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I love this question! I attended USC both as an undergraduate from 1st year to 5th year as an Architecture major (it is a 5-year minimum program) and then 11 years later as a Graduate student to get a Masters of RealEstate Development (MRED) for two more years. Thus I only have a few answers for this simple question…USC Trojan Alumni AssociationThe USC Alumni Association official motto is “Lifelong and Worldwide” and with 66 total alumni clubs and 22 of which are overseas this is very true. I have also enjoyed the company of several international clubs.Trojan for LifeWe don’t accept part-time Trojans or fans. If you don’t like it here, please leave and give up your seat for someone else. People say that we are like a cult or a mafia and we seldom disagree with that idea.Trojans Take Care of our OwnLove us or hate us, everyone one knows that Trojans take care of Trojans. This big idea is pushed into our skulls as freshman students once on campus that once a Trojan looks after you,you too, must take care of a future Trojan and pass it forward whatever that might be.Trojans Only Hire TrojansThis is completely false but it is so close to being true that I listed it. USC Alumni love to hire other USC Alumni, as that was how we were taught. The reality is that we will always give the USC applicant a look, shot or an interview when looking for a job but there is simply no guarantee that you will get an employment offer.USC Trojan PrideFor whatever reason, USC alumni and fans have tons of pride in their university and athletic programs. Not only can you see USC apparel being worn with pride around Southern California but also internationally as I have experienced. I dare you to try to count the crazy number of USC license plate frames driven around Southern California, which is second to none!City of Los AngelesUSC was established in 1880 at our very same location and unlike UCLA or Pepperdine, we are not moving, just making our location, neighborhood and community better.Location along the Pacific RimThis is very significant to USC as early on when the prestigious universities in the US along the Pacific Ocean and in all parts of Asia organized, USC took a commanding role as leader of these united academic institutions under the former leadership of past USC President Dr. Steven Sample. This was a more powerful alliance than anything that was created in Europe, for example.Strong Study Aboard ProgramsFrom personal experience via USC, I lived in Italy as part of USC's very first semester aboard program in Lake Como and then backpacked around the rest of Europe for a total of half of a year. During my graduate studies I went to the continent of Asia to Seoul, South Korea then to Shanghai, China and then to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for three crazy weeks that changed my life. I know that all first year MBAs are sent to Asia for at least a week for another example.Southern California WeatherReally? You would rather attend Notre Dame, Michigan, Colorado, or even NYU? What is wrong with you?How USC Was CreatedFirst off, I love the fact that USC was created by three local landowners donating their land and it actually sounds like a bar joke. History shares with us that a Methodist, a Jew and anIrish-Catholic came together to donate the various parcels of land outside of the boundaries of what was the city of Los Angeles to be called the University of Southern California.Tommy TrojanMaybe it starts with our beloved statue of Tommy Trojan showcased in the center of our campus. Every building on campus is referenced from where it is located from Tommy Trojan and if you don’t know where Tommy is located you are clearly new to campus so just ask anyone on campus as we are all very friendly. This statue is secured 24 hours a day the week prior to the UCLA Football game by the Trojan Knights on campus thus no harm will be done to it, guaranteed. We cannot say that for that ugly little magnet bear across town.USC Historical TraditionsWhen you start your life as USC in 1880 and you have such a passionate group of students and alumni everywhere, you never want to be the class that let USC down. We have Traveler the white horse racing down the sidelines of each home game touchdown! We have the kicking of the flagpoles before you crossExposition Blvd to attend a home game. Another tradition is the annual, never to fail, USC Beat UCLA Bonfire rally. And yes, we send busloads of freshmen during orientation to the Original Tommy Burgers on Rampart Blvd.The Spirit of Troy, Trojan Marching BandThey are simply referred to as "The Greatest Marching Band in the History of the Universe"! I was never qualified to be a member but I don’t know of any university in the world where members of the Marching Band are held in such high esteem. It is simply crazy as to what it takes to become and stay a member of the Spirit of Troy Marching Band at USC. They are treated like individual Rock Stars on campus during game day when in uniform. USC is the only university that sends its band to each and every away game no matter how far away. The Spirit of Troy always represents USC no matter where.Private Research UniversityI would have a much stronger answer to this if I personally was a scientist myself but the fact that I know this to be true is significant. Much has been made about the fact that USC does a ton of Federally funded scientific research on many fronts including the US Military thus USC has been a leader as a Private Research University for many decades.Prestigious ReputationIn the past two decades USC has officially become the highly selective university that it was always meant to be. In 2016, USC only accepted 16% of its applicants, sorry UCLA, Berkeley and one or two Ivy League colleges. That also means that over 31% of the students that were accepted had to at least have a 4.0 GPA.Truly International Student BodyUSC has for many decades had the most international students of any US University and it clearly shows if you take a look at the diversity of the USC student body. It was personally very interesting to have the huge diversity of international roommates that I had while at USC.Large Financial EndowmentUSC does not have the largest university endowment by any means but it is very highly ranked in the top-10. Huge money gives the University many options.National Leader in offering Financial Aid programsUSC has traditionally offered the most amount of financial aid compared to any other university and that amounts to over $300 Million annually.70% of students qualify for Financial AidI personally love this reason as my family and I could never afford full tuition at USC thus to learn that a clear majority of students that attend each year have some typeof financial aid package helps defy a lot of myths that only rich people attend USC. A lot of our people from middle to poor families also attend USC.Trustee scholarshipsUSC awards250 Trustee scholarships to incoming Freshmen every year. Trustee Scholarships are full tuition scholarships that are renewable for 4 years, as long as the student maintains a 3.0 average. Students must apply to USC very early, in November. The scholarships are then awarded in December. I am hold that we are taking away students from the Ivy Leagues and Stanford!100% of your Financial Need will be metUSC full tuition always costs a lot of money in their private school tuition model but what most outsiders fail to learn is that USC has been committed to meet each accepted students financial need which is the delta between what USC costs and what the state of California states that you and your parents based on your income and assets and your parents income and assets can afford. In my case and in the case of quite a lot of my USC peers, this was a HUGE hole to fill and USC financial aid made this possible for a non-rich student and family like mine! Fight On!Leader in the Recruitment of Minority StudentsAt 23%, USC has the most students of any Private University that are awarded federal Pell Grants according the Department of Education. 22% of all USC undergraduates are underrepresented minorities, due to very active and targeted recruitment of these students.USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI) programDecades ago,this was community program was established to give local minority students an opportunity to get a full-ride scholarship to USC. 7th graders start the program where they come to campus each Saturday for specialized tutoring for 5 hours each weekend. Parental involvement is a must and both have to sign contracts to entry into the NAI program. Six years later the program annually graduates 75 to 90 kids and one-third qualify to attend USC where they are given full scholarships for four years. Pretty Great!Celebrity GraduatesPersonally I am not a fan of celebrity because I was born and raised in LA but I get that it is a bigger deal to most people outside of Hollywood. Since USC has the history and prestige and is located in the middle of LA a lot of famous people are attracted to USC and thus attend or send their children to USC. You can easily find that list of famous USC Alumni somewhere else. Here is a hint: both John Wayne and Neal Armstrong are USC Alumni and if you don’t know who they are, then you just flunked your US history quiz.Olympic GloryUSC has a reputation and long tradition of nurturing Olympic athletes. From the 1904Summer Olympics through the 2014 winter games, 422 Trojan athletes have competed in the Games, taking home 135 gold medals (with at least 1 gold in every summer Olympics since 1912), 88 silver and 65 bronze. There have been more Trojans in the Olympics than from any other university in the world – if USC were its own nation in the Olympics, it would rank tied for 8th in the world in total gold medals earned. – Wikipedia.USC National ChampionshipsThe Trojans have won 123 team national championships, 100 of which are NCAA National Championships. This is the third highest NCAA count of all universities behind Stanford with 105, and UCLA with 113. Note that the NCAA does not award Football Championships, which USC has 11, thus we are actually neck and neck with the Bruins.The Trojan men have won 97 national championships (84 NCAA titles), more than any other University. USC was established for 41 years before the NCAA granted it’s first championship thus the difference in numbers.The Women of Troy have earned 26 national championships (16 NCAA titles), third in the nation.The Trojans won at least 1 national team title in 26 consecutive years (1959–60 to 1984–85). – Wikipedia.USC Football plays in the historic LA ColiseumThere are a lot of college football teams that play on campus or in our case across the street but if your college happens to be in Westwood Village, then your team plays all the way across town in Pasadena, about 30 miles from your actual campus. You can tell me how pretty the Rose Bowl is but you cannot convince me that many UCLA students want to spend hours on a bus to get there each game day because that is not happening.Most Beautiful Campus in Los AngelesGiven that UCLA is in a better part of town, it might be controversial and bias to state that as an Architect myself and past student at both campuses, USC has a better, more attractive overall campus. It has been very difficult to keep track of all of the new buildings and great architecture that has been created on campus in the past few decades. The great examples of architecture are not limited to one quadrant of the campus which is the case across town in Westwood. The amount of new buildings that were torn down and demolished to make way for better, more modern educational facilities is amazing. This opinion will only become more clearly apparent next year once the 15-acre $700 Million USC Village is completed across Jefferson Blvd. This will be the largest development project ever in South Los Angeles and add about 10% more acreage to the campus and almost 20% more campus space.Tailgate SaturdaysMany wonderful universities throughout the United States, outside of UCLA, have a glorious tradition of tailgating on their very own campus. USC’s ability to party on campus during home game days as well as those that tailgate around the LA Coliseum make those 6-7 Saturdays in the fall each year very special.Happiest Place on Earth?Okay this might feel that this is far fetched but honestly there are many of us USC Alumni, like myself, who are the happiest when coming back to campus. Unreal? No Way? I actually designed and built theme parks for Walt Disney Imagineering around the world and I also happened to be married to a Maui, Hawaii wife thus we go every year to that wonderful island. I will promise you that I am still much more happy on the USC campus during each home football game day since I have met so many friends over the decades than both of those wonderful places.OCTOBER 2016 UPDATE:The initial Wall Street Journal / Higher Times Education ranked over a 1,000 US Universities and they claimed that USC is the #15 best university in America. Sadly Cal Berkeley and UCLA did not make the top-25…

Because it goes against the narrative that in America “anything is possible if you work hard, because it is the land of opportunity.”Because it belies the reality that America doesn’t fare well in terms of permitting people to work hard and move up the social ladder.Amelia Hartman's answer to What is the first assumption of Communism?Hartman: These are the kinds of extreme directions capitalists tend to go when they try to resolve the contradictions between their utopian ideologies and the real world.The fact is, individual humans never “progress”. It doesn’t matter how much progress a single human makes in their life, because they will eventually die, and the next generation will be born with none of that knowledge.Thus, what progresses humanity is not individual progress, but the progression of the system itself. More progressive systems will always produce more progressive people. It is the constant progress of human societies that advances humanity, not the progress of individuals. Any progress of an individual will be worthless if it is not then used as a means to progress the system itself.This is something right-wingers tend to flat-out reject. It’s never the system that’s at fault, it’s always the individuals. Immense issues of poverty, unemployment, huge racial and gender differences in the economy. These aren’t problems of the system failing, even though it consistently produces these results, it’s instead the fault of individual inferiority. Which leads to a pretty dark road if you take it to its logical conclusions, including even eugenics.The complete rejection of material reality in favor of utopian dogma leads down this path. It completely rejects the material conditions people are born into, and how that system itself shapes human beings, and instead insists all problems in society are caused purely by individual failures. “Human nature” to these people is static and unchanging, that the system itself has no effect on people’s nature, that their biology will dictate in the end how good they will perform, and whatever results they get, whether they are homeless in immense poverty, or extremely wealthy living in a castle, is because they got what they deserved.This is why capitalists always insist capitalism is inline with “human nature”. To them, capitalism is the perfect reflection of human nature, since, naturally to them, some people “are just inferior to others”, and that capitalism simply “recognizes those differences” and allows the “superior ones” to rise to the top.There’s not a shred of scientific evidence to support this. Jeff Bezos has 1.6 million times the net worth of the median US household. What gene does Bezos have that makes him 1.6 million times more “superior” than the median American family?Bezos’s parents being billionaires and investing almost $250,000 into Bezos starting up Amazon totally didn’t have anything to do with it, right? Bezos’s creation was purely due to his own “superiority”?If you can’t identify some gene for Bezos’s success, some gene that makes him “inherently superior” which is the cornerstone of capitalist thought, then you must conclude that anyone could achieve what Bezos has, given the right circumstances. Meaning, that in order to improve people’s living standards, you’d want to improve the average person’s circumstances. You’d want to improve the system. Which inherently involves questioning capitalism.Capitalists will never do this. Capitalists instead completely reject material reality and replace it with pure ideology. They perpetuate pseudoscience regarding human psychology and biology to justify their utopian dogma to form a nonsense theory that does not hold up to the most basic scrutiny.3. It shows that hard work in America doesn’t help that much. Other factors are more important to success and not being poor.America is no meritocracy.Over time more inequality has been associated with lower social mobility.Consider the U.S. presidents. George W. Bush has a master’s degree in business. He bragged about being a D+ student. In the business world he failed in everything he did. Yet despite this he was elected governor of Texas and became the President. His father also happened to be a President, too.The Kennedy political dynasties were similar. None of the members of the family were especially gifted or talented. Hillary Clinton’s political career has been unimpressive in terms of performance. She herself admits to not have a magical charisma like her husband. Her performance as Secretary of State was disastrous. She failed in her support for the Syrian jihadi rebels, causing a massive refugee crisis. She talked Obama into supporting the terrorists in Libya that overthrew Quaddafi. Libya is now a failed state with open air slave auctions. Had her family not been in politics there is little chance she would have held any elected position.In America Ivy League colleges are the gateways to high level positions in the government, industry and academia. A few generations ago admittance was primarily based on wealth and whether your family went there. Academic prowess was not important. Then the SAT was created. The idea was to produce a more meritocratic system. The overall academic abilities of the student body have improved significantly. However, legacy admissions are still considered important, as are family contributions to the school, diversity requirements, and others. Sadly, it was recently discovered that celebrities have been paying to game the system to admit their academically weak children. Lori Laughlin from Full House fame and Felicity Huffman were caught.Ivy League's meritocracy lie: How Harvard and Yale cook the books for the 1 percentThe Tyranny of the Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America: Lani Guinier: 9780807006276: Amazon.com: BooksThe Myth of American MeritocracyThe war over college admissions has become astonishingly fierce, with many middle- or upper-middle class families investing quantities of time and money that would have seemed unimaginable a generation or more ago, leading to an all-against-all arms race that immiserates the student and exhausts the parents. The absurd parental efforts of an Amy Chua, as recounted in her 2010 bestseller Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, were simply a much more extreme version of widespread behavior among her peer-group, which is why her story resonated so deeply among our educated elites. Over the last thirty years, America’s test-prep companies have grown from almost nothing into a $5 billion annual industry, allowing the affluent to provide an admissions edge to their less able children. Similarly, the enormous annual tuition of $35,000 charged by elite private schools such as Dalton or Exeter is less for a superior high school education than for the hope of a greatly increased chance to enter the Ivy League.[5] Many New York City parents even go to enormous efforts to enroll their children in the best possible pre-Kindergarten program, seeking early placement on the educational conveyer belt which eventually leads to Harvard.[6] Others cut corners in a more direct fashion, as revealed in the huge SAT cheating rings recently uncovered in affluent New York suburbs, in which students were paid thousands of dollars to take SAT exams for their wealthier but dimmer classmates.[7]But given such massive social and economic value now concentrated in a Harvard or Yale degree, the tiny handful of elite admissions gatekeepers enjoy enormous, almost unprecedented power to shape the leadership of our society by allocating their supply of thick envelopes. Even billionaires, media barons, and U.S. Senators may weigh their words and actions more carefully as their children approach college age. And if such power is used to select our future elites in a corrupt manner, perhaps the inevitable result is the selection of corrupt elites, with terrible consequences for America. Thus, the huge Harvard cheating scandal, and perhaps also the endless series of financial, business, and political scandals which have rocked our country over the last decade or more, even while our national economy has stagnated.Just a few years ago Pulitzer Prize-winning former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Golden published The Price of Admission, a devastating account of the corrupt admissions practices at so many of our leading universities, in which every sort of non-academic or financial factor plays a role in privileging the privileged and thereby squeezing out those high-ability, hard-working students who lack any special hook. In one particularly egregious case, a wealthy New Jersey real estate developer, later sent to Federal prison on political corruption charges, paid Harvard $2.5 million to help ensure admission of his completely under-qualified son.[8] When we consider that Harvard’s existing endowment was then at $15 billion and earning almost $7 million each day in investment earnings, we see that a culture of financial corruption has developed an absurd illogic of its own, in which senior Harvard administrators sell their university’s honor for just a few hours worth of its regular annual income, the equivalent of a Harvard instructor raising a grade for a hundred dollars in cash.An admissions system based on non-academic factors often amounting to institutionalized venality would seem strange or even unthinkable among the top universities of most other advanced nations in Europe or Asia, though such practices are widespread in much of the corrupt Third World. The notion of a wealthy family buying their son his entrance into the Grandes Ecoles of France or the top Japanese universities would be an absurdity, and the academic rectitude of Europe’s Nordic or Germanic nations is even more severe, with those far more egalitarian societies anyway tending to deemphasize university rankings.Or consider the case of China. There, legions of angry microbloggers endlessly denounce the official corruption and abuse which permeate so much of the economic system. But we almost never hear accusations of favoritism in university admissions, and this impression of strict meritocracy determined by the results of the national Gaokao college entrance examination has been confirmed to me by individuals familiar with that country. Since all the world’s written exams may ultimately derive from China’s old imperial examination system, which was kept remarkably clean for 1300 years, such practices are hardly surprising.[9]Attending a prestigious college is regarded by ordinary Chinese as their children’s greatest hope of rapid upward mobility and is therefore often a focus of enormous family effort; China’s ruling elites may rightly fear that a policy of admitting their own dim and lazy heirs to leading schools ahead of the higher-scoring children of the masses might ignite a widespread popular uprising. This perhaps explains why so many sons and daughters of top Chinese leaders attend college in the West: enrolling them at a third-rate Chinese university would be a tremendous humiliation, while our own corrupt admissions practices get them an easy spot at Harvard or Stanford, sitting side by side with the children of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and George W. Bush.Although the evidence of college admissions corruption presented in Golden’s book is quite telling, the focus is almost entirely on current practices, and largely anecdotal rather than statistical. For a broader historical perspective, we should consider The Chosen by Berkeley sociologist Jerome Karabel, an exhaustive and award-winning 2005 narrative history of the last century of admissions policy at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (I will henceforth sometimes abbreviate these “top three” most elite schools as “HYP”).Karabel’s massive documentation—over 700 pages and 3000 endnotes—establishes the remarkable fact that America’s uniquely complex and subjective system of academic admissions actually arose as a means of covert ethnic tribal warfare. During the 1920s, the established Northeastern Anglo-Saxon elites who then dominated the Ivy League wished to sharply curtail the rapidly growing numbers of Jewish students, but their initial attempts to impose simple numerical quotas provoked enormous controversy and faculty opposition.[10] Therefore, the approach subsequently taken by Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell and his peers was to transform the admissions process from a simple objective test of academic merit into a complex and holistic consideration of all aspects of each individual applicant; the resulting opacity permitted the admission or rejection of any given applicant, allowing the ethnicity of the student body to be shaped as desired. As a consequence, university leaders could honestly deny the existence of any racial or religious quotas, while still managing to reduce Jewish enrollment to a much lower level, and thereafter hold it almost constant during the decades which followed.[11] For example, the Jewish portion of Harvard’s entering class dropped from nearly 30 percent in 1925 to 15 percent the following year and remained roughly static until the period of the Second World War.[12]As Karabel repeatedly demonstrates, the major changes in admissions policy which later followed were usually determined by factors of raw political power and the balance of contending forces rather than any idealistic considerations. For example, in the aftermath of World War II, Jewish organizations and their allies mobilized their political and media resources to pressure the universities into increasing their ethnic enrollment by modifying the weight assigned to various academic and non-academic factors, raising the importance of the former over the latter. Then a decade or two later, this exact process was repeated in the opposite direction, as the early 1960s saw black activists and their liberal political allies pressure universities to bring their racial minority enrollments into closer alignment with America’s national population by partially shifting away from their recently enshrined focus on purely academic considerations. Indeed, Karabel notes that the most sudden and extreme increase in minority enrollment took place at Yale in the years 1968–69, and was largely due to fears of race riots in heavily black New Haven, which surrounded the campus.[13]Philosophical consistency appears notably absent in many of the prominent figures involved in these admissions battles, with both liberals and conservatives sometimes favoring academic merit and sometimes non-academic factors, whichever would produce the particular ethnic student mix they desired for personal or ideological reasons. Different political blocs waged long battles for control of particular universities, and sudden large shifts in admissions rates occurred as these groups gained or lost influence within the university apparatus: Yale replaced its admissions staff in 1965 and the following year Jewish numbers nearly doubled.[14]At times, external judicial or political forces would be summoned to override university admissions policy, often succeeding in this aim. Karabel’s own ideological leanings are hardly invisible, as he hails efforts by state legislatures to force Ivy League schools to lift their de facto Jewish quotas, but seems to regard later legislative attacks on “affirmative action” as unreasonable assaults on academic freedom.[15] The massively footnoted text of The Chosen might lead one to paraphrase Clausewitz and conclude that our elite college admissions policy often consists of ethnic warfare waged by other means, or even that it could be summarized as a simple Leninesque question of “Who, Whom?”Although nearly all of Karabel’s study is focused on the earlier history of admissions policy at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, with the developments of the last three decades being covered in just a few dozen pages, he finds complete continuity down to the present day, with the notorious opacity of the admissions process still allowing most private universities to admit whomever they want for whatever reasons they want, even if the reasons and the admissions decisions may eventually change over the years. Despite these plain facts, Harvard and the other top Ivy League schools today publicly deny any hint of discrimination along racial or ethnic lines, except insofar as they acknowledge providing an admissions boost to under-represented racial minorities, such as blacks or Hispanics. But given the enormous control these institutions exert on our larger society, we should test these claims against the evidence of the actual enrollment statistics. Id.Questioning the claim of meritocracyThis raises the question of qualifications, which is supposedly the point of universities in the first place. As educational institutions, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton are not even slightly better than dozens of strong state universities (especially in California) and other private schools. Indeed, as Duncan Black points out, in some ways they are worse because in state schools students routinely flunk out for failing to perform — which is quite difficult in the Ivies, where grade inflation has been off the chain for decades.What an Ivy League degree gives you is entrée into the American aristocracy. It is not guaranteed — accounting for a lot of the furious jostling for position that Douthat describes — but the networks are there, ready and waiting for those with enough skill at getting good grades, networking, brown-nosing, and backstabbing. That is why every single sitting Supreme Court justice went to either Harvard or Yale. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the education.Indeed, "quality of education" is in some ways a canard. Obviously we want capable, intelligent people in positions of high influence. But just as important (and probably rarer) are decency, honesty, humility, integrity, and all the other virtues. In a country of 325 million people it is flatly impossible that the nine people on the Supreme Court will be the absolute "best" lawyers in the land, if such a thing could even be defined.We should want people who do land on the court to recognize their inescapable colossal good fortune, and take it into account when making decisions. What we actually have is an aristocratic conspiracy of privilege masquerading as a talent search — with the side effect of producing elites who have invested vast effort into apple-polishing and networking.There are two main ways this conspiracy perpetuates itself. First is Ivy Leaguers who got their jobs thanks to connections handing jobs to Ivy Leaguers coming up behind them — disguised somewhat behind a meritocratic veneer and including a few high-achieving children of working-class parents, like Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Second is the ridiculously inflated reputation of an Ivy League education, maintained through the inarguable success of the patronage networks, the schools using their vast resources to game college rankings, and the arrogance of the graduates. This applies especially within the Ivy League itself, where Princeton is regularly denigrated, even by Douthat. (You can't have winners without losers.)The Ivy League is the problemMost Americans still cling to the meritocratic notion that people are rewarded according to their efforts and abilities. But meritocracy is becoming a cruel joke.Last Tuesday, the Justice Department announced indictments of dozens of wealthy parents for using bribery and fraud to get their children into prestigious colleges.But the real scandal isn’t how far a few wealthy parents will go to get their kids admitted (apparently $1.2 million in illegal payoffs), but how commonplace it has become for them to go almost as far without breaking any laws – shelling out big bucks for essay tutors, testing tutors, admissions counselors, and “enrichment” courses (not to mention sky-high tuition at private schools feeding into the Ivy League).Inequality is lurking behind all this, and not just because the wealthy can afford it. Researchers Daniel Schneider, Orestes Hastings, and Joe LaBriola found that in states with the biggest gaps between rich and poor, well-to-do parents spend the most trying to get their children into elite colleges.The meritocratic notion that people are rewarded according to their abilities has become a cruel joke | OpinionThe myth of meritocracy: who really gets what they deserve?Most Americans still cling to the meritocratic notion that people are rewarded according to their efforts and abilities. But meritocracy is becoming a cruel joke.The Justice Department recently announced indictments of dozens of wealthy parents for using bribery and fraud to get their children into prestigious colleges.But the real scandal isn’t how far a few wealthy parents will go to get their kids admitted (apparently $1.2 million in illegal payoffs), but how commonplace it has become for them to go almost as far without breaking any laws – shelling out big bucks for essay tutors, testing tutors, admissions counselors, and “enrichment” courses (not to mention sky-high tuition at private schools feeding into the Ivy League).Inequality is lurking behind all this, and not just because the wealthy can afford it. Researchers Daniel Schneider, Orestes Hastings, and Joe LaBriola found that in states with the biggest gaps between rich and poor, well-to-do parents spend the most trying to get their children into elite colleges.America’s unprecedented concentration of wealth combined with seemingly bottomless poverty have increased parental anxiety – raising the stakes, and the competition, for admission.While some entrepreneurs in America’s billionaire class lack a prestigious degree, it’s become harder to become a run-of-the-mill multimillionaire in America without one.Most CEOs of big corporations, Wall Street mavens, and high-priced lawyers got where they are because they knew the right people. A prestigious college packed with the children of wealthy and well-connected parents is now the launching pad into the stratosphere of big money.Elite colleges are doing their parts to accelerate the trend.At a time when the courts have all but ended affirmative action for black children seeking college admission, high-end universities provide preferential admission to the children of wealthy alumni –“legacies,” as they’re delicately called.Some prestigious colleges have even been known to make quiet deals with wealthy non-alums – admission for their kids with the expectation of a large donation to follow.Jared Kushner’s father reportedly pledged $2.5 million to Harvard just as young Jared was applying. The young man gained admission, despite rather mediocre grades.About four in 10 students from the richest one-tenth of one percent of American families now attend an Ivy League or other elite university, according to a recent study based on millions of anonymous tax filings and tuition records.At some upscale campuses – including Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Penn, and Brown – more students now come from the top 1 percent than from the entire bottom 60 percent put together.By contrast, less than one-half of 1 percent of children from the bottom fifth of American families attend an elite college. Fewer than half attend any college at all.A worse scandal is K-12 education, where geographic segregation by income is leaving poor school districts – partly reliant on local property taxes, which don’t generate much revenue– with fewer resources per pupil than richer districts.Race is involved. School districts that are predominantly white get $23 billion more funding each year than districts serving mostly students of color.When it comes to early childhood education – which education experts agree is vital to the future life chances of the very young – the gap has become a chasm.Wealthy parents spare no expense stimulating infant and toddler brains with happy human interactions through words, music, poetry, games, and art. Too often, the offspring of poorer kids do little more than sit long hours in front of a television.The monstrous concentration of wealth in America has not only created an education system in which the rich can effectively buy college admission for their children. It has distorted much else.It has created a justice system in which the rich can buy their way out of prison. (Exhibit A: money manager Jeffrey Epstein, who sexually abused dozens of underage girls, yet served just thirteen months in a private wing of a Palm Beach county jail.)It has spawned a political system in which the rich can buy their way into Congress (Exhibit B: Reps. Darreill Issa and Greg Gianforte) and even into the presidency. (Donald Trump, perhaps Starbuck’s Howard Schultz).And a health care system in which the super-rich can buy care unavailable to others (concierge medicine).Meritocracy remains a deeply held ideal in America. But The nation is drifting ever-farther away from it. In the age of Trump, it seems, everything is for sale.Robert Reich: The Myth of MeritocracyWhat Happens When Poor Kids Are Taught Society Is FairFor Better or Worse? System‐Justifying Beliefs in Sixth‐Grade Predict Trajectories of Self‐Esteem and Behavior Across Early AdolescenceMarxist Critique of American MeritocracyThe illusion of America being a meritocracy serves an important social control function.If you believe that hard work is the key to success (even if it is not), you will be less likely to challenge the system. You will then blame your failure to succeed not on the failure of the system but on yourself for not working hard enough. In America poverty is individualized. “You are lazy,” “you are dumb,” “you could have done better” are the mantras to blame victims of poverty. Failure in America is individualized.Racial minorities face systemic issues which contribute to their difficulties. But if America is a meritocracy then they just failed to work hard enough.Women face a glass ceiling when it comes to leading Fortune 500 companies. Sexism is partly to blame. Promotion becomes dependent upon being part of the good ole’ boy club.People are made to believe that the Ivy League colleges are filled with geniuses that were valedictorians and volunteered, along with having fantastic SAT scores. But this is far from the reality. Legacy admissions (your parents went there), family donations to the school (Kushner Family, Donald Trump’s father), connections, and outright fraud (Felicity Huffman and Lori Laughlin) are more common than not.High socioeconomic status, regardless of IQ is what determines your likelihood of remaining in the same social class.https://c24215cec6c97b637db6-9c0...Reading ability and academic ability lead to higher social mobility in some countries than others. IQ is not the primary determinant of upward social mobility.4. Capitalism is the worst for the poor. It is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.Capitalism relies on advertising to sell products. In socialist nations there is no advertising because it is assumed that if people need something they don’t need advertising to tell them that. Advertising works upon the unconscious mind to tap into our most deepest desires. Edward Bernays learned that by applying Freudian analysis with advertising he could increase sales substantially. And he was right. Advertising works by creating desires for products. These desires arise because we learn that we are not happy unless our desire for a product is satisfied. “Gotta have it,” for example. Advertisers create demand for goods too.Advertising for political purposes is propaganda. Bernays was able to turn the American public from isolationist to hawkish during WWI.In capitalist nations things become commodities, even things that should never be regarded as commodities. Almost everything is for sale in capitalist nations. But the artificial placing of monetary value on things reduces their inherent dignity. Prostitution is the sale of sex, for example. It takes the act of intimacy, vulnerability, and oneness that comes from sex and places it for sale. But this is done in some capitalist societies. It does harm to the woman and to the man who purchases it.Profit is put before people in capitalist countries. This means no guaranteed employment and employment at will. There is no security. Your employer can move the factory overseas even if you have been supporting your family, you are 55 and have few other skills, and you live in an area where there are few other jobs and none that pay a living wage. You rely upon charity or you face homelessness, starvation, and lack of medical care, even if you have a disease like Type 1 diabetes where you die without insulin. Some capitalist nations have a social safety net to help weather these storms. But there is huge pressure from conservatives to dismantle them. So you cannot rely on them. Plus the maximum thresholds for earning money disqualify many of the working poor. Imagine what facing homelessness, starvation, and lack of medical care does to one’s health—it causes anxiety, depression, and panic. But this serves an important social control mechanism by the rich— “If you don’t obey the rules and be compliant you won’t be employed. And unemployment means starvation, homelessness, and death.” The police and the courts exist to protect the property rights of the rich and hold a monopoly of violence to enforce these rights. Imagine if your boss fired you and you refuse to leave. If you resisted a cop could even kill you and say “he feared for his life.” This results in a 96% exoneration rate. Police brutality is especially risky for young black males. They are always at risk for DBC—death by cop. You can tell about the civility of a society by how its police forces treat its most vulnerable. Imagine driving around and knowing that getting pulled over and having a misunderstanding with a cop could mean being killed. That is a heavy burden to carry.Social Security in America was designed to alleviate poverty in the elderly and the disabled. It was supposed to soften the harshness of capitalism. But this is also under constant attack by conservatives. There is no true security for these people under capitalism. Human value under capitalism is based on your contribution to the economic system. You must be a valuable worker or consumer or you are dealt with harshly. You have the option to join the military and help protect the financial interests of the elites overseas—access to oil, natural resources, cheap labor, or consumer markets—or find yourself in a for profit prison. At least then people can make money off your loss of freedom. America has the largest rate of incarceration in the world. To make matters much worse the Constitution permits prison labor. More and more corporations are hiring prison (slave) labor to make profits. It is a modern day gulag, except much larger and the gulag paid better. Seriously. For profit prisons in America is considered a growth area.6. It used to be that American workers could collectively bargain and receive benefits and wages while the employers made solid profits. There was an understanding that this benefited everyone. This was after WWII, America’s economic golden age. But the growth of electronic logistical technologies and modern shipping methods made offshoring highly profitable. Companies like Apple could make iPhones in China for a fraction of the price. Profits soared. But millions of Americans found themselves out of work. The middle class was decimated. Meanwhile, China devalued its currency to make their goods even more competitive. The result has been the enrichment of the top 1% and serfdom for everyone else.ConclusionCapitalism causes the following mental disturbances:Devaluing human life, animal life, and the planet.Demands greed and selfishness to survive.Coercion based on “work or else.”“If you don’t contribute to the economic system you are worthless” mentality. People who cannot work or spend money are enslaved in for profit prisons and used for slave labor.Resistance to the capitalist system leads you to be ostracized, demonized, and marginalized. Caring about others and resisting oppression is punished.People aren’t meant to get up and be in the rat race every day, keeping up with the Jones’s, and consuming things they don’t need with money and credit they don’t have, just to keep working until they die. Any healthy person would become mentally ill in this system. And the answer is never to question the sanity of the system. You get your anti-depressants to cope and keep going. Hating capitalism is not a healthy reaction to a monstrous system but a “brain chemical imbalance.”R.D. Laing found schizophrenic patients that would go into treatment and get better. Then they would be sent home only to relapse. Why? Because their “mental illness” was an adaptation to their dysfunctional families. Families have their own set of rules and dynamics. If you don’t follow them there is punishment. In a family that is mentally ill going from healthy to ill is what makes you functional. Capitalist societies are the same way. You cannot question the nature of competition, greed, material acquisition, unsustainable growth, or Third World exploitation from First World financial sources or you are deemed mentally ill.

Q. What kind of students get into the University of Chicago?A. To meet your U Chicago Admissions Requirements:Earn a 4.23 GPA or Higher (Greater emphasis on rigors of secondary school record, than GPA or class rank)Get a 33 on the ACT, a 2235 on the SAT, or Higher (Greater emphasis on standardized tests)Have the Extracurricular Advantage (Greater emphasis on character and personal qualities)Emphasis on Recommendations and EssaysHow to Get Into University of Chicago (Student-Tutor)University of Chicago: Profile Class of 2020US News Rankings and ReviewsCollegeData College ProfileQuestions | Noodle: University of Chicago StudentsPresident Barack Obama speaks to students at the University of Chicago Law School on April 7, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois. Obama addressed his U.S. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland as he hopes members of the Republican party will give Garland a hearing and a vote in Washington. (Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images)How to Get Into University of Chicago: Admissions RequirementsCo-authored by Renae HintzeUChicago considers itself “One of the world’s premier academic and research institutions”.Sound too good to be true?They may be tooting their own horn, but Students and faculty from UChicago have made great strides over the years, such as developing the first cloud-based computing system to process cancer data (in 2013) – I mean, wow. I still burn my popcorn in the microwave sometimes.With an average of 27,500 students applying every year, the UChicago acceptance rate comes in at only 9%. I already know what you’re thinking… 9%?! So what does it take to be part of that??Without further ado, I bestow you these 12 Steps to increase your student’s UChicago Admissions chances! (Number 10 is pretty unique.)Step #1: Earn a 4.0 GPA or HigherCheck this out… It’s a chart of University of College Admissions statistics. See all those little blue and green dots? They represent the students that were accepted. And check out where they’re pow-wowing up around the top – it says “4.0”.While we could argue that there ARE acceptances below a 4.0, and that the blue dots at the top represent students who didn’t attend, your student should aim for a 4.0 or higher to increase their University of Chicago admissions chances.Having a 4.0 or higher is also a good indication that your student will succeed at UChicago. The average GPA for students enrolled is 4.23!Step #2: Get a 33 ACT, 2235 SAT, or HigherAs we mentioned in our article on how to get into UC Berkeley, Ivy Leagues review their applications holistically, meaning they take all things into consideration.Ok, but exactly how real is this holistic approach??On the same chart of University of Chicago admissions statistics that you just saw above, the majority of acceptances thicken significantly around a 30 ACT and 2070 SAT score. I circled it for ya here.So in order to have the BEST chances of meeting University of Chicago admissions requirements, you should aim for the middle-ground (or higher) of accepted scores: a 33 ACT or 2235 SAT score.But what about the SAT subject test you may ask?No SAT subject tests are required for your application, but we’re going to recommend your student takes them… Remember the 9% admittance rate?UChicago Admissions are super competitive, so you really want to take every opportunity there is to stand out. Have your student study hard for at least two and submit those scores.And don’t forget about Super Scoring!Super Scoring…what’s that?The University of Chicago uses what’s called “Super Scoring”, (or Score Choice) when accepting your ACT and SAT test scores. It means that if you submit multiple test scores for either the ACT or SAT, they will take the highest score you submitted!Step #3: Have the Extracurricular AdvantageWe’ve got something for this too! Remember our article on Extracurricular Activities increasing your Ivy League admissions chances?Well, UChicago is no exception to all that. Here is a pie chart that shows the actual anatomy, if you will, of the University of Chicago in terms of their Extracurricular make-up.So what can you take out from this infographic above? What seems to be to focus?YES, you got it! It seems like there are three categories that are prominent here.U of Chicago Extracurricular Prominent Categories:AthleticsMusicVolunteeringI’m not saying these are the only extracurriculars that the University of Chicago cares about. BUT the fact that the majority of current UChicago students are involved in these categories does say something for the extracurricular habits of students accepted.So maybe you’re not an athlete and don’t play an instrument… But anyone can volunteer! AND there’s quite the variety of community service options open to students these days.Here are some Volunteer tips!Make hygiene kits for the homelessVolunteer at a food bank, food pantry, or soup kitchenBring new or lightly used toys and stuffed animals to a children’s hospital.Teach computer skills to the elderlyThese are just a few specific examples I took from TeenLife’s 10 Community Service Ideas for College-Bound Teens and 50 Community Service Ideas for Teen Volunteers.Step #4: Create a UChicago AccountA UChicago Account is simply an online account where you can access all the information you’ll need as both an applicant, and a student of UChicago.With a UChicago account, you can:Check the status of your applicationUpdate informationApply for financial aidView your admission decisionGet started with your UChicago Application.Step #5: Complete the Universal and Common ApplicationsThese are two different online application sites that allow schools to view student’s applications, and teachers to give college recommendations to those students.For filling these guys out, all you need to do is go to their homepage and follow the steps they give!Start your Universal College Application here and/or start your Common Application here.Step #6: Do Well on the UChicago SupplementNow this is an important one so LISTEN UP! The UChicago Supplement is available through either your UChicago Account or Common Application.The University of Chicago Supplement requires:Extended Essay (You’ll have 5 prompts to choose from)Short essay on why you want to go to UChicagoOptional essay on art or mediaSo what do these essays look like?You can expect to see (and write about) some pretty uncommon things on your essay. Literally, the University of Chicago takes prides in having uncommon essay prompts.What do they mean by using the term “uncommon”?How about a prompt asking you about the latest trends of society?Or a prompt that just catches you completely by surprise?The following were two REAL prompts used for the UChicago extended essay.In other words, you can expect the unexpected when it comes to the University of Chicago extended essay. And here’s some specific examples of essay answers to uncommon UChicago prompts. Your student can read these and get a feel for the tone they want to capture and follow some of our tips we have provided below.University of Chicago Extended Essay “Do’s and Don’ts”:Extra Tip: You don’t have to write about yourself to answer the question. You can, but it’s totally up to you!Step #7: Have a Good Secondary School ReportThey want a secondary school report too? How about my right foot??But remember at a 9% acceptance rate, you are being considered for one of the world’s premiere universities. So yeah, they want it.The secondary school report is basically a recommendation from your student’s advisor. It will ask for the basics, like grades and test scores, but it will ask a few more unique questions too – how organized your student is and what their personality is like, for instance. So make sure to keep your advisor on your good side.Step #8: Get 2 Stellar Recommendations from TeachersSchedule a meeting well in advance to meet with your counselor/advisor and submit this recommendation via either University College Application or the Common Application (I mentioned these earlier!)In another blog I talked about creating the “Ideal Candidate” for the school that your student wants to attend.You can use some of those same categories to find the teachers for your student’s recommendations!Now that you know what kind of teacher to ask, make sure your student gives them plenty of time to write the recommendation.What’s plenty of time?Teachers are busy. A week before the deadline is probably even pushing it, so give them 2 or more. And when you do ask for a recommendation, make sure to have a brag sheet prepared.A brag sheet? You mean you want me to brag about myself?Yup. Think of it this way: Let’s say you’re in a room with 10 people. If all 10 of you applied to the University of Chicago, that means only one of you would be accepted, if any.You need to do everything you can to BE that one! So your teacher needs to know your accomplishments in order to write you a stellar recommendation letter that stands out and fits exactly what the university is looking for.Provide a sheet with the following:Volunteer WorkLeadership PositionsInvolvement in Music and the ArtsClubsCultural ExperiencesHonors and AwardsCommunity ServiceEmploymentIn other words… just follow the steps to fill out our Student Profile.Step #9: Submit a Mid-Year ReportMid-Year report? Didn’t I already submit all my grades?You did. Now they want to make sure you didn’t start slacking afterwards.Your student needs to ask their Academic Advisor to send a mid-year report with grades or transcript your first semester or first trimester.Their school may have their own form for this, or the counselor can use the UCA or CA’s form. Either will work — just make sure this gets done, and looks good!Step #10: Use Extra Opportunities to Stand OutThis means the supplemental criteria offered as an option for University of Chicago admissions.There’s a Portfolio in your student’s UChicago account where they can submit any type of artwork, writing, or anything else they are substantially proud of. This is another chance for your student to shine in the eyes of UChicago.So that portrait of Beyonce they painted in art, or that awesome mini-novel they wrote for English class… those will work.What about the UChicago Interview?Interviews for the University of Chicago admissions are conducted on and off the campus.Face-to-face is always a good way to show your interest in something. That’s why I recommend that your student does one of these.On-Campus interviews your student is interviewed by a fourth-year student in the Office of College Admissions in Rosenwald Hall. And, guess what? The University actually has a current list of the UChicago student interviewers. When your student goes for their interview, they’re bound to see one of these lovely faces there.For Off-Campus interviews: Off-campus interviews are conducted by UChicago alumni. For off-campus interviews, your student should come armed with the following:Knowledge of UChicagoA few questions for the alumnusYou can only book one or the other so your student can either schedule their on-campus interview or schedule their off-campus interview on their UChicago Account.Step #11: Meet Your DeadlinesStep #12: Qualify for a Merit ScholarshipYes, UChicago has merit-based scholarships!However, they’re not exactly the same criteria as you’ve heard from us in reference to a merit scholarship.Basically how it works is when the University of Chicago receives your student’s application, the admissions counselors will review it for possible scholarship awards in addition to them being admitted.So they aren’t automatically awarded after admission, but they’re automatically considered.And they will look at everything: GPA, test scores, personality, and what you did in High School. They might even call your twice removed cousin and see what you did at your 2nd birthday… Ok maybe not that far, but you get the idea.If your student is found eligible for a scholarship, they can receive up to $15,000 per year. (The lowest they can receive is $5,000 per year).ConclusionJust to keep things fresh, let’s review the steps we talked about.To meet your UChicago Admissions Requirements:Earn a 4.23 GPA or HigherGet a 33 on the ACT, a 2235 on the SAT, or HigherHave the Extracurricular AdvantageTo Meet your UChicago Application Requirements:Create a UChicago AccountComplete the Universal and Common ApplicationsDo Well on the UChicago SupplementHave a Good Secondary School ReportGet 2 Stellar Recommendations from TeachersSubmit a Mid-Year ReportUse Extra Opportunities to Stand OutMeet Your DeadlinesApply for Financial AidBioLatest PostsTodd VanDuzerCo-Founder & CEO at Student-TutorHOW TO GET INTO UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO / U CHICAGO ADMISSIONS / U CHICAGO EXTENDED ESSAY / U CHICAGO INTERVIEW / U CHICAGO SUPPLEMENT /UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ADMISSIONSAdmissions & AidProfile for the Class of 2020Apply The Application U Chicago Supplement Essay Questions Class Profile Preparing for CollegeVisitingAcademicsStudent LifeHousing & DiningAfter GraduationCosts & AidContact UsApplications to University of ChicagoNumber of Applicants 31,411Number Accepted 2,498Number Enrolled 1,591Distribution by RegionInvolvement in High School ActivitiesCommunity Service 81%Editorial (newspaper, literary magazine, yearbook) 26%Music 44%Religious Organizations 12%Student Government 31%Theater 17%Varsity Athletics 53%Standardized TestingACT Middle 50% 32-35SAT Middle 50% 1460-1550ACT Score Range (Admitted Students) 20-36SAT Score Range (Admitted Students) 1020-1600DiversityAsian 19.04%Black or African American 8.61%Hispanic or Latino 12.95%Other 8.74%International 13.7%Gender DistributionUniversity of Chicago5801 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637 | (773) 702-1234#3 (tie) in National UniversitiesOverviewRankingsApplyingCost & AidAcademicsStudent LifeServicesMapMore ▾2017 Quick StatsTUITION & FEES $52,491 (2016-17)ROOM AND BOARD $15,093 (2016-17)TOTAL ENROLLMENT 12,962APPLICATION DEADLINE Jan. 1More from this SchoolUndergraduateGlobalGraduateView All 7 Photos »University of Chicago is a private institution that was founded in 1890. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 5,844, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 217 acres. It utilizes a quarter-based academic calendar. University of Chicago's ranking in the 2017 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 3. Its tuition and fees are $52,491 (2016-17).The University of Chicago, situated in Chicago’s Hyde Park community, offers a rich campus life in a big-city setting. The Chicago Maroons have more than 15 NCAA Division III teams, which compete in the University Athletic Association, and have strong basketball and wrestling programs. At Chicago, freshmen are required to live on campus, and more than 50 percent of students choose to remain on campus, while others live in off-campus apartments and houses. On-campus students are placed in "houses" within their dorm, which serve as tight-knit communities and provide academic and social support. Chicago offers more than 400 student organizations.The University of Chicago is comprised of the College and a number of graduate and professional schools. Its postgraduate offerings include the highly ranked Booth School of Business, Law School, Pritzker School of Medicine, Harris School of Public Policy Studies and Department of Geophysical Sciences, as well as a top-ranked graduate program in economics and a well-regarded Divinity School. Since 1987, the school has hosted the four-day long "University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt," now a venerable university tradition. Famous alumni include former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics recipient Milton Friedman, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.General Information1890 YEAR FOUNDEDQuarter ACADEMIC CALENDAR$6,553,570,933 2015 ENDOWMENTSchool Mission and Unique QualitiesContent is provided by the school.The University of Chicago is universally recognized for its devotion to open and rigorous inquiry. The strength of our intellectual traditions, intense critical analysis, and free and lively debate draws from our engaged scholars who continually seek creative solutions to complex problems. Our College graduates have made discoveries in every field of academic study; they are ambitious thinkers who are unafraid to take on the most pressing questions of our time. Their accomplishments have established the University's legacy as one of the world's finest academic institutions. The University of Chicago is affiliated with 89 Nobel Prize winners, over 260 Guggenheim Fellows, 32 MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellows, and 24 Pulitzer Prize winners.UChicago is also renowned for the unparalleled resources it provides its undergraduate students. Our 217-acre campus contains six libraries with over 11 million print volumes; over 150 research centers and institutes, including the new Institute for Molecular Engineering and the Institute of Politics; world-class theaters, museums, and art centers; and three of the nation's top professional schools in law, business, and medicine. Rooted in Hyde Park, a neighborhood home to both our campus (certified as a botanical garden) and over 60 percent of the private homes of our faculty, UChicago offers a true campus-based community within the context of a major American city. Our students engage the city of Chicago and its many neighborhoods through groundbreaking research and scholarship, unparalleled internship opportunities, and a commitment to community service. Just as Chicago is a global city, the University of Chicago remains a truly international university: we offer over 45 faculty-led study abroad programs in over 20 countries, including those in conjunction with our centers in Beijing, Hong Kong, Delhi, and Paris.Yo Yo Ma with Woodlawn Campus Students University of Chicago Charter SchoolUChicago maintains a student-faculty ratio of 5:1, ensuring that every classroom experience exemplifies our commitment to close interactions between students and faculty in small, discussion-style seminars. Our famous Core curriculum - courses in eight subject areas that all students, regardless of their major, are required to take - provides students with a common vocabulary and a well-balanced academic experience, while allowing them the flexibility to explore their own particular interests within those eight subject areas.The Office of Career Advancement helps students translate what they are studying in our classrooms to their future careers. Career Advancement counsels students through individual meetings and larger pre-professional programs, the UChicago Careers In programs. There are eight different UChicago Careers In programs that cover sectors ranging from business and law to health professions and journalism, arts, and media. Additionally, Career Advancement connects students with over 1700 Metcalf internship opportunities - fully funded internships across a range of industries that are only available to UChicago students. Students also enjoy a highly successful Division III sports program; a small but active Greek life community; over thirty-five student theatrical productions a year; a rich music scene; and extraordinary opportunities in politics, music, theater, commerce, and neighborhood life in the city of Chicago.The University's Financial Aid program is extraordinary thanks to the new No Barriers program. No Barriers is a comprehensive plan to increase access to college, support students as they receive an empowering education, and prepare them for lifelong professional success. Families who apply for financial aid do not have to pay a college application fee to UChicago. All of UChicago's need-based financial aid comes in the form of grants and scholarships, which do not need to be repaid. No loans are included as part of financial aid packages at the University of Chicago.University of Chicago - CollegeData College ProfileQuestions | Noodle University of Chicago Studentskatherine16, University of Chicago '16 Aug 12, 2015Everyone is so smart and so interesting. People really care about learning, about the things they're doing, and about each other. I constantly feel challenged and motivated to push myself harder. There's a crazy amount of opportunities and professors/advisers/Resident Heads want to help you every chance they can.Admitsee student at University of Chicago, University of Chicago '17 Aug 12, 2015The core curriculum, size, resources, and values are aspects of UChicago that I find most appealing. To me, the Core seems to provide a common language that unites a unique mixture of students. I enjoy interacting with students who are passionate about subjects that differ from my own interests, so surely Core disciplines would be some of my favorites. Moreover, I admire the core curriculum itself "eager to indulge in a rich foundation of knowledge." The medium sized student body also fits my ideal college experience: just large to meet new people, but small enough to see familiar faces. Additionally, Chicago is my favorite city in the United States, which is peculiar considering I live thirty minutes outside Manhattan. When I visit family in the Windy City, I relish the friendly Midwestern mentality and the deep-dish pizza. Since my perfect college experience includes a stimulating nearby city, UChicago is ideal. In terms of academic resources, I plan to major in Public Policy on the Pre-medicine track both of which the College is distinguished for. In fact, I hope to engage in undergraduate public policy research, concentrating in urban healthcare allocation. Finally, the University's values, such as involvement in surrounding community, appreciation of humor, and holistic approach to academics, resonate with my own beliefs.jasonzhao3, University of Chicago '18Aug 12, 2015The students here actually genuinely love learning, and will discuss pretty intellectual topics casually. I have heard a ridiculous amount of Marx or Durkheim themed jokes. The school has a definite sort of 'quirkiness.' The housing system is also great in that you enter college with an already existing network of supportive students. It's like having a college family with its own strange quirks and traditions. The city of Chicago is also just great and offers many unique opportunities and sights to see.DeltaXue, University of Chicago '17 Aug 12, 2015This school is so ridiculously quirky in every fashion possible. First the architecture: the quad looks like it came straight out of 18th century England or something, yet we have buildings that look like some futuristic setting (see Booth School of Business or Renee Granville-Grossman). It's a wonderful mix and I appreciate the beauty of the juxtaposition. It's also a really small campus so everything is very lively a lot of the time. Smaller college wide traditions include $1 Milkshake wednesdays (YES THE BEST), Lascivious Ball (semi-naked dance party sponsored by the college!), Kuvia ( get up at 6am every day to go do sun stances, though I already do that for crew, and earlier), and so much more. Culture is wonderful at this school, but there are those that choose to not participate in it and are locked into their work. I don't believe them, and I don't respect them because they choose to not participate in said events. They will be the people telling college students in the future to enjoy the moment because they did not themselves. Seriously, enjoy college culture.aros888, University of Chicago '17 Aug 12, 2015It's very nice to have a city school, for one. There are so many opportunities for internships, work, etc. For UChicago more specifically, I very much enjoy the common core. There are a large number of required classes (though you can pick among a set of options), generally concentrated around the "common" readings of great works, from people like Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Durkheim, etc. It's not work that will directly apply to anything you do, but the critical thinking and writing skills you gain are useful, and the actual work is very interesting.Fifty Years of Clinical Legal Education at Chicago LawBest Law Schools#1 Yale University New Haven, CT#2 Tie Harvard University Cambridge, MA#2 Tie Stanford University Stanford, CA#4 Tie Columbia University New York, NY#4 Tie University of Chicago Chicago, IL#6 New York University New York, NY#7 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA#8 Tie University of California—​Berkeley#8 Tie University of Michigan—​Ann Arbor#8 Tie University of Virginia Charlottesville, VABest Business Schools#1 Harvard University Boston, MA#2 Tie Stanford University Stanford, CA#2 Tie University of Chicago (Booth) Chicago, IL#4 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA#5 Tie Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) Cambridge, MA#5 Tie Northwestern University (Kellogg) Evanston, IL#7 University of California—​Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA#8 Tie Dartmouth College (Tuck) Hanover, NH#8 Tie Yale University New Haven, CT#10 Columbia University New York, NY#1 Harvard University Boston, MA#2 Stanford University Stanford, CA#3 Tie Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD#3 Tie University of California—​San Francisco#3 Tie University of Pennsylvania (Perelman) Philadelphia, PA#6 Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, MO#7 Columbia University New York, NY#8 Tie Duke University Durham, NC#8 Tie University of Washington Seattle, WA#8 Tie Yale University New Haven, CT#11 Tie New York University (Langone) New York, NY#11 Tie University of Chicago (Pritzker) Chicago, IL#11 Tie University of Michigan—​Ann Arbor#14 University of California—​Los Angeles (Geffen)#15 Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN#16 University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA#17 Northwestern University (Feinberg) Chicago, IL#18 Tie Cornell University (Weill) New York, NY