Girlie AGDee's College Search Thread

[deadbear80]

I thought as a Wash U alum I should pipe up.

Wash U is an INCREDIBLE school. I loved it a lot as an undergrad (as well as when I was there for grad school).

It has become a very popular school over the past couple of years. If Northwestern is a stretch for her, Wash U will be too and your daughter should be prepared for that. Northwestern actually has a higher acceptance rate. The way to let Wash U know you're interested is to actually visit the school in the Fall; don't wait until she gets accepted. They notice who comes to visit.

Wash U has a good English department, but no real journalism curriculum and no journalism major at all. However, it is strong in PoliSci as well as Psych and they have a couple of interesting interdisciplinary majors like Social Thought and Analysis that may be of interest to your daughter.

Wash U is outside of the St. Louis City limits and the school is a bit of a bubble, but there are fun things to do right near campus and now that the Metrolink goes there, it's easy to do things like go to a Cardinals game.

PM me if she has more specific questions. Although it's been a while since my undergrad days, I wasn't out of grad school there all that long ago...

[alum]

^^^Go Bears!

[KDCat]

The neighborhood around University of Chicago is very tough. I worked at the U of C hospital there one summer. The neighborhood problems do sometimes flow over on to campus. In the summer while I was there, some teenage girls stole a car and crashed it by my building; certain patients were gang affiliated and brought weapons into the hospital; someone was mugged for a backpack and a bike; stuff like that. Any campus in a big city is going to have problems, but U of C campus seemed a little dicier to me than most.

The campus is beautiful, though. The faculty is top notch. It's a very academic school. The students are very smart and very serious.