I have a friend that lives at the Drexel building you referred to. I've never been, but he really seems to like it. I also know another person that lives in graduate housing, but I can't remember where exactly. My general understanding of graduate housing is that it's fairly nice but certainly not luxury living. Prices are cheap and there are plenty of options around Hyde Park. The only thing I can really recommend is to try and check out a few of the buildings at some point if you can make it to Chicago; it might be a good idea to skip out on some Revisit activities if you really want to look for a place.
I'd say more than half of our class lives at Regents. There are many good things that are good about Regents, and there are many bad. Here are my thoughts.
The good:
-EXTREMELY convenient for transportation: the bus stop at the corner across the street is where you get on both to get to campus and downtown, and the Metra is a short (less than 5 minutes) walk away
-The building is reasonably nice: nothing like that you'll see in downtown, but probably one of the generally nicer buildings in Hyde Park
-You know what you're getting: since the buildings are huge and "institutionalized" (as opposed to an owner that owns a single walk-up building), you run very little risk of getting a bad apartment, not getting maitenance requests filled, etc..
-Many classmates live here, and the school and all other students know this: for events where transportation is provided and/or when people are going out, Regents is almost always the meeting place
-A grocery store in the building, though extremely overpriced for most things, is extremely convenient for picking up an item or two
The bad:
-You get nickled and dimed by this place: package receiving is only free up to 10 packages per year per person and costs $75 to receive more; the gym and pool AREN'T free, and even though med students work out a deal to received a reduced rate, it still comes out to something like $40/mo for a subpar gym; parking isn't included and is very expensive (I think ~$175/mo)
-This may not be a problem for some, but the high speed internet connection to the building is terrible, i.e., no matter what service provider you choose, your internet connection is going to be relatively slow. I have a 1.5 mbps connection that funtionally operates like a 200 kbps connection. I think you can upgrade to, at most, a 3.0 mbps, which is a joke considering I'm used to seeing things in the 10+ mbps range.
-Regents is really a terrible value. You're paying for security in the sense that you know what you're getting as I mentioned above. The views are nice and, like I said, the building is
reasonably nice, but it certainly doesn't warrant the rent prices. Even with a med student discount (which knocks about 10% of the market rent), I'm still paying $1025 for a 650 sqft studio - which is absolutely ridiculous. There are MUCH better values to be had if you have the time and inclination to look. The prices become much more palatable (at least per person) if you live with roommates, but it's still more expensive than other options.
In short, my recommendation is to go with Regents if you won't be able to check out places on your own before you move up. There are some things that will almost certainly piss you off, but overall it hasn't been a terrible experience. And I seem to be an outlier as I know that many of my classmates really like Regents and are planning on staying next year. If you can, though, I would highly recommend trying to look at places. Unless you're familiar with Chicago I really would recommend trying to live in Hyde Park for at least the first year. Especially at the beginning of the year, your class will almost certainly be doing a ton of social stuff, and living in the area makes it easier for you to get involved in those things. It's also nice to be close to campus in case you're one of those people that likes working on campus. I'm planning on moving to the South Loop after this year, but I really do like Hyde Park, and that nearly everyone in the class lives in a pretty small area is awesome.
Here are some other resources/recommendations you might want to check out:
The Wyndemere House (
http://www.macapartments.com/chicago-apartments/windermere-house/), which is a block away from the Museum of Science and Industry, is a cool place. A few of my classmates live there and love it, and it doesn't seem to suffer from the same issues as Regents (though it is pricier).
The Regents site:
http://www.regentsparkchicago.com/
Hotpads (
http://www.hotpads.com/) is an EXCELLENT resource for checking out housing. You look for places geographically, which is extremely helpful, and you can also narrow your search by rent, desired amenities, etc.. Definitely worth checking out at some point. If you use Hotpads, I would recommend looking for places no further south than ~60th and no further west than ~Cottage Grove if you'd like to stay in Hyde Park. Beyond that you get outside Hyde Park and things generally become a little more... sketchy, though this by no means is where the borders are drawn and there are certainly good places to live outside those lines. But for Chicago/Hyde Park newbies, anything between ~50th/E Hyde Park and 60th (north/south) and Lake Shore Drive and Cottage Gtrove (east/west) will probably be fine.
And here's the graduate housing site, which is pretty helpful:
http://rs.uchicago.edu/graduate_housing/index.shtml
If you're planning on coming to Revisit, there will be an information session specifically about housing that includes a student panel from people that have lived all over Chicago.
Hope this helps.
If I write her name on the envelope and address it to the admissions office, do you think it will make its way to her? I know some schools actually prefer that all thank you letters come thru the admissions office, but I don't remember anyone mentioning this during the interview.
