. What matters to me is not going to hell, i cant lie… But obviously it was a bit too abstract for an essay. Instead, i wrote about how, in the end, having something that truly matters is an ideal. No one, or almost no one, has any passion other than self-preservation and reproduction. Its human nature. But i did tie into the essay a bit about the importance of faith, which is what i hoped to do originally. So, in the end, i believe my essays outshown my low to mediocre stats. 2010 SAT isnt quite bragging material at these schools, but im not going to college to brag. I just truly love learning.</p>
<p>Sorry for typos, written on my itouch.</p>
<p>themongrelcat,
Congrats to UChicago and Stanford! I wish I had applied to UChicago now 
I can totally understand where you come from becuase I have that same dilemma w/ another school and Stanford. I think the best advice for both of us is really this-- follow your heart. From what I’ve heard and from my peers, UChicago is definitely more for intellectuals and has that kind of environment. They really emphasize “learning” and also allows you to pave your own path to “enlightenment” haha. One of my cousins goes there and he loves it. He said that UChicago gets who he is, and he gets what UChicago is-- if that makes any sense to you.
Prestige can definitely be important, at times, but I think it’s more important that you go to the school that you can truly envision yourself in. I’m sure you might start the “What if” game. “What if” I had gone to Chicago… I really think that choosing a school is no more important than being at that school and truly feeling like YOU belong. Also I always tell my parents-- I’M the one who will have to go that college, not YOU 
(In my opinion, UChicago is equally as prestigious as Stanford. Not sure what some ppl think that there isn’t prestige involved with UChicago. Chicago is def. known for its academic curriculum! It’s funny because of my teachers said that Stanford was the “la la land” haha)</p>
<p>I know from reading a Thomas Sowell book (he’s at Stanford) that many of the Stanford professors at the economics department were Chicago PHD’s. Where to go? Flip a coin.</p>
<p>Moderator’s note: I have separated these posts since questions are being asked on a 2009 thread.</p>