University Of Chicago

My alma matter. University of Chicago: where fun goes to die. Only if your idea of fun is idiocy, intellectual vapidity, laziness and mental sluggishness. Life is what you make it.
You’ll never graduate cum laude here Because their degrees aren’t Greek. Honors is good enough.
The academic rigor including the core curriculum are in line with the fantastic rankings of U of C.
Yes the school is for nerds, but guess what nerds grow up to be?

I absolutely love this campus. Before coming here I don’t think I fully understood how pretty it was. The buildings are all brick and have a very university feel. I wish I could see it in the winter time with the snow but it’s beautiful in the summer as well. The mansuedo was really cool and modern.

What a gorgeous campus!
Some of the highlights:
1) Harper reading room (gothic beauty)
2) Mansueto library (a beautiful sun filled dome)
3) the quads (you’ll feel like you are in Oxford England)
4) Hyde Park (the charming neighborhood)
If you are in Chicago, it is definitely worth a visit to this South Side gem.

A review for the Café Chicago. The alfredo with penne was OK, The soft-​sorbet was great, The pretzel sandwich with ham & cheese was great too. As was the smoothie.

I’m not sure how to rate this post. I don’t want to make this a long drawn out story but just the basics for the readers well the adult readers inquiring about returning back to school. No pun or disrespect intended to the millennial or the generations to come. I found myself wanting to rediscover a new avenue in my career. After doing some research on other schools in the area of Chicago I thought U of C would be a nice fit. I’m not the traditional student or teen graduating from high school. I’m an adult over the age of 35 plus with credits that transfer anywhere or so I assumed. I looked up their transfer policies and thought okay this is doable until I saw the SAT/​ACT score requirement. To be fair, I took those tests in 1991 or maybe 1990 I think. Yeah that’s how long ago that was and clearly I have years of professional experience. I decided I wanted to return back to school to change fields to further myself. Wow did I get a wake up call when I read that part of the admissions requirements for TRANSFERS… The ACT/​SAT scores REQUIRED. Now I’ll be fair and say ok if I had less than a semester of credits or had never gone to college then I would probably swallow some sand and go buy an SAT/​ACT prep book and go back in time to high school all for the sake of trying to progress forward in a new direction.
I decided to give the admissions office a call. Let me start by saying, the response I received was less than knowledgeable and to be honest I’m not even sure she understood my question of do transfer students with over 40 credit hours have to take an ACT test. The response was yes we want to see where you are. Uhh clearly I’m not in high school as I had my 20^th school reunion going on 3 years ago. Clearly I’m an adult that has over 20 years of work experience. I wondered was their anyone with some type of knowledge that could assist a returning adult. I guess not. I received a call this morning to confirm in fact I would have to take an ACT test. That was the nail in the coffin. As much as I was excited about their nutrition program and going back to school there, I quickly decided this is not for me.
In closing I’m going to say, there are grown adults who are interested in returning back to school but not at the expense of taking a trip backwards in time to take an SAT/​ACT test to prove exactly what??? I don’t fault your rules I fault your lack of not realizing students range in age as undergraduates with different levels of higher credit and work/​life experience. Its institutions with archaic application processes like these which can be a deterrent for some that may not have the drive and just quit on their dreams. Just something for the admissions board to consider the next time you meet to discuss how to attract the working adult or adult students to your university. BTW, I’ll give you two stars since I’ve never visited your campus, got to taste your cafeteria food or experience your faculty and never will. So disappointed. I’m a fair person and don’t want to say one star.

A fine institution of higher learning. I’m proud to be associated by my DJ slot at WHPK 88.5 FM, the station on campus. Tune it in!

The Campus is one of the nicest I have ever visited. Would definitely recommend stopping by if you are at Chicago.
Check out Harper Center, the new Business School building. It holds one of the largest art collection in Chicago.

Fantastic architechure. Amazing student body. Smartest people I have ever met. Sandwhiches are terrible.

Oh, UChicago — where do I even start?
The campus is beautiful. The best time to visit is in the fall, when the leaves and ivy are starting to change colors. Spring, summer, and winter (if you can handle the cold) are lovely in their own way.
Sites worth checking out on campus:
Harper Memorial Library — enter the building and go up to the third floor. Walk towards the central portion of the building to the Harper Reading Room. Prepare to be stunned.
Mansuetto Library — home to a giant claw that retrieves books from the underground. Also very cool looking building (giant glass egg)
Oriental Institute & Smart Museum of Art — exhibits change all the time, but they’re always excellent
The Seminary Coop — if you want to be drowned in shelves and shelves of books
Fermi/​Skull sculpture — between Max Palevsky and the Reg — marks the site of the world’s first nuclear reactor
Dialogo sculpture outside of Pick Hall — casts a shadow of a hammer and sickle on May Day at noon.
Hull Gate — This is the gate opposite the Reg. Walk through it towards the South for one of my favorite views of campus. You’ll pass Botany Pond to your left after 500m or so.
C-​Bench — This is across from Cobb Hall. For a cool acoustic effect, stand in the circle in the middle and speak.
Coffee shops galore — It wasn’t until heading to another university that I realized just how much I was spoiled by the coffee shop scene at UChicago is. There’s basically a coffee shop in the basement of every building, and many are student run — The Div School (my personal favorite), Cobb Hall, Classics Café (this is on an upper level though), Harper (3^rd floor), C-​Shop (1^st floor of Reynolds), Hallowed Grounds (upper floor of Reynold) … the list goes on!
The school offers tours of campus geared towards undergraduate applicants, so you might want to check those out.

Current undergrad here. A very fine, lovely institution. The life here is indeed very pleasant and fullfilling. The school cares about its students and there are always a lot of cool things going on even if you don’t go all the way to seek them. Kids here are cool too. They are mostly the smart type and many of them are really fun to hang out with.
As for the academics? Don’t even need to talk about that!
In a nutshell, this is a world-​class college with tons of opportunities and life here is really good if you don’t screw up too often. Attend here! As long as you can get in.

the Website says today (07/​15/​2014)
«Join a community of the world’s brightest minds and prepare to tackle its greatest problems. Here, your ideas will be heard, supported, questioned, tested, and honed as you form a network of lifelong friends, colleagues, and collaborators.»
didn’t quite work out that way for me. It must have been my lousy typing, or relying too heavily on one and two syllable words in conversation — with international student, of course.
I would revise it to say «Join a community of the self-​regarding and dishevelled.»
Like International House NYC, persons attending the International House program typically fare worse than those attending the very same academic programs.
They whine about how they were sued and how they don‘t have any money now, blah blah blah. Now the questions would be, WHY were they sued, and WHY is no-​one, including the various Federal agencies and members of the Power Elite that back the other Ihouses, willing to donate to this location in similar proportions?

Here are my brief impressions as an employee here, not a student:
+ Beautiful campus, including the Gothic architecture, tulips in the spring, and green space.
+ The Midway provides ample opportunity for playing sports, going on walks, etc.
+ Rigorous academics taught by excellent faculty, some of whom are Nobel Prize winners.
+ A fantastic private police force. Cops are everywhere you turn and they are stationed on the street corners at all hours. It makes me feel safer here.
+ GREAT libraries, like the Reg. I could spend days here.
+ Public transportation around campus is a cinch (free bus with UChicago ID) and it’s an easy #6 or #2 bus ride into the Loop. Those buses are always filled with students.
— There is a big divide between the students and the community. There are homeless people who sleep on the vents to stay warm. Students walk by, coexisting, with zero interaction.
— Violence. I remember going on a tour when my brother was a prospie and we ended up getting into a long conversation with parents concerned about the crime. It’s a deterrent enough for many well-​qualified students to attend.
–The Ratner gym still costs $ 58/​month and that’s with the staff/​faculty discount. That’s too much, especially for the limited hours of operation!

Pretty much live here with work and love every minute of it. I really enjoy working on campus throughout the week. its like being in a socially awkward Hogwarts. Some of the students are really cool and others are emotionally illiterate to the point where if you said «hi» they might run away like startled rabbits. Lots of great people work here and some very gifted individuals. VERY annoying to drive here. The students half of them don’t even look both ways or are to busy looking at their phones to bother. Don’t be surprised to sit at intersections and cross walks for 5 – 10 minutes.
A few most see places if you visit–
*The Regenstein and Mansueto Library
*The Arney Library (third floor Harper)
*Cobb café (student run, but don’t hold it against them)
*Hutchinson Commons (great place to eat w/​a noodles etc., subway, papa johns, and a bunch others)
*All the Quad Areas
*Rockefellar Chapel
*Botany Pond
*International House
*Barlett Dining
*Cathey Dining (they have a Mongolian style grill now that is pretty cool)
*Ida Noyes
*Oriental Institute
*Mandel Hall
*Classics Café
*Ratner
*Booth School
Very beautiful and at its best in the summer!

I love this place. I haven’t gone to school here, but my sister did. The resources, education, and the social life is amazing! In what other Chicago University can you see a university ballet, chinese opera or watch a silent movie with live organ music? The campus is beautiful, and the churches are too.
They also have museums like the oriental institute or the SMART museum.
Come here to visit, attend an event of your interest or study!

The campus is lovely in a gothic sort of way, and definitely makes me nostalgic in a strange way. The quad is roomy and all the buildings are within walking distance of each other which is great. I just hope that the campus security has improved since I left!

Gorgeous, gorgeous campus.
I didn’t attend UChicago, but I do come here once in a while riding around on a broom pretending I’m the Asian HP. Their dining halls and libraries are straight up from Hogwarts.
The fact that no one noticed me when I ran through the library screaming «expelliarmus» truly does prove that this is where fun goes to die… but I tried my best reviving it.

I did not attend college at the U of C but instead two different marvelous National Endowment for the Humanities seminars there. One was on Goethe and the Autobiographical Genre and the other was on the Literature of Indo Buddhism. They were 8 week seminars offered in different summers funded by NEH. Both of the professors were brilliant caring men who guided 15 public school teachers though rigorous and stimulating summers. NEH believed that students learned best from teachers who were intellectually alive themselves and these seminars paid teachers to challenge themselves academically and paid them a stipend so they could study over the summers rather than have to work a summer job. (Much better for students, in my opinion, than this daft constant testing that is currently so popular.)
I loved my summers in Hyde Park and truly value that U of C is part of Chicagoland and would host these seminars to include teachers in their community of learners. Those summers were like someone opened my brain, vacuumed it and closed it back up with wonderful treats inside.
A big thanks for motivating this teacher!

Pasta primavera 2^nd FL food court-​it never disappoints

Met my future husband here. He is smart, creative and unique. All that exemplifies what U of C is all about.
Is there anywhere else that is better in the midwest? I dare you…

I’m going to review this as a 2010 graduate from the College. I have friends who have absolutely loved their experiences here at UChicago and would return here in a heartbeat for furthering their education, and I have friends who have disliked their experiences so much at UChicago that they refused to donate even a dollar to the Senior Class Gift.
Between absolutely loving it and absolutely abhorring it, I’m right in the middle, but feeling blasé about my overall experience.
NEGATIVES/​CRITICISMS
CAREER and GRADES
My main reasoning is career focused. If you are a premedical student, I would caution a prospective student from choosing this place. My reasoning is «big fish in small pond» idea. In my experience in the sciences, professors create tests that are almost always curved. I am not exaggerating when I say that I once took an exam where the class average was 40%. In order to do well in that particular class then, you have to beat out everyone. It’s not about mastery of the material, it’s about knowing more than your peers. At a «lesser» school, said student would probably fare better with less studious or intelligent peers. With medical schools receiving inflated grades from other schools, needless to say, they will not be impressed that you graduated with a B+ average.
Moreover, the non-​science classes that must be taken as part of the Core Curriculum tend to be just as rigorous as the science major classes. At other schools, students can balance a rigorous science schedule with a «blow-​off» non-​science course to ease the load. This is not always possible here because most of the classes were not created to be easy.
Another complaint that I have about the school is that each class is weighted equally in your GPA. For instance, organic chemistry, a notoriously difficult class that «weeds» students out, counts towards your GPA the same as Spanish 101 does. At other schools, this is not true. This is EXTREMELY unfair and does a disservice to the student.
CORE CURRICULUM
Some people question the usefulness of the «Core Curriculum.» For instance, the majority of students, whether they are science majors or not, take some form of calculus during their time here. Even non-​science majors take calculus. Many students would ask whether this class is «useful and necessary.» Of course, this begs the question whether any of the requirements are «useful and necessary.» Does taking two years of a language make you really «proficient» in that language? Does taking a class on social thinkers or philosophers really make you a better human being and citizen? Notably, if you’re going to attend the UofC, you probably value an all-​around education and feel that all classes are forms of thought exercises, so you probably wouldn’t (shouldn’t) complain about it since you knew about it coming in.
In my opinion, the core curriculum is also biased towards non-​science majors so that their grades are better than those of science majors. As a part of the core, non-​science majors can take science classes specifically geared towards non-​science majors, whereas vice versa is not true. (Although I could not see how they would do that realistically.“dumbing down” a Plato class would be strange.)
The neighborhood itself is also not the safest.
It is also an extremely expensive school to attend.
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POSITIVES
The University draws a diverse group of students. Although the school is making strives towards increasing aid towards lower-​income families, most students I have met come from middle-​class families or better. There is less socioeconomic diversity than there is ethnic diversity.
The students tend to be more clever, hard working, and ambitious than the average college student. They’re VERY inquisitive. Being around this can only make you a better student (your grades might not be better, but you’ll work harder and learn more I think). They’re also socially liberal, and since it is the University of Chicago, perhaps more conservative fiscally (policy-​wise).
The students are friendly but can be intellectual snobs.
PROFESSORS and TAs
Most people I have met have had positive interactions with their professors. I tend to be someone who seeks professor and TA help outside of class, and I was never turned away by a professor or TA. They all want to help, and they were more than willing to write me letters of recommendation, which I really appreciated. They were extremely passionate about their areas of interest, and most were leaders in their fields to boot!
OPPORTUNITIES
As a science major, I also got to do research at the UofC hospitals, which was a huge privilege. My PI was extremely generous alotting his time and resources to enrich my experience.
There are also PLENTY of volunteer and performing arts groups on campus. I think that this speaks volumes about the character of the students and their love for others.