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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Chicago kids are not “quirky” they are standard issue grade-grubbing strivers.[/quote]

It is a great school if you can put up with city living and the not so great surrounding neighborhoods.

My brother was a great athlete but even better student.  His first choice was Chicago.  He loved the intellectual atmosphere.  We visited often as the school had a nationally famous track club - not a varsity sport but a track club which used the university facilities.  Ted Haydon had Olympians at the club.  The track was adjacent to the Manhattan Project building and we always felt we were close to a significant place in history.  We did not traipse west into Washington Park or south of 61st.

My brother and I were from a dirt poor single mother home with lots of problems and could not swing Chicago financially.  My brother went a well known public school on athletic scholarship and had a 4.0 in math.  A multiple D1 All American, he submitted a transfer application to Chicago but again just could not swing it financially (he was on a full athletic ride at his school).  He finally did get admitted to their Phd program in Econ with fellowship money.  He valued the intellectual experience so highly that he turned down better financial offers.   Chicago is intense academically but it is a wonderfully challenging place.  My brother was a popular athlete with good social skills and certainly was physically very tough and unsparing, but he liked the nerd factor at Chicago and found it made the place special.

I was not as mature as my brother and never felt up to the Chicago challenge.  I did go to a very highly ranked school, one of the two in the top 10 which gives athletic scholarships. There the challenge was more social given the wealth and pedigree of the student body and I wish I had been more focused to go to a school like Chicago.  They wouldn't have cared a bit if I was poor. [/quote]

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