Why I chose UChicago

An aerial view of the University of Chicago campus

So this is a little overdue, but I wanted to explain why I decided to go to the University of Chicago over Georgetown. In my last blog post I said that I was leaning towards UChicago. But soon after writing that, I changed my mind and started leaning towards Georgetown. The first day back from spring break I had a meeting with my counselor and came away convinced that I was going to go to Georgetown. But the next day, when I was supposed to pay my deposit, I started having second thoughts. I was telling myself the reason I wanted to go to Georgetown was because of its location in Washington D.C. (I'm thinking of majoring in political science), a feeling I had that I'd fit in better with Georgetown students (as I said in my earlier blog post, there are a lot of weird people at UChicago), and the belief that Georgetown and UChicago were pretty academically comparable.

But the more I thought about it, I realized the real reason I wanted to go to Georgetown was because I was scared of UChicago. I was scared that it would be way too much work (the Huffington Post rates it as one of the 10 most grueling colleges), that everyone there would be weird, and that it'd be bitterly cold. As I pontificated (there's an SAT word for you), I realized that I didn't want to choose my college based on abstract fears that may not even be true. I also realized that while Georgetown's location in Washington D.C. might be a deciding factor for most poli sci majors; the fact that I lived in Northern Virginia meant that I could get a poli sci related internship in D.C. pretty easily over the summer.

A conversation I'd had with a family friend who was a senior at Georgetown didn't help either. She said that there were some crappy professors at Georgetown and that "I guess you could have more interaction between students and professors at other colleges." I compared this to the glowing praise for the professors and classes by people I knew who went to UChicago. This helped me realize that UChicago really was a better school academically than Georgetown.

I still wasn't convinced about UChicago, so I decided to call a family friend who lived in Chicago and had graduated from the university about 12 years ago. She really reassured me that I would in fact be able to have fun at UChicago and find plenty of people who weren't weird to hang out with. She said it was a lot of work, but that it would prepare me well for the rest of my life- because life is a lot of work too. Even my BC Calculus teacher, a 2008 UChicago grad who had told me that almost everyone at UChicago was weird, told me that while it's true that the majority of people at UChicago are pretty weird, there are non-weird (what he called "worldly") people who go to the University also. Plus, he's pretty weird himself (this is self-professed), so I feel his perspective is a little bit skewed.

After I made my decision, I knew it was the right one. It just felt right to me- unlike my earlier decision to go to Georgetown. I realize that it's going to be a lot of work and I'm still a little scared, but I'm also excited to be going to one of the best universities in the country and maybe even the world. Soon enough I guess I'll be fully immersed in "the life of the mind."