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Hi Everyone,
My oldest son is going to be a senior this year and start the application process to college. One of the schools he wants to apply to is University of Chicago. Unfortunately we were not able to take a visit out there to see the neighborhood the university is in and get a feel for the area. We already know about the amazing academics because the schools came out west and had an information session and Q&A in Los Angeles that we went to. Types of questions I have are:
Will my son need a car in that neighborhood?
Is it easy to get to the airport (to come see us)?
Is there lots of crime in the neighborhood?
Are college students a part of the neighborhood or are they walled in and kept very separate?
Does it have decent access to places college kids would like to spend their time went they aren't trapped in the library studying for ten hours?
-Any other general advice or just background info about the neighborhood UC is in would be much appreciated. My son just wants to understand what the area is like as we are not familiar with Chicago.
Thanks so much!
Hi Everyone,
My oldest son is going to be a senior this year and start the application process to college. One of the schools he wants to apply to is University of Chicago. Unfortunately we were not able to take a visit out there to see the neighborhood the university is in and get a feel for the area. We already know about the amazing academics because the schools came out west and had an information session and Q&A in Los Angeles that we went to. Types of questions I have are:
Will my son need a car in that neighborhood?
Is it easy to get to the airport (to come see us)?
Is there lots of crime in the neighborhood?
Are college students a part of the neighborhood or are they walled in and kept very separate?
Does it have decent access to places college kids would like to spend their time went they aren't trapped in the library studying for ten hours?
-Any other general advice or just background info about the neighborhood UC is in would be much appreciated. My son just wants to understand what the area is like as we are not familiar with Chicago.
Thanks so much!
Location: Hyde Park, Chicago
Will my son need a car in that neighborhood? Tons of public transportation that will link him to thedowntown area( Metra, Red line, bus express routes)
Is it easy to get to the airport (to come see us)? Both are far from the Hyde Park, but Chicago's public transit system makes them easily accessible
Is there lots of crime in the neighborhood? Generally no, but it is apart of the city, so tell your son to use common sense
Are college students a part of the neighborhood or are they walled in and kept very separate? Students are very entrenched into the neighborhood being that most of the student lrent in the Hyde Park/ Kenwood area.
Does it have decent access to places college kids would like to spend their time went they aren't trapped in the library studying for ten hours? Nightlife in HP is pretty dull, but a taxi or metra ride north should offer some exciting times.
Thanks to you two. Also, that sticky thread at the top is amazing!!! I just saw it and it had a good amount of info on Hyde Park. We really could use something like that in the CA forums. I feel dumb almost for posting now just because there was so much on there. Anyhow, thanks a lot. I think the area sounds like a good fit for my son. He really likes what the admission people discussed at the info session so it is a school he is very interested in and I told him it is school first, then neighborhood. I'm sure I would be delighted that Hyde Park has less than active nightlife (what mom wouldn't?), but he will probably want to head up to downtown or something with friends (although I realize UC students are VERY busy with academics, which he and I both appreciate).
Now I have to drive him up to the local mountains and leave him outside for an hour to train him for winter in Chicago. By the time he shows up, he should think it is nothing lol
You probably know that Hyde Park is Barack Obama's neighborhood:
A Hyde Park tour with Mrs. Obama :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Barack Obama (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/401359,CST-NWS-obama25.stng - broken link)
IMO, a major culture shock for many raised in suburbia, esp in CA or outside Northeast, is the mass transit nonsense of older Eastern cities...and the increased exposure to crime and various infectious diseases that mass transit offers...
Most colleges located in high-crime areas, like U-Chic, Wharton, Columbia, etc will claim they are much safer than 10-20yrs ago....perhaps true, but there are plenty of muggings and a couple of student murders/yr....(for obvious reasons, doubt many muggings are ever reported)...Stanford and Princeton are arguably the only relevant colleges that have classic suburban campuses....
Depending upon your son's career plans, may want to investigate how powerful is the U-Chic alumni network in helping undergrads obtain summer jobs and jobs post-graduation.....many liberal arts colleges (incl Harvard/Princeton) struggle to help kids even obtain a respectable summer job, let alone monetize their education post-grad, esp if one doesn't carefully structure major and plan early for post-grad career...
Chicago's Grad School of Business is rather powerful in Chicago itself, as many alums are in prominent positions at major investment banks' Chicago offices, but my vague sense is Chic undergrad has weak alumni....
Will my son need a car in that neighborhood?
Is it easy to get to the airport (to come see us)?
Is there lots of crime in the neighborhood?
Are college students a part of the neighborhood or are they walled in and kept very separate?
Does it have decent access to places college kids would like to spend their time went they aren't trapped in the library studying for ten hours?
-Any other general advice or just background info about the neighborhood UC is in would be much appreciated. My son just wants to understand what the area is like as we are not familiar with Chicago.
A lot of these questions have been covered, but I figured I'd add a little bit more.
1. A car first year in Chicago is a really bad idea, in my opinion. Parking is a hassle, random fender benders and winter will destroy it, and car theft happens regularly. Plus, part of the whole experience is to brave the public transit in the winter with your fellow students.
2. O'hare is really, really far (can take up to 2 hrs on public transit with 2 transfers), but Midway airport is only 30 minutes away on the 55 (or X55) bus. There is a really convenient airport shuttle from the university too that takes you to either airport for around $20.
3. I have to disagree with a previous post about crime. There is a lot of crime in the neighborhood, but much more in surrounding areas. Muggings (even violent ones) are common, assaults happen, and, just last year, a grad student was shot and killed. I lived just off campus and there were housing blocks that had cop cars/swat team vehicles in front of them almost every night; saw a guy being chased down the street by another person wielding a gun; a friend saw a teenager shot and killed. Those are the facts, but I must say I've been here for ~9 years and never had anything happen. If you don't do stupid things like wander through Washington park completely drunk or play with your cell phone on the train, the chances of something happening decrease a lot. There are thousands of students here and most people go through their 4 years with nothing having happened.
4. Hyde Park is pretty isolated from the city, but the neighborhood is well integrated. I've had some phenomenal experiences interacting with non-university locals, but most people stick to the university crowd.
5. If this is a major concern, your son might want to re-think UofC! I'm being half-facetious, but the neighborhood is pretty isolated from "fun" things. The university, which owns most of the property, drove most bars/nightlife/culture out of the neighborhood during the last few decades. The school can also be pretty intense and going out for most of the student body is usually a once a week thing, if at all. There is a lot going on in Chicago though.
6. My best advice is to make every effort to come see the campus, tour the surrounding areas (in a car!), take the public transit to the city, drive down the main drags of 55th and 53rd St, and experience hyde park a little at night.
Thank you for the other posts. They were very revealing. Would the neighborhood of Hyde Park be comparable to the neighborhood Columbia is in over in NYC? He did not like the neighborhood Columbia was in at all.
I am the one concerned about crime, not my kid. There is a reason we moved to the city/suburb that was ranked the safest city in America! My son isn't so paranoid, but I do want to rest easy at home nowing he is in a fairly safe area.
I am praying my son gets into UCLA or Stanford. UCLA is only 1.5 hours from home and Stanford is 6 hours. It is far enough for him to be on his own, but close enough for visits and both schools are in good neighborhoods. I am thinking he will end up at one of these two schools if he gets accepted, but we'll have to wait and see. If he gets accepted to University of Chicago, we will be out there for a visit in April or May. It sounds this is a campus you really need to get a feel for and it may fit my son or not. I think we will be able to determine whether it is too rough a neighborhood or not also.
My son wants to be a medical doctor by the way. I tell him he will have no life, but he seems pretty convinced. He volunteers and also works at the hospital and loves it there, so we'll see....
Thank you for the other posts. They were very revealing. Would the neighborhood of Hyde Park be comparable to the neighborhood Columbia is in over in NYC? He did not like the neighborhood Columbia was in at all.
I am the one concerned about crime, not my kid. There is a reason we moved to the city/suburb that was ranked the safest city in America! My son isn't so paranoid, but I do want to rest easy at home nowing he is in a fairly safe area.
I am praying my son gets into UCLA or Stanford. UCLA is only 1.5 hours from home and Stanford is 6 hours. It is far enough for him to be on his own, but close enough for visits and both schools are in good neighborhoods. I am thinking he will end up at one of these two schools if he gets accepted, but we'll have to wait and see. If he gets accepted to University of Chicago, we will be out there for a visit in April or May. It sounds this is a campus you really need to get a feel for and it may fit my son or not. I think we will be able to determine whether it is too rough a neighborhood or not also.
My son wants to be a medical doctor by the way. I tell him he will have no life, but he seems pretty convinced. He volunteers and also works at the hospital and loves it there, so we'll see....
Haven't been to U-Chic in many yrs, but it seems much like Columbia/Wharton...plenty of nearby poverty/crime to target the generally more affluent students...
Have a smart colleague who grew up in an upper middle-class suburban area in Midwest (not unlike Irvine); loves cars/driving and never rode mass transit (aside from commercial airlines) in his life; despised idea of inner-city and mass transit stuff; chose Wharton undergrad (arguably world's best training ground for finance, but located in a nasty part of Phila) but lived in suburban NJ (in CherryHill, an Irvine-like area); drove daily the some 15mis/30mins to Wharton; and finished Wharton undergrad summa c.l. in 2yrs....(all back in early '90s)
But, he had no interest in life in Manhattan as a junior M&A banker/trader, where one suffers life in a rathole and commutes via 3rdWorld subways/cabs; so, he opted to be based in a NYC-based firm's Chicago office, so he could live in a new apt tower in ?RiverNorth and drive a new luxury car to office in Loop daily (Chicago is very CA-like in having garages everywhere in upscale parts of City, so a CA car nut would feel comfortable); he left Chicago after a yr to an investment banking office in SiliconValley, to do tech M&A....and later founded and now runs a major hedge fund in SF (along w/LA, paradise for car nuts)....point is, many smart guys have worked around college/career choices to manage risks of violent crime and absurdly low std of living of ugly parts of many urban regions...
That said, medicine is unfortunately a career choice entailing many yrs of school/residency/fellowship in typically worst parts of any urban region....need to be near where patients exist who have no better choices than being the "beta" cases.....so U-Chic undergrad may prep one better for the ugly settings of nearly all med schools/teaching hosps aside from Stanford/UCLA....
Would argue those who intend a career in medicine should be comfortable w/risks of exposure to inner-city "issues", esp violent crime and occupational needle-stick risks of HIV/hepatitis exposure....smart hedge fund and tech guys can easily evade exposure to urban nonsense; competently-trained physicians can't.....
^^^
Totally agree with you about how you will have to experience inner city life if you become a doctor. I tell my son he has his work cut out for him, but he is so passionate about being a doctor (my husband is in business and I'm an accountant so we did not inspire him to this). He went on a mission trip to Mexico with the "Operation Smile" club from his high school and enjoyed being around the doctors and seeing surgery and stuff. He also loved playing soccer and stuff with the kids and doing a job where he feels like he is helping people. I feel my son could handle it, I just don't know if my nerves can while I sit at home worrying about him (do all moms worry like this??).
He isn't totally unfamiliar with public transportation either. We have used the subway and bus to get around LA before (but not daily, our particular area is suburban) and have been to NYC and Boston and stuff a few times and used PT there.
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lol
