The University of Chicago

Date: Feb 24 2011
Major: Philosophy (This Major's Salary over time)
I'm surprised by the comments. In general, I agree with both the negative and positive assessments, though.

This school is not for everyone. Usually, fellow students and staff say this with a tinge of arrogance, implying that if you don't fit in you don't belong academically - this is wrong. Many GREAT students won't fit in here, and will suffer immensely by coming here. Like any school, fit is the most important thing. Here's what you need to know:

1.) If you care about your quality of life, don't come here. This is not a place where you will study hard and also have a good social life. Hyde Park is dangerous. It's very difficult to experience Chicago (this is not an urban campus). You're not going to have a small campus feel with a lot of community, nor will you have a great college town like Ann Arbor, nor is this an urban campus like NYU. I've recently seen that they try and describe Hyde Park as the mid-South side. that's funny. no one refers to it that way.

2.) Come here if you want to study econ and get a job in a consulting firm, bank, or work as a trader. It's good for that. You'll have to work consistently and hard for four years, though.

3.) Come here if you want to attend an institution with an elite name. Many fellow students only applied to schools with the best name. Whether the undergraduate student body cares about the core or 'life of the mind' is debatable, at best. A lot of students just wanted to come to a school with a great name.

4.) UChicago is really a great graduate institution. If you know many of the professors in the department you want to work in and what their specific research involves (some students do) this could be a great place. If you want a general experience in your major and don't know exactly what you want to study specifically, or if you want your professors to take an interest in you and your career, don't come here.

5.) The undergraduate social life is entirely dominated by fraternities. I don't just mean the actual fraternities (though, arguably, they're the only ones who like the school because they actually have decent social lives). Everything is a fraternity. The econ majors have a fraternity where rushing involves joining CCIB and Blue Chips. The hipsters have a fraternity where rushing involves smoking outside of Cobb and working at a coffee shop. The weird kids do scav, etc. etc. The school is very insecure and there's not much comradery between students, unless you're in the particular fraternity

6.) My final remark involves the quarter system. It is very strange, conducive to stress, and makes any kind of social life even harder to come by. I really think this is one of the worst parts of the school. The quarter system must go.