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Social Life Survey |
| Full-time MBA program |
This aspect of the GSB significantly exceeded my expectations. Before
arriving at school, I thought that GSB students would be too serious and
analytical-minded to devote much time to social activities -- a totally
erroneous assumption.
Simply put, you can party until the cows come home at the GSB as much as
you like. If a more quiet social scene is your preference, you can find
that too and make some very quality friendships in the process. In
fact, almost everyone in the full-time program winds up making new long-
term close friendships in addition to numerous informal networking
contacts during the course of 2 years.
There are student groups of all kinds at the GSB -- get as involved as
you like, or avoid them altogether. Many are quite large and focused on
careers, including the Management Consulting group, Corporate Management
and Strategy Group, Investment Management group, Investment Banking
group, Marketing group, etc. The largest while I was there, however,
the charitably-oriented "Giving Something Back" group which organizes
volunteer opportunities for GSB students. Plus, you can find non-career
oriented groups as well if that's your thing (e.g wine-tasting).
The dating scene is similar to other top b-schools -- plenty of dating
but not an ideal male/female ratio. (Interestingly, both men and women
seemed to feel this way, despite the seemingly major advantage the women
might presumably have ratio-wise). I was already engaged when starting
the program, so this aspect was not relevant to my personal experience
at the GSB.
In terms of specifics, there is no single "favorite" hang-out for
students. There is a campus pub, which is popular with first year
students especially. But as a very large city Chicago presents an
amazingly diverse array of social and cultural options. Only New York
and San Francisco can beat Chicago in terms of restaurant variety in the
U.S., and only New York and London can beat Chicago on a global basis in
terms of theatre.
The high-culture museums, opera, symphony, etc. are world class.
There's innumerable bars, movie houses, dance clubs, and other not-so-
high cultural opportunities as well. For example, Chicago is well known
for being the world capital of the blues. Interestingly, there are
fewer jazz clubs than you might expect, perhaps because of the
proliferation of blues joints.
There are several major professional sports teams in town: 2 baseball
teams (but 95% of GSB students swear by Wrigley field where the Cubs
play), football (American style), hockey, basketball, and soccer
(football to the rest of the world). You can join social sports leagues
and play yourself, or play by yourself or with a friend along the
lakefront or in Chicago's extensive system of parks.
The bottom line is that if you can't find a way to have fun at the GSB
while living in Chicago, it has nothing to do with the school, your
fellow students, or the city in which you are living.
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University of Chicago GSB Admission & Application Surveys
