Touring the University of Chicago

Rockefeller Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral

We all woke up super early today so we could check out of our rooms and get to University of Chicago by 8:30 AM for a tour. We ate breakfast at the hotel again and the waiter was super nice. He brought us small cups of berry smoothie. After breakfast we took a cab to the University of Chicago for a tour. There was an informational lecture before the campus tour that was given by the dean of admissions himself inside the most beautiful chapel I have ever seen (only chapel I’ve seen). They gave us free folders, sunglasses, and other various items. The dean of admissions talked in depth about the entire admission process and financial aid. It was extremely interesting to listen to and because he made lots of little jokes here and there. The most interesting thing I learned was that there are actually four types of "early" applications --early action, rolling, early decision, and regular. Early action is when you apply early, but it is non-binding. Rolling is when you apply any time during the application period and they send acceptance letters as each application is received if you meet the requirements. Early decision is when you apply early and is binding, but there is a much smaller pool you will be competing against to get accepted. The last one is regular which is just applying during the application period along with the rest of your schools. He made the different types of ways to apply really interesting by comparing them to dating. Regular is talking to multiple people, early action is a jealous girlfriend, rolling is when you're ready to ask them to marry you, and early decision is when you actually ask them to marry you. He also gave us a lot of advice on what he likes to see versus what he doesn’t want to see. For example, University of Chicago is known for its quirky prompts and for the prompt “There are two types of people in this world. What are they?” one student wrote about the people she would eat and the people she wouldn’t. The dean said he wanted to see people be like that student and just have fun with it. After the hour long informational part, there was a 30-minute Q&A session with five current students. 

Mike (left) and Courtney (right)

Even though the Q&A session was helpful, the dinner with Simon and Courtney from Wednesday night was much more helpful. Both Simon and Courtney are political science majors. They were both very detailed about how many job opportunities that you have at University of Chicago, the dorm life, etc. Simon told us that University of Chicago actually has more internship spots than they do have students. He personally just started working a 9-5 job for the mayor. They both also talked about how having the core helped them find what they were interested in. Courtney wasn't at all interested in humanities before taking a humanity course to fulfill her core credits. After taking the course, she now actually wants to minor in sociology. After hearing this, it changed my perspective on having a core because I originally didn't like the idea of a core, but after hearing how much she ended up liking that subject it showed me how having this set core can really give you a chance to experiment with what you like. Also, this core isn't just a set type of class for different subjects. It's actually a list of different subjects --math, science, English-- with different courses under those subjects that you can take to fulfill your core requirements, which is much more desirable than a set course for those subjects. Unlike the students at the Q&A session, Simon and Courtney told us some negatives about University of Chicago. They told us about the existent, but not largely prominent Greek life and sports. Overall, I really like both Northwestern and University of Chicago and will apply to both. It just seems like University of Chicago is a little bit more academically focused, but extremely passionate about it where as Northwestern is more well rounded in terms of the focuses there. 

We were then split into smaller groups to tour around the campus. I was part of a group with a tour guide named Maggie. She talked all about the dormitories, cafeterias, libraries, and much more. We saw multiple beautiful buildings, but they have this one bean shaped library that’s super cool not only because of its shape but also because it’s made with UV protected glass panels. They originally weren’t made with UV protected panels, but quickly changed it to UV protected ones once they realized everyone was getting sun burnt. At the end of the tour they gave us jolly rancher flavored popsicles. My favorite flavors were the pink and yellow layers.

After the tour, we took a cab back to the city and went to Giordano’s to eat. It’s famous for deep dish pizza, but I honestly don’t really like deep dish pizza all that much so I got fettuccine alfredo instead. I was extremely happy with my choice because it was really good. After heading back to the hotel, we grabbed our luggage and headed to the O’Hare airport in a shuttle. O’Hare is notorious for having super long TSA checks, but we honestly got there right before the influx of people arrived so we were pretty lucky in that aspect. We had plenty of time to buy food and drinks for the plane right. Though, I finished mine before we got on the plane. Also, Diana found this super cute glass water bottle from Starbucks that said Illinois and after seeing it I just had to get the Chicago version of it. Then, we boarded our plane and arrived in Detroit.

Parmesan French Fries and Fried Raviolis

Lemon Garlic Chicken Wings

Fettuccine Alfredo with Broccoli

The Detroit airport is actually beautifully designed. It’s a concourse meaning it’s a straight line. There was a fountain and this super cool tunnel that lit up with flashy lights. I also really enjoyed going on the moving walkways even if I was still walking on them. With the moving walkways I was able to almost get to the end of the tunnel faster than Mike, our chaperone. 

Tunnel

Fountain

We arrived in Ithaca around midnight and took a shuttle to our dorms. There was the Cornell cohort and two other girls who were in the shuttle. The other two girls were from Southern California and we all complained about the weather. We were all dropped off at Balch Hall, which is where everyone else in my cohort are staying other than myself. I'm staying in Mary Donlon. An RA came to greet us and took us to our respective dorms and rooms. I'm currently in my room on the second floor with all of my stuff unpacked, ready to take a shower. 

~ Last Day in the City~

Today I woke up very early around 5:00 AM because I didn't feel like organizing my luggage the night before so I decided to do it in the morning which wasn't too bad, because I just made sure I slept earlier. So the cohort got all our luggage together and went downstairs to eat breakfast.  I had a delicious waffle with, blueberry sausage, a sandwich croissant, bread with butter and Corn salsa.

    

After breakfast we all grabbed our luggage and put it on a bell hop and than proceeded on a taxi to UChicago. It wasn't too long the drive to UChicago thankfully. We arrived at their Rockefeller Chapel which was where the beginning of the tour/presentation will be held. The UChicago staff were almost bribing us with gifts once we arrived we were immediately given a paper fan with out tour guide number and even a little folder with information about UChicago and a coupon to their book store and even gave each and everyone of us sunglasses. After the gifts we headed inside the chapel, but I don't really understand why they call it a chapel because it's in reality a size of a cathedral so I still wonder about that aspect. The chapel was beautiful inside and out with a Gothic theme. 

After we got settled into the chapel we waited for a while for the presentation to start which was by the head admissions officer who told us a lot of facts about the school and a couple of aspects. He mostly talked about admission into the college which I thought was very helpful. I like how they don't just decide your admission based off only test scores, GPA, or etc; its a mixture of everything which I felt more assures that  I still have a chance to this college and he even mentioned how many students apply to this college with perfect scores yet 60% are rejected which gave me a a good and bad feeling. At UChicago they have very wacky essays which I think is fun because they stray more away from the traditional application to let us be more ourselves and think outside the box.

After this presentation their was a Q/A with alums from UChicago. I didn't honestly get a lot of information from that part because it was more of basic information and I already knew the answers to most because of the dinner with Simon. After the Q/A we went to go find our tour guide 27. The tour guide was very nice showing us a lot of different places around the college. The information she was giving us was pretty much the same as the tour from Northwestern. The only thing I really took from the tour was I learned more about accessibility on campus to different diners, dorm,s, gyms, and even outside campus services. Which was pretty neat our tour guide was a theater major so she talked a lot about theater which was interesting, but non-relative from my major. I found out that UChicgo does not have a business program either but they do have Economics and other branches of business I can study and have a program where I can be on track for graduate school to get a degree in  business. So at first I was thinking for applying early admission to this college, but now I'll still apply, but it won't be my number one school. 

After the tour ended the tour even gave us Popsicle yes I said it jolly rancher Popsicle, I don't think it can get any better. They also provided water since it was very hot on that day.After that we went to the book store and I got a cute planner. Than we caught a taxi back to Giordano's and bought some really good deep-dish pizza everything we ordered was delicious.

We got back to the hotel grabbed all of our bags waited for the shuttle and back to the airport we go. We went to the ORD Airport where I bought this really cute glass water bottle from Starbucks that said Illinois, sadly I went to another Starbucks after and I found a Chicago one, but it's okay the Illinois bottle was cute. Than we were on our way to the Detroit airport. We arrived at the Detroit with about 1 hour to spare. I found a really nice fountain on our way to the gate and when we continued we saw the most amazing moving walkway. That had changing vibrant color and soothing music. Then we were on our way to Ithaca.

Last Day in The Windy City

Breakfast at the Omni!

I had a real breakfast today! The UChicago your was at 8:30 AM so we made sure we had enough time and had breakfast at 6:45 AM. I asked the cook from the buffet line to make me an omelette with spinach, mushrooms, bacon, ham, and cheese. It was delicious and probably a much healthier choice than what I'd usually get. Then it was time to check out. I'm going to miss that hotel.

Rockefeller Chapel

We took an averagely long cab ride to UChicago and pulled up to the Rockefeller Chapel, a gorgeous structure. The architecture of the entire school is very gothic and wonderful to look at. As a Harry Potter fan it makes me feel like I'm at Hogwarts. There was a one hour presentation given by the dean of admissions. I learned a lot about the admissions process and felt very informed afterwards. If there's any reason I'd apply to UChicago is because the application essays are so quirky and fun. The school really allows you to be yourself and express what you want. For example, a girl once wrote about two types of people. One group was the people she'd eat and the other was people she
wouldn't eat. So, yeah you get every kind of person at UChicago.

There was a half-hour panel of current students. They answered many questions and talked about their life at UChicago, reasons why they chose it, and what the core curriculum is like. What I found very appealing was the housing system. Again, makes me feel like going to Hogwarts because they get split into houses and they sit with their houses at the dining halls. Once it was over we got a tour of the campus. Like I mentioned, its architecture is very gothic and definitely more medieval times in a way. I did learn though that they don't necessarily have an engineering major, but have an option to prepare their students for a career in engineering. That's a little more encouraging because I was initially discouraged by the absence of the major. Honestly, I don't believe I enjoyed the tour as much because I had back pains since I was carrying my backpack with my laptop and other fairly heavy items inside.

The tour ended with some popsicles then we headed to the bookstore to check out the college apparel they had to offer. I didn't get a t-shirt like I did at Northwestern but I did buy a nice key chain, which saved us time from stopping by Walgreens before we headed to the airport later. By then we were rather hungry and decided to eat something local. If you're being a tourist somewhere and aren't a picky eater, why eat something you could easily get anywhere else?

Appetizers at Giordano's

Giordano's pizza it was! Mike chose some great appetizers for us: fried ravioli, garlic lemon wings, and some unexpected garlic fries. I wanted to try their deep dish, like we tried Lou Malnati's, because some people said Giordano's was better. In my opinion, I'm still way more in love with Zachary's Chicago Pizza. Giordano's didn't have enough sauce for me and Lou Malnati's crust was too buttery. Overall, I did enjoy our last lunch in Chicago.

View from the plane

It was a short walk to our hotel to pick up our luggage from the bellhop and ride the shuttle back to the airport. I can't say the same for the shuttle ride. Traffic was insane, and I though Bay Area traffic could get pretty bad I hadn't seen anything. We were still 2 hours early to the airport, and that left for some time to blog and grab a snack. I was able to buy a super cool Starbucks glass bottle that's part of their "You Were Here" collection and it had Chicago representative art all over it. Not long after it was time for departure and I can't say much about it because it was a short and smooth flight.

In comparison to the United Airlines airplane we took it was smaller, and as someone who had never flown before this trip it's kind of cool to be able to ride different planes. I expected to nap throughout the flight, but I was sitting next to Diana again so we talked the whole way. Then we arrived at the Detroit airport. I've only been to three airports so far, but the tunnel connecting the concourses definitely makes this airport seem very unique to me. It was filled with color, and I love bright and colorful things.

Awesome lights at the Detroit Aiport

Our flight to Ithaca was at 10:11 PM and we were all excited to see what Cornell University had to offer tomorrow.

W-I-L-D WILDCATS

Today's breakfast had been planned to be at 8 AM. Unfortunately, sleeping was a little more crucial. With some sleeping in time we were still able to have some breakfast at the hotel and catch a cab to Northwestern University. It was a longer ride than the ones we had taken before because Northwestern is in Evanston.

Lake Michigan

We arrived with time to spare before the tour so we took some pictures of Lake Michigan. It was almost like an ocean in the mid west! Shuxin and I decided to get your feet little wet and it was pretty much worth having sandy feet afterward. We cleaned ourselves up and headed to the little lounge area to wait for the tour. Not long after it started, and we were surprised because unlike most tours they started with a 45 minute presentation filled with many useful facts and statistics.

When it finally ended around 8 tour guides and either current or recent graduated students and introduced themselves. They told us to choose who wanted to follow either based on their major or interesting thing they did on Campus. Diana, Kachi, and I decided to go with the two for one pair of tour guides. The campus wasn't huge, but the school itself only has about 8,000 under graduates. Despite its size some of its buildings were very beautiful and since it's right by Lake Michigan it would almost feel like home. Except for the snow in the winter, obviously. 

Deering Library, pretty awesome

Just hearing about how flexible Northwestern is, its engineering programs, the financial aid, and how much school spirit they all have made it one of my choices to apply to once I'm a senior. One of the big pluses for me is that because it's a private there wouldn't be out of state tuition yet it's still one of the Big Ten schools. I know I really wasn't so excited to visit Northwestern at first, but it was so great that I bought a t-shirt. Go wildcats! 

The train!

We decided to go take some down time before we met up with Mike's cousin Amy. So we took a train called the "L" to our hotel in downtown Chicago. It was similar to BART back home, but it was on the typical kind of railroad tracks and it was more bus-like on the inside. The one thing they did have in common though was that the stations were not the prettiest sights.

How is a grocery store so aesthetically pleasing?
 When will the bay area ever

In about an hour and after a short walk we were back at our hotel to freshen up. We all either worked on our blogs or tried to organize our luggage since we're leaving tomorrow and have a very early visit to UChicago. Around 5 PM we were back down in the lobby and we met Amy! She's lived in Chicago for about 15 years so we knew we were in good hands. She took us to the most amazing place ever for dinner. It was, in a nutshell, a two-story Italian market with multiple restaurants on top called Eataly. The Italian food options were incredible, there were paninis, pizza, pasta, fresh bread with a bunch of toppings like prosciutto, seafood, you name it. They also had many different wines and beer, I believe, but of course we didn't focus on that. The variety of cheese was breath-taking. Just walking in and smelling everything was enough to make someone's mouth water, and that's only the second floor. The first floor had any kind of sweet dessert you could want. To the left were shelves and crates of Italian chocolates and candies and to the right was a Nutella bar, where you could get Nutella crepes; right next to it was a stand that sold, for lack of a better word, Italian versions of ice cream, i.e Gelato or Sorbet. My favorite spot though was the one with a variety of pastries that I couldn't even pronounce, except for Tiramisu and Cannoli. You could even build your own chocolate box. They looked delicious. Personally, I tried a chocolate chip Cannoli and I was extremely satisfied. It was gone in under a minute.

Huge bouquet of lollipops in the dead
 center of the store

Once we all were content with what we ate, we headed over to the Shake Shack, their shakes are highly praised along with their crinkle-cut fries. I ordered a coffee fair shake and I really liked it, but maybe I would've been happier with a more daring choice. Afterwards, we headed over to Dylan's Candy Bar. It's a two-story candy shop with endless choices and some candy inspired clothing. Seriously, Chicago has a lot of two-story food places. The candy shop was very colorful and smelled delicious too. I didn't have appetite for much of anything, but visiting it was nice.

This picture doesn't do justice to
the amount of people waiting in line

Our last stop of the evening was one that we couldn't do without. We're in Chicago we just had to get Garrett's popcorn. I bought the Garrett's mix or also known as Chicago popcorn, and it consists of caramel popcorn mixed with cheddar popcorn. I've honestly yet to try it because I was full, but as soon as I do I'll post a full length review. Okay maybe not full length, but I'll give my opinion. Although, I'm sure they'll be just as good as all the other food here in Chicago. It was a great end to another fantastic day with my cohort. More happy days to come.

~Food is Essential to Life; Therefore Make it Good~

The day started off with the cohort waking up a little later than we all wanted, so we didn't get as much time as we would have wanted to prepare for our departure to Northwestern.We all went downstairs to go eat breakfast at the hotel. The hotel had a variety of food which was delicious. I didn't eat very much, but my favorite part was honestly the bread. The bread was to die for with a rich butter to go hand in hand with the deliciousness. From there we took a taxi to Northwestern to catch a tour of the University. We arrived a little early so we had time to roam around for a bit. Then there it was right in front of us Lake Michigan which was very nice. The water was actually warm even though the weather wasn't as hot yet.

Lake Michigan close up

Meeting Place of tour

We had a presentation at this building that really just talked about the different schools they have on campus and college life at the school. After the presentation was over many tour guides came into the building and let us know about themselves and then we would group off. My tour guide minored in Business which I was happy to hear because that is the major I want to pursue. The tours led us to different buildings and the colleges around.

Deering Library

Deering Library

This building definitely caught my eyes for its structure and leaves. This library was beautiful on the outside too bad we didn't get to go inside.They also had a small pond which was cut off from Lake Michigan.

Norris University Center Pond

I ended up really liking the university before I wasn't interested in it at all. I was thinking of applying to this school, but than I asked about my major and they said they don't have business majors only minors. So now I am not applying anymore  because they don't have my major which is a total bummer.

After the tour we caught the train which was really cool because the outside looked like a very old train, but the inside was really technologically advanced it was all really nice. I think I choose the train over bart it just felt cooler and the views from the train were very nice also.

We arrived back at the hotel and waited to go out with Mike's cousin Amy. We went out to Eataly which was amazing I got a cannoli and a focaccia which was really good. Eataly is like a supermarket/food stand/restaurant. It held amazing food and Amy who has lived here in Chicago talked about the city a little more and took us to more places to sight see, well more like eat. She also told us about how she worked at CBS ,but the political part of it which I thought was cool.

Second Floor view

Mozzarella  Foccia

Olive Marinate

Chocolate Cannoli

Directory

After Eataly we went to Shake Shack, I just got a plain vanilla shake with whipped cream, but the food I saw inside looked amazingly delicious. Maybe next time though Shake Shack. The next destination was Dylan's Candy Bar which was heaven not kidding. It was just a two story floor filled with candy everywhere and knickknacks. There were a lots of really nice structures filled in the store.

Lollipop and Gummy Bear View

Jelly Bean Dispenser

Lollipop Structure

Colorful Candy

MORE LOLLIPOPS

Here we have a showcase of many different famous celebrities, singers, actors, show hosts, to comedians; you get the idea. So this had all these famous celebrities favorite type of candy in each little box

Showcase of Celebrities Favorite Candy

Of Course their has to be a Chocolate Bunny

Rock Walls

On the right here we see one of the walls of this candy store where there is rocks engraved into the walls of the candy store. The rocks are all around the building and these rocks aren't just any rocks their from places all around the world!

Too Much Chocolate

Our next stop was a city favorite Garrett's Popcorn Shop where its famous for there Chicago style popcorn. I bought a tin for mine so when I get home I could share it with my mom so the taste will be as much a surprise to my mom as will be for me when we try it. We after went back to the hotel said our farewell to Amy and all just exercised than relaxed in our room.

Inside this Famous Shop