UChicago or Princeton? Is UChicago more like a peer to Duke?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC is a non-stem student at Yale and has met many U of C kids at various activities. For a student into political theory, philosophy, economics and similar fields, Yale and U of C seem very similar. Duke is a different animal -- the athletic emphasis alone is very different.

I went to U of C and my twin sister went to Duke so I did spend a good amount of time on campus with her. They just have very different cultures. Duke students are extremely smart, yes, but the focus tends to be much more preprofessional, the students tend to be more outgoing, and the party/Greek scene is a large part of the culture. In general, academics are taken very seriously but so too are the social aspects of college and the two don't necessarily mix. Whereas at UChicago, to a lot of the students, sitting around discussing philosophy or politics on a Friday night is just as much "being social" as going to a frat party or bar (of course, UChicago doesn't have frats). I think that the type of student who is attracted to University of Chicago loves learning for learning's sake just as much, if not more, than they do for career related purposes, while at Duke the opposite is true.

By no means are the descriptions I used intended to be negative - I loved my time at UChicago, my sister loved her time at Duke, and we both have immensely rewarding, albeit different, careers - they're just very different schools.

[Anonymous]

UChicago has frats and sororities. Most of the frat houses are on University Ave.

[Anonymous]

U. Chicago is like a peer to Oberlin or Macalester, not Duke or HYPS.

[Anonymous]

Chicago is graduate school for Swarthmore. Intensely intellectual.

Duke students are smart, but not intellectuals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:U. Chicago is like a peer to Oberlin or Macalester, not Duke or HYPS.[/quote

No, an internationally-respected major research University does not become a peer institution to a LAC just because it, too, is located in the Midwest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC is a non-stem student at Yale and has met many U of C kids at various activities. For a student into political theory, philosophy, economics and similar fields, Yale and U of C seem very similar. Duke is a different animal -- the athletic emphasis alone is very different.

The difference may be that, at UChicago, many of the kids who are into political theory, philosophy, etc. are the STEM kids, LOL! I think U of C's killer app is for intellectual kids who are torn between science and humanities. (From what I've seen, preprofessional kids of the same type tend to gravitate to Columbia). It's a Core thing, I suspect. Not sure of the extent to which it's a draw to these kids vs a repellant to kids who aren't like this, but either way you end up with a larger than usual cohort of kids with a foot in each camp (and/or who resist the divide).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC is a non-stem student at Yale and has met many U of C kids at various activities. For a student into political theory, philosophy, economics and similar fields, Yale and U of C seem very similar. Duke is a different animal -- the athletic emphasis alone is very different.

The difference may be that, at UChicago, many of the kids who are into political theory, philosophy, etc. are the STEM kids, LOL! I think U of C's killer app is for intellectual kids who are torn between science and humanities. (From what I've seen, preprofessional kids of the same type tend to gravitate to Columbia). It's a Core thing, I suspect. Not sure of the extent to which it's a draw to these kids vs a repellant to kids who aren't like this, but either way you end up with a larger than usual cohort of kids with a foot in each camp (and/or who resist the divide).

Chicago MAKES people into what you describe as "intellectuals". It's like a thing on campus to become weird and "Chicago".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicago is graduate school for Swarthmore. Intensely intellectual.

Duke students are smart, but not intellectuals.

To riff on another thread, I see the slurpee machine still has not been fixed.

[Anonymous]

I've never been impressed by a Duke grad. Visually they're always very clean cut though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:U. Chicago is like a peer to Oberlin or Macalester, not Duke or HYPS.[/quote

No, an internationally-respected major research University does not become a peer institution to a LAC just because it, too, is located in the Midwest.

This poster has made the UChicago = Oberlin comment before. One of the strangest, least accurate comparisons I could imagine. I think a lot of posters seem to be influenced by vague recollections of the college scene as it existed 25 plus years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chicago is graduate school for Swarthmore. Intensely intellectual.

Duke students are smart, but not intellectuals.

To riff on another thread, I see the slurpee machine still has not been fixed.

Ha!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe Princeton, Yale, Harvard and Chicago are all peers.

And Stanford and UC Berkeley

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UChicago has frats and sororities. Most of the frat houses are on University Ave.

Barely. Greek life exists at Chicago, but it isn't very large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:U. Chicago is like a peer to Oberlin or Macalester, not Duke or HYPS.

Keep telling yourself that. Less competition for my kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UChicago has frats and sororities. Most of the frat houses are on University Ave.

Barely. Greek life exists at Chicago, but it isn't very large.

Agree that it isn't very large but it's not accurate to say Chicago has no frats.