Sorry for this really long post, please send a 17 year old stressed high school senior some advice and insight. The only thing I can think of right now is Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and how this a monumental decision i can’t change
Cost and weather aren’t a factor.
I’ve been accepted to Washu and Chicago and JHU results return on the 27th.
I love both Washu and Uchicago very much and I can envision myself attending school at each place and JHU has been one of my dream schools for the last several years. I plan on going a pre med route.
Curriculum: JHU and Washu are definitely some of the best pre med undegrad in the country but Chicago’s quarter system and core curriculum gives me more opportunities to take more classes especially since I would like to major or double major in non bio or chem subjects (like international studies). And uChicago has programs designed for people who do not major in biology but would like to go into health care related fields. The quarter system of chicago would also give me a better opportunity to study abroad in college whereas most people at JHU have a gap year in between college and med school.
Housing and Food: Washu has some of the best food in the country (when I toured, I had two students tell me that the food was their deciding factor to attend and I seen lists say it’s the second best) and has some of the best and most spacious dorms rooms. I really like the housing culture at uchicago but the fact that not all of the dorms are located on campus is a negative for me. JHU housing from what I’ve learned (I haven’t toured the campus so I haven’t seen them) can be described as meh. However, uChicago and JHU have unlimited dining options vs the point system that washu has.
Location: Nothing beats Chicago of course except maybe New York or cities in Cali. I know Hyde Park is one of the safest neighborhoods in Chicago but the neighborhood is surrounded by more shady areas and is relatively far from downtown (about 8 miles). But the school gives out metro passes. The area that Washu is located in is very wonderful and had visibly more things to do than hyde park. This is a recent issue but an important one, but ever since the killings of black people and the tension that has arisen, I’m actually a bit terrified (i’m a black girl) of having any encounter with the St. Louis police or any other suburbian police. I’ve never been to Baltimore but its nickname wouldn’t be charm city if it wasn’t a nice place. However, the johns hopkins campus from what i’ve researched in surrounded by sketchy areas which would be an issue if i were to move off campus. Chicago is only a few hours away from me so I wouldn’t need to worry about flight tickets for breaks since I could drive home in 3-4 hours (which also means I could go home for the weekend if I needed to). St. Louis is a gateway to the West for me. Baltimore is close to DC and NYC.
Vibe/name/looks: Since I haven’t been to JHU, I can’t speak on the vibe I received there. Unfortunately when I visited uChicago last year April, it was very rainy and cold which I think put a huge damper on how I viewed the campus. The campus itself is very beautiful. The most beautiful out of the three. Unfortunately, I was left with a somewhat cold impression of the place (once again, the weather probably influenced that). Washu is second to chicago in terms of architecture but I love that the campus is separated from the rest the city meaning that the only people I would meet on campus would be other people who attended the school (uchicago is more of an open campus). Washu also gives off the more laid back vibe especially with the south 40. I’m not too fond of the johns hopkins architecture but the peabody library is breathtaking from the pictures i’ve seen. The names and the prestigious aspect of schools have always been important to me too. It’s /The University of Chicago/ one of the best schools in the world and it’s /The Johns Hopkins University/ another great school with a great reputation. Unfortunately, many people are not aware of Washington University in St. Louis as much as they are with JHU or uChicago.
Thank you very much if you read through this entire thing.
While I can’t choose a school out of those, because I am not familiar enough with Washington University in St. Louis or JHU or the pre-med track, I will offer comments to specific points.
I've heard that the UChicago campus is safe, so I wouldn't worry about safety there.
Do you want a liberal arts education or a pre-professional one? At UChicago, you would definitely get a liberal arts education with the Common Core. I got a very pre-professional vibe at Washington University in St. Louis. I'm not sure what the education is like at JHU.
Go to the admitted students day for all these schools, especially UChicago. You may get a very different feel for the school in good weather.
@Misa97 Congratulations on your impressive list of acceptances! You have excellent options, so try not to get too stressed over the decision-making process. Any choice you make will be a good one.
My D will be visiting WashU this weekend, so I’ll have better a better feel for that school when I hear her report. In the meantime, however, let me note that WashU does offer some ways to offset the “very pre-professional vibe” that @pmmywest remarked on. In particular, the university offers a four-to-seven-course sequence known as “Text and Tradition.” This covers a lot of the “Great Books” territory that you would get in the core programs at Chicago or Columbia. You can even turn the sequence into a minor under the rubric of the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities. WashU also has a reputation for encouraging double majors across colleges–e.g., Classics and Finance, etc. Hence the school should be open to your desire for cross-disciplinary study.
Finally, as for your reservations about police, I would think that St. Louis area law enforcement agencies are collectively feeling the heat of the national spotlight these days. I would expect them henceforth to be extremely sensitive to the kinds of issues that concern you. In short, they are probably striving to be on their “best behavior.”
LOL, nicknames can stem from far in the past when a place was far different. NJ is the Garden State. See many gardens in NJ these days?
In any case, if you stick with pre-med, go with the vibe that you like the best. The name of your undergraduate school won’t mean much. However, there also isn’t much differentiation of the pre-med curriculum at these schools, so I would not consider that a factor.
Also, if you decide against pre-med (or can’t get in), where you go for undergrad may matter more.
JHU has a reputation for being very research-oriented, BTW.
My gut puts UChicago last. Hyde Park is not safe. The perimeter of Obama’s house is safe. The mayor’s son got beaten up in his OWN front yard, for Pete’s sake!
U of C and Wash U are two great choices. Hyde Park is a great neighborhood, albeit somewhat isolated from the rest of Chicago. The CTA trains do not run to Hyde Park, so it is somewhat difficult to access the rest of the city.
The common core is not as stringent as when I attended, but it is not so easy to do all your pre-med work and do a non-bio/chem major. I ended up taking summer classes all 3 summers to get my pre-med requirements done.
JHU is extremely liberal with their gen ed/distribution requirements. It is the norm for students to double and triple major. The university wide culture promotes interdisciplinary research and undergrad students are encouraged to do the same. The Homewood neighborhood (JHU) is similar to Hyde Park (a wealthy enclave surrounded by rough urban areas), and I think Hyde Park is safer. However, I know lots of grad students at both places who were mugged, had cars broken into, apartments robbed, etc when living off campus in rougher sections of each neighborhood.
The Gothic architecture/Indiana limestone of U of C is amazing - hard to beat that! But JHU is one of the prettiest campuses I’ve toured on my kid’s college search. If you saw the movie The Social Network (about Facebook/mark zuckerberg) - JHU was the set for that movie, standing in for Harvard.
@VSGPeanut101, as you should know, the Metra Electric runs to Hyde Park, so getting to the Loop (downtown Chicago) isn’t hard at all.
And about half the dorms are pretty close to a Metra Electric stop. In fact, some of the dorms are closer to a Metra Electric station than to the campus (for some of the dorms, it’s faster to get downtown via the 19 minute train ride downtown than it is to walk to the west side of campus).
Also, not sure if they had it when you were there, but the U of C now has a bus service that runs from campus to downtown and on north to all the neighborhoods north of the Loop, so accessing most of Chicago is actually pretty convenient these days if you are a UofC student. In fact, some UofC students live in apartments on the North side and take the bus to school these days.
If the weather continues as it has been, there will be quite a few very cold days at UChicago next year. But if weather isn’t a factor, as you said, personally I love the vibe of UChicago. And the Scav sounds so fun! You have great options to pick from, good luck and have fun wherever you end up!
From one black girl to another - don’t believe the hype. Or rather, the fact that you have heard of tensions in St. Louis doesn’t mean that there are not tensions in Baltimore or Chicago. In fact, there are; the media just hasn’t reported on them recently. Any major city has at least somewhat mild tensions between the people of color and the police (NYPD has their own, which flared up prior to Ferguson with the Sean Bell and Eric Garner protests. People have forgotten about them). And of course there are also recent stories on Yale’s campus and somewhere else (UVa?) about young black students being confronted. But I spent 6 years living in New York (and, prior to that, 4 years in Atlanta as a college student) and was never once harassed by the police. I’m not saying that it will never happen, or that it doesn’t happen, because obviously it does…but I don’t think it’s more likely to happen in St. Louis than Baltimore or Chicago. Don’t let that be the deciding factor.
I don’t know what you are asking. Personally, if I were making this decision, I would choose Washington University in St. Louis, precisely because of the laid-back vibe, the smaller city feel of St. Louis, the separation of the campus from the rest of the city, the emphasis on undergraduate education, and all the awesome things I’ve heard about student life there (residence halls, food, etc.) I think that there are some students at Wash U who are pre-professional and others probably very concentrated on the liberal arts education. The pre-med education is good at all three of these schools, so I wouldn’t worry about that.
But honestly…you really can’t go wrong with the decision. Given how torn you are I feel like you will be happy at any of these three - really, architecture and food are really just minor differences that, in retrospect, won’t make a huge difference when reflecting on your choices.
I’m not personally familiar with JHU, but I did always get the impression that undergrads were not first priority there.
Hyde Park isn’t safe? The UofC has created one of the largest private police forces to make sure that it is, and it is. Hyde Park (esp. the area immediately around the UofC) felt about as safe as Cambridge, and only marginally less safe than, say, Palo Alto.
Besides, the mayor’s son was likely trying to purchase something illicit, and the cover story was the beating. That’s what most people I’ve spoken to believe at any rate.
WashU is pretty big on interdisciplinary learning and flexibility. I knew a girl who was a Spanish and Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies double major and pre-med. She’s now in med school. I know there were also a lot of classes designed for non-majors to take (like an architecture course for non-architects or business courses for non business majors).
As far as being scared goes, I think the university has really been putting its resources towards addressing what’s been going on. There’s a center for diversity and inclusion that has really been a great resource for students (in addition to the existing Social Justice Center). As someone who is a minority, I wasn’t really afraid there. As someone from IL, I’m not exactly sure the Chicago police would be that much better- I don’t know what the Baltimore police would be like.
WashU does also give free metro passes for all four years and summers.
Congratulations on all of your acceptances! You have great choices!
You will have to work you a** off at all 3 to do well so no obvious choice from the grade inflation/deflation perspective if you’re interested in pre-med (the fact that WashU/JHU have top medical schools is irrelevant for med school admissions for the most part). Go to the one you like.
Well, yes and no. Women are probably less likely to be seen as suspicious overall than men, but black women are still often sucked into the “suspicious/potentially criminal black person” stereotype. Still, I do think it’s less likely to happen to black women than black or Latino men.
It’s just somewhat amusing, in a morbid way, that Baltimore - the city of The Wire, and pretty much the buzzword for urban decay before Detroit - has taken on a rosier image in the modern mind than St. Louis.
WUSTL is in a safer area than either UofC or JHU. I know a friend’s kid who went to UofC who said students got mugged in broad daylight on the campus, and JHU is also in a rough area. Otherwise, all these schools have great pre-med programs.
I would say UChicago’s Hyde Park is gentrifying pretty fast. However, definitely the area WashU is in is pretty affluent (Clayton and the Demun area especially- Wydown Blvd was voted one of the top 10 streets in the US). Don’t know too well about the area around JHU.
No place is safe just because it has a lot of cops. And if The area around U of Chicago is so safe, why does the university think it needs a huge police force of its own?
