h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Last Wednesday I received my first decision from any of the seven universities I applied to. I was accepted to the Class of 2012 at the University of Chicago. Now it isn't all speculation and pipe dreams - in September, I really will be living in a totally different place, going to university.

I don't know if that place will be UChicago, though, the private university on Chicago's South Side without the reputation but with all of the merit of an Ivy League school. It wasn't my first choice, but in the past few days I've quickly fell in love with it as a place I could spend the next four years. UChicago's applicants are a self-selecting bunch, primarily because of its famous "Uncommon Application", with its unconventional application essay prompts - it's chatting with these kids on the forum that UChicago set up that's convinced me I could be a really good fit at the place.

However, I'm still waiting on six schools: Swarthmore College and Haverford College, small liberal-arts colleges in Pennsylvania with a Quaker history and a wickedly intellectual atmosphere; Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey) and Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut), which hardly need introduction; University of California-Berkeley, the flagship of my state's public university system; and McGill University (Montreal, Quebec), the flagship of Canada's public university system. Since I'm a dual Canada-US citizen, I can benefit from the great Canadian tuition rates at McGill.

They're all great schools - I expect to get into Berkeley and McGill, but even with the better education UChicago would probably offer me, it would still hurt to say goodbye to either of them. I'm really hoping for an acceptance to Haverford or Swarthmore, though, as I think I can really benefit from the smaller environment without the padding of graduate students (liberal-arts colleges only offer undergraduate programs).

What's amazing, though, was that my first acceptance was from a school I didn't expect to get into. It's enormously validating, especially given the high levels of competition in university admissions these days, and it makes everything scarily and excitingly real. I'm scoping out the dorms at UChicago, reading all the literature they sent me, and talking to the other admittees - and thinking that here is my future laid out in front of me, and I have so many choices and opportunities.

So excited!

Oh, what an exciting time! I remember getting my acceptance letters- it is wonderfully validating that places actually value you highly enough to want you to come to them.

I would say pick an environment where you think you can be supported. At my university I felt like a bean in a very large casserole, with a tutor who was largely absent and staff that were unable to tell me exactly why they didn't like the essays I had written.

As someone far more articulate than I, I doubt you would have the same problems, but I'd say small is good.

All the best, my dear. Life gets exciting!

Congratulations!

Those are really great universities, you must be over the moon!

My uni (York) has about 10,000 people and I like that it's small. The biggest university here, Manchester, has something like 55,000 students and I think that's just too big. I think the size of the city also plays a part. York is like a town more than a city, but if I had gone to Manchester I think I would have found it a little overwhelming, at least at first.

Keep us up to date, EMR.

Congratulations!


As Elentari says, you really must keep us informed of your time there.


lil xx

Do keep us all posted.

What are you planning to study (or should I say read?)?

TRiG.

Congratulations!

Wow, great news EMR . The University of Chicago is a great school.
I have a friend who was going to U of Chicago to play football (a genuinely smart guy though, he might've gotten into U of C without the football scholarship). I can recall him ranting about the strange essays and prompts they require for admission there.

Good luck with the rest of your admissions.

Well done emr Spread the word of h2g2 among your friends once you go up!

Congrats! I know how exciting this is - enjoy it to the hilt. (Hey, there isn't much else to do in 12th grade, is there?)

I've been in a very small college and a small university and I have to support the folks who say "think smaller." There's more opportunity for you when there are fewer people vying for the same stuff. Plus, professors actually bother to get to know you a bit.

...then again, in terms of leverage into the field of your choice, you can't beat an Ivy.

Good luck - my bet is you get pretty roundly accepted, but I won't congratulate you in advance. Keep us posted.

TRiG, I haven't definitely decided what I'm going to study yet, but at this point I'm leaning towards history (huzzah for non-professional majors!).

Jordan, the essays were slightly strange. After quite a lot of agonizing, I decided to go with making up my own prompt: "What would you say to someone with whom you will never have a conversation?"

Absolutely right, Leo - school is such a waste of time, now. Senioritis ftw.

Here you don't apply to universities, you apply for courses directly. You've seen the Entry on the CAO, haven't you?

History could be fun. In my secondary school, I couldn't do both history and French, and I went with French. I'd enjoyed history in primary school. I'd like to get into it a bit more now, but then there are so many things I'd like to get into a bit more now.

TRiG.

Most of the "better" (of course that term is subjective) universities here don't ask you to declare a major subject until after your second year (of four). However, some do, and for some of my applications I had to formally declare history.

I would study French in more depth if I were any good at it. However, after the equivalent of six years of study, I still can't speak a word.

Congratulations, emr.

Hope you'll hear back from the other universities soon, even if it will make choosing harder. Until when do you have to confirm?

Wow! Congratulations, EMR! So it was all worth it, then

Oh, I think so, Rich!

May 1 is the universal notification date. I'll have heard from all the schools by April 1, and then I have a month to visit any of those that I haven't seen, think about costs, etc before I make my decision.

The sooner you turn in your deposit, though, the better spot you get in the housing lottery!

Well done you!

Here's a suggestion: All of those institutions are so prestigious that you might as well make your decision on the basis of its being somewhere you'd be happy living for a while.

(Says he, having been to university in *entirely* the wrong place. )

Yeah, certainly. It's a combination of size, interestingness (not a word) of the other students, locale, financial aid, and strength in my areas of interest.

Too early to tell though. Until I get any more options, I'm going to UChicago.

Well it was good enough for Vonnegut and Bellow (and, doubtless many other worthies).

Yeah, do history.

I find it a bit strange that you have this majors/minors system. If you don't declare your major until the end of your second year, you're only really studying it for 2.

My history degree has consisted of only history modules. (Although it is possible to choose an elective module from another department). If I were you, I'd hate to have to study chemistry, for example, or something else I hate, when I went to uni to study history. I suppose the US system has its advantages though. How does it work in Canada?

How strange the change/ From major to minor.


As someone who sits astride CP Snow's 'two cultures', I wish I'd had the opportunity to balance out my science-based education with something artsy. At my university, which is famed for engineering and sports science (UK readers will instantly know the one), broadening the students' minds would have been an excellent idea. Any broadening I've achieved for myself has had to be strictly autodidactic!

That said...my wife had to study geology alongside her Social Work degree. I've never studied geology...but let's just say that only one of us knows his igneous from his sedimentary.