harrista

It's fine there, there's a few people in my cohort who live at 61st and Woodlawn. Just make sure it's a good building with security front doors. There's a lot of university police patrolling that area, plenty of emergency phones around there and it's a well-lit and safe feeling walk from campus to 61st and Woodlawn, but like anywhere in Hyde Park you just have to stay alert and preferably move in groups if it's late at night. The issues with living around there are that it's far to get groceries or to anything vaguely fun in Hyde Park other then the campus pub, and if you're getting public transport to go downtown it's a trek to get to the bus or metra stop. There's plenty of night shuttles run by the university to take you around though and during the day there's two free bus lines for UChicago students which leave from outside Harris. The sidewalk snow shoveling is also not great south of Harris but the only reason you'd go south by foot is to get to a cafe on 63rd.

Have a look at the Harris course offerings and see how many of them you want to do: http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/degrees/courses If you do a joint degree with the MPP, I imagine that you'll mostly be taking the core classes and not so many of the electives which may be more interesting to you. The core classes are microeconomics I and II, statistics I and II and three political economy/polisci courses. One of the great things about the MPP is that you can take a lot of classes from other faculties so this quarter when we get electives for the first time, pretty much everyone I know is taking something from another school whether it's the business school, dept of economics or law.

I've heard from second year international students that it's hard to get a job in the US after graduating, but I also don't know many American second years who have got things lined up at this stage. The type of visa (F-1) that international students have mean you don't need sponsorship (for the first year) so you just have to make sure that's clear to potential employers, but yes you will be ineligible for basically all permanent government positions. I have no idea on starting salaries - there's a huge range of interests so the people that go into consulting would make way more than those who are aiming to get into not for profit or government work. I personally wouldn't take a loan for this course since I'm a public servant and not expecting to make big money after I graduate. I also still have undergrad loans. It was hard to turn down Berkeley since that was my dream school when I was applying but I had to follow the money and I have zero regrets about coming to Harris. Good luck with your decision!

Also a first year Harris student here. If you're looking for an internship / job in the Chicago area you're pretty much up against all your classmates so it does get competitive there but no one's a jerk about it. The size of core classes depends on the professor, so for example in first quarter our core classes were with the entire cohort (minus those who waived out or took advanced options). In the second quarter, microeconomics was split between two profs, each running two sessions so the class sizes were probably around 30-40. I had zero background in econ/stats/political theory/math and I found that each quarter I had one subject that I loved and the rest were meh. I got nothing out of the course on political institutions but it was super easy so it didn't take up much energy. As for Game Theory 2 that ReasonablyTerrified mentions, I'm taking an approved substitute management class at Booth which I'm really enjoying. As for the curve, the prevailing wisdom is that "the curve is there to help". And it does, although I have no idea how it compares to other schools. My choice also came down to Harris and Goldman and the funding decided it. I was accepted at Harris ($$$$), Goldman ($), Heinz ($$), Wagner, Evans and rejected from WWS. I have no idea how funding is awarded but I assume that GRE scores play a significant role since it's the one common standard for all applicants. For what it's worth, my scores were Q 164 V 170 AW 5.5, my GPA was 3.72 and I had about 6-7 years post graduation work experience in the public service.

I'd like to stay on afterwards, but it really depends - I think there's quite a lot of opportunity here with think tanks, consultancies and advocacy groups, but this is looking at things from an internship perspective rather than full-time work. The second years that I know have been interviewing at interesting places so I'm hopeful that this time next year if I still want to stay in Chicago I'll be able to find something!

Current Harris student here. Hyde Park is a bit of a bubble but you don't have to live here and there's a lot of people (mostly who were already in Chicago but also some new arrivals) who live in the more fun parts of the city. Quite a few will probably also leave HP for second year. I live in HP and will stay here because the rent is just so much more manageable and I'd rather live in a fun area later when I have income to enjoy it properly. As for the quant focus, I came in with zero quant/econ/stats background and I've found it a really good experience and appropriately challenging. Like s33 said, it's more of a focus on developing a way of thinking.

You can do a research subject supervised by a professor so I think it really just depends on your area of interest and their area of interest. You don't get any electives until third quarter of first year so I don't know too much about it yet. There are also people who write for various publications on their area of interest, like one of my classmates here who wrote about urban policy for The Atlantic.

Congrats everyone who got an offer! Wishing you all the best with what will no doubt be a month of difficult decision making about where to spend the next two years of your life and for those who end up coming to Harris, I look forward to meeting you soon! Very few Harris MPP students get into the PhD program as I believe there are only accept very few PhD candidates each year (check the website, but I think this year was maybe 3 and you have to have a ton of prior econ/stats/game theory knowledge). Some go on to do PhDs at other universities after the MPP - I know of someone from the class of 2013 who is now at Northwestern doing a PhD. Good luck everyone with the decision making!

I don't have a budget but $1200 should be plenty for rent and utilities, especially if you're willing to live a little further away from the water. My friend lives on 61st, one block from the law school and pays $700 rent for a really nice one bedroom apt in a good secure building. But otherwise if you want to live somewhere more central, it's around $1000 for a one bedroom and utilities (my electricity is about $20, internet $30 and cell phone is $70). For other expenses, it really depends what you like to do. If you like to go out to nice bars downtown or in Wicker/Lincoln Park, it'll cost a lot more than say hitting up the campus pub.

It depends what you're after - I live in Hyde Park and there's a lot of great things about it, primarily the ease of getting to school and the cheap rent which meant that I could get a bigger place close to the water but it does get pretty boring. The more fun parts of the city are a lot more expensive and the connections to Hyde Park can be troublesome because unless you live in the loop you're basically guaranteed that you have to change forms of transport at least once. I've always felt safe in Hyde Park and there is a huge amount of police and security guard presence and emergency phones pretty much on every block, and there's night shuttles going in every direction. Riding a bike also makes it safer and it's probably only about 15 minutes from one end of Hyde Park to the other. There's a huge range of rental prices depending on the location and the building. If you want to be closer to the lakefront and the transport options (bus and metra) that go downtown, it's more expensive. There's some really fancy apartment buildings which charge rent similar to what you'd pay in another, nicer part of town (eg $1300 for a one bedroom). On the other hand if you live in a less desirable part of Hyde Park you might be looking at $800 for a huge one bedroom apartment in a good building with gym. I don't live in graduate housing but I know plenty of people who are and it's quite a mixed bag. Apparently you just nominate your preference for building and hope for the best but there's no guarantee. Some of the buildings are nice and the apartments are well maintained and light and airy, but I've also seen some terribly depressing ones which are dank and cramped. I didn't go for grad housing because I had enough time to look for a place myself and the rent wasn't any cheaper than outside housing services. You could also check out UChicago marketplace for rentals - I found my place through there. Good luck!

Hi guys, I'm a current Harris student and I spoke to the director of admissions about the speculation going on here about the reason for the extension of the deadline and I can report that there's nothing nefarious: the polar vortex meant that a lot of GRE exams were cancelled around the country so it was decided to give people who had started applications a bit more time. Applications are actually up 14% from last year so lack of numbers wasn't a factor in the decision to allow a bit more time. Good luck to everyone who has applied and hope to see you here later this year!

I'm a current Harris student and you have more quant background than me! I had zero econ/math/stats in my undergrad (I did arts and law) and hadn't done math since high school. I worked hard for the GRE and I'm sure that a Q164 score helped convince them that I could handle the quant focus of the coursework. There's a lot of diversity amongst the students so there are people with less quant than me who didn't learn calculus in high school and then there's some who did their undergrad in pure math. There have a 3 week math camp before semester to refresh your algebra and calculus skills and I know a couple of people who had never touched calculus before and managed to pass, but even if you don't it's no big deal - it just means you have to do a not-for-credit math course during first quarter once a week and sit a final exam. You can also check out this other thread here.. Yeah I heard they made them really short this year... I know it's tough but think of it as practice for drafting memos!

Awesome! If you're interested and have time, the admissions office can set up a campus visit http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/admissions-and-aid/visit

No problem, now is the time to ask questions! The community is great and generally people are helpful, friendly and not crazy competitive. The profs encourage group work on the problem sets and people approach it in different ways: some students formed tight study groups and did all the problem sets for all the subjects together while others were less formal and might just go through answers after you've done it by yourself. But generally I've found that everyone is very helpful and willing to talk things through, especially if you're struggling. The people who are competitive are only competitive with themselves and it's certainly not like some of the stories I've heard about law or business school where students are out to sabotage classmates. Outside of class the community is good too and there's always fun things happening! The professors have office hours and they're very encouraging of students to attend. Whenever I've needed to talk to a professor I've found them to be accessible and very supportive. I think once we start taking electives there'll probably be closer relationships because in the core courses they're lecturing up around 160 students so it's hard to give everyone lots of attention. Hope this helps!

Hi Lbeth91! Chicago definitely has a lot of great options for social and economic policy - you can check out the course listings for an example of some of the classes offered and it's also possible to take courses from other departments. In terms of internships, I've found the career development office here really helpful and it's really just up to you how much you want to take advantage of everything they organize including mini courses to help you define your career goals, practice interviewing skills and there's an upcoming trip to DC. There's also recruiting events every week from government organizations, businesses, consultancies etc and Harris has a dedicated website with internship and job listings. The office also sends out alerts when they get word of new opportunities. I'm not sure what the stats are for people who stay in Chicago to intern or go elsewhere but I know that students go all over the US and places like Paris, Kosovo and India just to name a few places where second years I know interned last summer. As for living in Chicago, housing near campus is plentiful and very affordable compared to other big cities. I wasn't able to visit Chicago before signing a lease but I found a great place online, did a skype inspection and it worked out fine. Others went with graduate student housing but generally every lessor in this area is very familiar with renting to students so I think it's pretty easy to organize. As a rough guide, I think around $800-900 a month will get you a nice studio close to campus, shops and transport or a big one bedroom apartment further away from shops and transport but right next to the Harris building. Edit: just saw an ad for studios in a great location near campus and the waterfront for $675.