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The University of Chicago attracts students eager to move beyond the cliquishness of high school and the superficial trappings of Ivy League prestige—the kids more concerned about learning for learning’s sake than about getting a job after graduation, though they’re certainly capable of the latter. “We’re all nerds at heart,” says a senior. Still, administrators have realized that in the 21st century, even the best schools cannot survive on intellectual might alone. To make UChicago more attractive, they’ve made the core curriculum less restrictive, expanded study abroad programs and career advising, and completed a bevy of new facilities. The result? A surge in applications. Says a freshman, “The fact that college here is a good time just makes us that much happier.”

The university’s 215-acre tree-lined campus is in Hyde Park, an eclectic community on Chicago’s South Side, surrounded by low-income neighborhoods on three sides and Lake Michigan on the other. One of 77 city neighborhoods, Hyde Park “is pretty intellectual,” says one student, noting that “two-thirds of our faculty live here.” Streets are lined with brownstones, row houses, and townhouses, giving way to luxury high-rises with beautiful views as you get closer to the lake; the city’s Museum of Science and Industry is within spitting distance. The campus itself is self-contained and architecturally magnificent. The main quads are steel-gray Gothic—gargoyles and all—and buildings were designed by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright, Eero Saarinen, Mies van der Rohe, and Edward Durrell Stone. The Regenstein Library (“the Reg”), symbolically located in the heart of the campus, is a national treasure. Next to the Reg is the recently opened Mansueto Library, a geodesic dome featuring millions of books stored underground and retrieved by a 50-foot underground robotic arm.

Historically, UChicago has drawn praise for its graduate programs, but in recent years administrators have realized that they must pay attention to undergraduates as well if UChicago is to compete successfully with the likes of Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton. To that end, the university remains unequivocally committed to the view that a solid foundation in the liberal arts is the best preparation for future study or work and, moreover, that theory is better than practice. Thus, music students study musicology, but also learn calculus, along with everyone else. Regardless of major, 15 to 18 of a student’s 42 courses fall under general education requirements called the Common Core, which is one of the most comprehensive sets of distribution requirements anywhere. (The precise number of courses in the core depends on how much foreign language instruction a student needs to reach proficiency.)

Other core requirements include courses in the sciences and math, humanities, social sciences, and a sequence of study in a specific civilization. There is a required writing tutorial as well. Sound intense? Well, yes, students say it is, especially because UChicago pioneered the quarter system whereby class material is presented over 10-week periods, with the first term starting in late September and ending by Christmas. In practice, this means virtually uninterrupted work through the year, punctuated by a long summer vacation and three exam weeks. “The courses are extremely rigorous because that’s the way we like them,” says a junior. A freshman adds, “People here have bookshelves overflowing with books they have actually read. Passionate discussion and intellectual curiosity are everywhere.” Despite the academic rigor, collaboration is the norm. Seniors are also encouraged to do final-year projects. Helping students learn those skills are brilliant and distinguished faculty members who’ve won Nobel Prizes, Guggenheims, and other prestigious awards. “I don’t know how professors here could get better,” says a senior. “They make themselves available to students and seem genuinely interested in our ideas.”

The economics department, a bastion of neoliberal or New Right thinkers, is UChicago’s main academic claim to fame. Popular majors include economics, biological and biomedical sciences, political science, math, and English. The university also prides itself on interdisciplinary and area studies programs, such as those focusing on East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the Slavic countries. Undergrads may take courses in any of the university’s graduate and professional schools—law, divinity, social service, public policy, humanities, social sciences, biological and physical sciences, and business. In the spirit of alumni such as Mike Nichols and Elaine May, a major in theater and performance studies is available, as is the Accelerated Medical Scholars Program. While you may have to fight through a thicket of Ph.D. students to get your professor’s attention, you’ll be rewarded by an abundance of research assistantships—and opportunities for publication, even before you graduate. “University of Chicago students are intellectual and proud of it,” says an anthropology major. “I’ve even discussed Max Weber at a frat party.” When Chicago gets too cold and snowy, students may take advantage of study abroad programs, which reach most corners of the globe and include study at the university’s center in Paris and one in Beijing.

Seventy-one percent of UChicago’s students come from out of state, including many East Coasters with academic parents; another 9 percent are foreigners. Asian Americans represent 18 percent of the total, Hispanics account for 8 percent, and African Americans add 5 percent. Politically, “the conservative voice is allowed a presence on campus—the effect is to enliven debate and save us liberals from easy self-assurance,” says a freshman. Students have fond memories of freshman orientation, known as O Week, an event administrators claim was invented at the university in 1924. The school hands out merit scholarships each year and has eliminated loans from the financial aid packages for families with annual incomes below $60,000. Loans have been cut in half for families with incomes below $100,000. 

UChicago guarantees campus housing for four years, and more than half of all undergrads live in the dorms. “Dorms are divided into units of 30 to 100 people called houses,” says a junior. “These houses become the center of social life, at least for first-years.” Each dorm is different—some house less than 100 people in traditional, shared double rooms without kitchens, while another has 700 beds organized into colorful suites. The South Campus Residence Hall offers a mix of singles, doubles, and apartments in a modern building. All halls are co-ed by room or by floor. “Hyde Park has tons of really cute, cheap apartments,” reports one student, so the more “independent-minded” students usually move off campus.

UChicago the school, and Chicago the city, offer what a freshman calls “infinite options: bars downtown, a film festival, a White Sox game at U.S. Cellular Field, a spoken-word performance at a Belmont coffeehouse, open-mic night at the student center.” Lest you get bored, the city also offers museums galore, world-class symphony, opera, dance, and the Second City comedy troupe (invented by University of Chicago undergrads). Though everything is accessible by public transportation, cars are a nice luxury (if you can find a parking place).  Road trips are infrequent, but one popular destination is Ann Arbor, about five hours away, for concerts and more traditional collegiate fun at the University of Michigan.

Tradition is a hallmark at UChicago, and each spring, students look forward to Scavenger Hunt (“Scav”), “a pumped-up version of a regular scavenger hunt, with a list of 300 bizarre items,” says a sociology major. “If you walked onto campus during those few days, you’d think most people had lost their minds.” In the winter, students head for the outdoor skating rink on the Midway, site of the 1893 World’s Fair, for broomball. Students also celebrate the festival of Kangeiko, which features their naked or seminaked peers dashing across campus during the Polar Bear Run. Doc Films is the country’s longest continuously running student film society. The Festival of the Arts features concerts, a fashion show, special lectures, museum exhibits, and “funky installations on the quads.” Come summer, students can be found “doing Jell-O wrestling and other carnival activities” as part of Summer Breeze, which also includes a concert.

UChicago’s Maroons compete in Division III, and the school belongs to the University Athletic Association, where rivals include NYU and Washington U in St. Louis. Aside from hitting the gridiron or the basketball court, “even the varsity athletes are Phi Beta Kappa (that is, very smart) and involved with university theater,” a junior marvels. In fact, athletes here have a higher overall GPA than the student body as a whole. The wrestling team and women’s soccer squad have boasted All-Americans in recent years, and both men’s and women’s soccer have been to the Division III Final Four. To everyone’s surprise, the football team has also had a couple of winning seasons. When it comes to intramurals, 70 percent of undergraduates participate in sports ranging from the traditional (football, soccer, and broomball) to the offbeat (inner-tube water polo, badminton, and archery).

Although T-shirts lovingly mock the university’s rigor (“Where Fun Comes to Die”), the University of Chicago has moved well beyond the Spartan attitudes of former president Robert Maynard Hutchins, who led UChicago from 1929 to 1951 and once said, “When I feel like exercising I just lie down until the feeling goes away.” In a lighter moment, Hutchins also said, “My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects.” For students who choose the University of Chicago, learning is often the best—though not necessarily the only—kind of fun.

Deadlines & Requirements

UChicago: Early action: Nov. 1. Regular admissions: Jan. 2. Financial aid: Feb. 1. Application fee: $75. Campus and alumni interviews: optional, evaluative. SATs or ACTs: required. Subject Tests: optional. Accepts the Common Application. Essay question.

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