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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]U of C grad here, 20-ish years ago (eeek!). Your son sounds awesome and exactly like the kind of kid I would have gone to school with. I had a great social life, partly because finding people who were like me in important ways made for a great social scene. I would have felt out of place and had a poorer social life somewhere with a big Greek culture, for example.

I hope all the claims that U of C is no longer so dorky don't mean that it has lost its[b] special identity[/b]. Definitely visit![/quote]

I think it still has a "special identity" in that the students tend to me serious about academics, but what has been lost over the last decade or so as the admissions numbers have plummeted and the school has switched to the common app, thus attracting all the same students who routinely apply to the "top ten" schools is a feeling that the students who are there self-select specifically for the things that (used to) make Chicago unique, e.g., the Common Core, the "life of the mind," etc. Nowadays it's a lot more like you're standard top Ivy or Stanford/MIT -- super smart, accomplished kids who bask in their "less than 10 percent acceptance rate" rather than basking in being a nerd.

None of this matters as much as the fact that it's a universally renowned institution, has vast resources and well-known faculty, phenomenal graduate programs (which bolster the undergraduate's reputation and expand the reach of faculty), and excellent recruiting opportunities. [b]While it doesn't have the cache of Harvard to, say, a grocery store clerk, it is certainly considered in the same leagues as H-Y-P-S in the rarified circles of business (finance, consulting, etc), law, politics, and academics.[/b] In other words, if your son gets in, he should enjoy himself more than "regular" kids did 20 years ago there, but should still get a top-flight education, and have vast opportunities once he graduates. Good luck![/quote]

Last winter, I witnessed the following conversation on the lift line at a ski resort:

Liftie (noticing youthful skier's UofC sweatshirt):  "Hey, do you go to Chicago?"

Skier:  "Yeah."

Liftie:  "So you're wicked smart, huh?"

Skier:  "Nah -- just lucky."

[/quote]

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