The Start of the Beginning: Summer Session Day 1

The wake-up today was no more pleasant than the last. The alarm was loud, and I was exhausted from staying up till an ungodly hour waiting for the excruciatingly slow internet at the hotel to upload my photos to Blogger. Despite my lack of enthusiasm, there was still work to be done. As I had been working on my blog until late the night before, I had not yet packed up, and the floor was covered with a semi-solid layer of cushions, blankets, suitcases, and clothing. As I scrambled to pick up my scattered possessions, I thought about the day ahead of me. I was quite excited to take a tour of the UChicago campus and learn more about the academics and admissions at the informational session, as I had heard quite a lot about the school, and almost all of it good. After taking a quick shower and brushing my teeth, I went down to the lobby to meet up with the other members of the squad.

The bacon-flavored donut.

I was late, so I breathed a sigh of relief when John texted that he'd be a few minutes late. What I did not suspect was the reason for his tardiness. When the elevator doors opened, he held a magical box in his hand. A box that would allow us to do anything. A box that would change my life. It was, of course, a box of donuts. Specifically, eccentric donuts. Maxime claimed both the PB&J and the bacon donuts, which was fine by me, as these crazy flavors were intimidating. Halfway through our breakfast, the shuttle arrived, and we paused the meal so we wouldn't keep the driver waiting.

As we stepped out of the car and into Hyde park, I quickly realized that it is a spectacular neighborhood. The houses were almost all beautiful and old, and the lawns (noticing a pattern here?) were a deep, brilliant green. Once we had finished dropping off our luggage with the summer session staff, we finished eating our breakfast, played some ultimate (frisbee to the uncultured), and eventually walked over to the main plaza, where we were led to an auditorium with two tour guides named Nora and Drew answering random questions while the rest of the potential applicants arrived. Once everybody had sat down, the main speaker and admissions director at UChicago, Zach, came out. Zach talked about quite a few different aspects of the University of Chicago, however I'm only going to talk about applications, as I do not want to unnecessarily repeat information that could be found in other members of the cohort's blogs.

The way you apply to UChicago is through a single "consortium application," which can be used for over 800 schools, along with a few school-specific essays. This application includes transcripts, sometimes though not always test scores, essays, and extracurriculars.

I say not always test scores because UChicago just became a test-optional school, which means that you do not have to submit your test scores if you feel that they do not accurately represent your strengths. In their place, however, it is recommended that you submit a portfolio of some sort showing "what you might bring to campus." The admissions officers at UChicago also do research on, and sometimes even visit, different parts of the country to get a sense of your school so they know how well you took advantage of the opportunities you were given.

UChicago requires two letters of recommendation for academic overseers, and will take extras from non-academic mentors if you want to display them. The essays that are UChicago-specific are 1. a 'why UChicago' essay and 2. a crazy prompt of your choice. And when I say crazy, I really mean crazy. One of their prompts was, "What would your new major of choice be if you could change one letter of an already existing one?" You could even make your own prompt and answer it if you did not like any of the roughly 20 offered. The last section, which is a new replacement for in-person interviews, is a 2-minute video of yourself in which you can do literally anything you want. UChicago, like many other schools, offers early decision, in which you sign a contract saying that if you get in, you will go to UChicago, which slightly increases your chance of getting accepted.

After the info session, we went on a tour with a friendly dancer from Taipei named Liam. The campus was almost as beautiful as Northwestern's, with trees and ivy decorating every plaza and building. I especially liked their massive sports center, with a huge gym and lap pool. The several museums, some with huge collections of ancient artifacts, also seem like good entertainment right on campus. After the tour, we went to the renowned cafe Medici and all got delicious (and surprisingly spicy) sandwiches.

We hurried back with just enough time to unpack and get settled into our rooms before orientations started. In short, the administrators talked about a great deal of irrelevant things, we went on a short tour that just detailed the locations of our classes, and we returned to the gym for discussion on campus safety. Campus is indeed very safe, as I had suspected, and the extremely fast response time of the police here makes me feel even more secure. At the end of the talks, everybody left for dinner, which was done buffet-style in an enormous food hall. The food was pretty good, if not amazing, and I was more than satisfied. We were given a little bit of free time after dinner, which I spent on this blog, before we met in our house groups of three floors to make sure that everyone was here, introduce ourselves, and learn the rules.

It was a pretty packed schedule, so I did not get to talk with as many other students as I would have liked, but I'm looking forward to what appears to be more laid-back activities tomorrow. Good night!

My spacious accommodations.