What’s in the water in Chicagoland? (Univ. of Chicago & Northwestern)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ Parent to a recent Northwestern grad here, and yes, that's certainly one of the key selling points of the university, and something Gwynne Shotwell talked about in her commencement speech last week: She knew she wanted to be an engineer but didn't want to be surrounded by other engineers her entire time in college. If you're a high-performing student interested in any of Northwestern's "spiked" fields that it's really good at (engineering, certain humanities/STEM fields, theater, journalism, film, music) but also know you don't want to be at just an engineering school or a conservatory or what-have-you, Northwestern's the place. I don't think there's another school in the country that does that as well as NU does.”

Michigan does it with most of the above majors and some not listed; like fine arts, architecture, and a dedicated undergraduate business school among many others.

DP and I say this with all the respect to Michigan, but I think there's a notable difference in size, intimacy, and avg. student caliber between those two schools.

Really? There is a difference in size and intimacy? Gee, who would have thought that? The average student difference is not that great, especially in STEM fields. It was mentioned that NU does “other” things better than any other school in the country. My point was Michigan does that as well, except it has an even greater breadth and depth than NU or almost all privates can offer. There really is no other university in the country that combines so many areas of academic excellence.

Berkeley and UCLA instantly come to mind.

Berkeley, as great as it is, does not have a stellar music school and limited offerings in the health sciences. UCLA is more complete like Michigan, but is not stellar in engineering and has no undergraduate business school.

[Anonymous]

U Chicago is seen by many people - especially those in foreign countries - as a school run by the city of Chicago. It’s like the U of Baltimore or the U of Denver - except the latter are much nicer cities.

[Anonymous]

Did I read that correctly? Baltimore > Chicago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:U Chicago is seen by many people - especially those in foreign countries - as a school run by the city of Chicago. It’s like the U of Baltimore or the U of Denver - except the latter are much nicer cities.

Yeah no in no universe is Baltimore a nicer city than Chicago, and Chicago is significantly more relevant on the world stage than Denver, by order of multitudes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:U Chicago is seen by many people - especially those in foreign countries - as a school run by the city of Chicago. It’s like the U of Baltimore or the U of Denver - except the latter are much nicer cities.

Yeah no in no universe is Baltimore a nicer city than Chicago, and Chicago is significantly more relevant on the world stage than Denver, by order of multitudes.

Try explaining that when you are in a foreign country. You’ll get a blank look. If these people keep up with the news at all, they’d know Chicago is a 3rd world city.

[Anonymous]

They above could not be more wrong in my experience. The Chicago School if economics, associated with the University of Chicago is very widely known internationally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:U Chicago is seen by many people - especially those in foreign countries - as a school run by the city of Chicago. It’s like the U of Baltimore or the U of Denver - except the latter are much nicer cities.

Yeah no in no universe is Baltimore a nicer city than Chicago, and Chicago is significantly more relevant on the world stage than Denver, by order of multitudes.

Try explaining that when you are in a foreign country. You’ll get a blank look. If these people keep up with the news at all, they’d know Chicago is a 3rd world city.

Most of the domestic population of this country is clueless about The University of Chicago. Honestly, who cares? If anyone isn’t aware of the prowess of that school, it’s their misfortune. Those in the know, the people who really matter, all are aware of Chicago’s excellence.

[Anonymous]

I've traveled abroad a lot, in Europe, South America, Asia and the Middle East. After NY and LA, the cities people will be most familiar with are Chicago and San Francisco. This is largely due to pop culture. People deriding the city of Chicago on this board while living in Virginia/Maryland (lol) are hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:U Chicago is seen by many people - especially those in foreign countries - as a school run by the city of Chicago. It’s like the U of Baltimore or the U of Denver - except the latter are much nicer cities.

Yeah no in no universe is Baltimore a nicer city than Chicago, and Chicago is significantly more relevant on the world stage than Denver, by order of multitudes.

Try explaining that when you are in a foreign country. You’ll get a blank look. If these people keep up with the news at all, they’d know Chicago is a 3rd world city.

Most of the domestic population of this country is clueless about The University of Chicago. Honestly, who cares? If anyone isn’t aware of the prowess of that school, it’s their misfortune. Those in the know, the people who really matter, all are aware of Chicago’s excellence.

It’s a city known for people killing each other off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UChicago as an institution has many achievements (and the marketing department to boot) but is grossly overhyped generally, and its alumni tend to be terribly insecure about their place in the world. I've had good experiences with Northwestern alumni.

They were just being polite.

Pardon? You think trolling anonymous internet boards aggressively touting the school and spamming DCUM with ranking lists that favor UCHicago is "being polite"? You think loudly proclaiming that "UChicago is the new Harvard" and insulting anyone who might disagree with you is polite behavior?

+1 The more this U Chicago person posts the less regard I have for the school. At this point my regard is in the negative single digits but it could slide even more. If you're going to boost something at least try to have panache. This person is so out-of-control that she is making everyone at her school look like a fool because it was a school that accepted her.

Rich parents just do not care this much about overhyping their kid's college; they're confident, secure, they have lives. Seems like it's a few insecure middle class striver moms whose kids are getting or got generous financial aid from UC or NU after getting rejected by all the rich elite schools in the top 25. Their kid only went to UC or NU because they were essentially bribed to attend.

As for the creepy lists about all the prep schoolers attending UChicago, why would that concern some striver mom? It's not like those kids will ever let your other-side-of-the-tracks child in their orbit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UChicago as an institution has many achievements (and the marketing department to boot) but is grossly overhyped generally, and its alumni tend to be terribly insecure about their place in the world. I've had good experiences with Northwestern alumni.

They were just being polite.

Pardon? You think trolling anonymous internet boards aggressively touting the school and spamming DCUM with ranking lists that favor UCHicago is "being polite"? You think loudly proclaiming that "UChicago is the new Harvard" and insulting anyone who might disagree with you is polite behavior?

+1 The more this U Chicago person posts the less regard I have for the school. At this point my regard is in the negative single digits but it could slide even more. If you're going to boost something at least try to have panache. This person is so out-of-control that she is making everyone at her school look like a fool because it was a school that accepted her.

Rich parents just do not care this much about overhyping their kid's college; they're confident, secure, they have lives. Seems like it's a few insecure middle class striver moms whose kids are getting or got generous financial aid from UC or NU after getting rejected by all the rich elite schools in the top 25. Their kid only went to UC or NU because they were essentially bribed to attend.

As for the creepy lists about all the prep schoolers attending UChicago, why would that concern some striver mom? It's not like those kids will ever let your other-side-of-the-tracks child in their orbit.

Eh, no need to drag Northwestern into this. I’ve seen this insecure behavior exhibited by Uchicago affiliates but not from NU really.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, nobody outside of Chicago really cares about either college (their grad programs are a different story).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, nobody outside of Chicago really cares about either college (their grad programs are a different story).

This is like saying nobody outside of North Carolina cares about Duke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, nobody outside of Chicago really cares about either college (their grad programs are a different story).

This is like saying nobody outside of North Carolina cares about Duke.

Or like saying nobody cares about Stanford outside of California.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:U Chicago is seen by many people - especially those in foreign countries - as a school run by the city of Chicago. It’s like the U of Baltimore or the U of Denver - except the latter are much nicer cities.

Yeah no in no universe is Baltimore a nicer city than Chicago, and Chicago is significantly more relevant on the world stage than Denver, by order of multitudes.

Try explaining that when you are in a foreign country. You’ll get a blank look. If these people keep up with the news at all, they’d know Chicago is a 3rd world city.

Most of the domestic population of this country is clueless about The University of Chicago. Honestly, who cares? If anyone isn’t aware of the prowess of that school, it’s their misfortune. Those in the know, the people who really matter, all are aware of Chicago’s excellence.

It’s a city known for people killing each other off.

I think this is mostly among Republicans in America. Abroad, Chicago has quite a positive image due to the Bulls, the jazz era, its skyline, and the mafia (the latter gives it a dark edge that some people are into, don’t ask me how it works).