Academic Expectations and Advising
UChicago Summer Session’s programs for high school students assign undergraduate-level work, and their participants are expected to assume responsibility for themselves. All Summer Session students must manage their own sleep schedule, studies (including daily homework assignments), and social activities. We expect our students to be mature enough to attend all of their class meetings, to do all of the academic work required of them, and to abide by the university’s rules and Summer Session policies.
Students will have academic support available to them. They will have an academic advisor who will regularly provide one-on-one support to students in their residence hall. In addition, tutors will provide seminars designed to help students make the transition to doing undergraduate-level reading and writing, as well as drop-in hours for students desiring one-on-one or small group assistance. The residential staff also works to help students maintain a healthy work-life balance while on campus.
Buying Books
Your student will need to be able to pay for his or her textbooks and course materials, so make sure that you budget for that expense. Faculty members have their choice of two campus bookstores, the U of C Bookstore and the Seminary Coop Bookstore, through which to order books. You can follow the link from the course listing on https://timeschedules.uchicago.edu to the appropriate store’s website to find out which books have been assigned. Your child may purchase the books ahead of time online or wait until he or she arrives on campus. If your child prefers to wait, which is perfectly acceptable, he or she will find the books in the textbook section of either the University of Chicago Bookstore (970 E. 58th Street) or the Seminary Co-op Bookstore (5751 S. Woodlawn Avenue), depending on which store the faculty member has chosen to use.
Money
Your student should not carry large amounts of cash. Traveler’s checks or an ATM card (there is a CitiBank branch with ATMs on campus, and other ATMs are available throughout the neighborhood) are safer alternatives. Some banks will provide customers with prepaid debit cards (you choose how much money can be loaded on to it), and some parents have found this option works well. However, you should be aware that students cannot use these cards to get cash (either from an ATM or as “cash back” during a transaction), as they are for purchases only.
Parents often ask us how much pocket money they should give to their student. This varies according to the needs and habits of the individual, so it is difficult to say. Meals taken in the dining hall will be paid for, and the residential staff always plans many low-cost and no-cost activities, but students do go on outings to restaurants, movies, plays, and other destinations, both informally and with their RA groups, so you will want to provide some money for these sorts of activities.
Curfew Release Form
Parents must complete a Parental Curfew Release Form if:
- they authorize an adult (including themselves) who is not a Summer Session participant, to accompany their student outside the dormitory after curfew hours, or
- they authorize an adult (including themselves) who is not a Summer Session participant to accompany their student off-campus overnight and/or for a weekend.
This online form is to be completed by the parent or guardian for every date the student will be outside the residence hall during designated curfew hours: after 10:00 PM and before 6:00 AM daily. This form must be received at least 24 hours prior to the release date. Please allow 24 hours for a staff member to acknowledge approval of your request. Students without approved Curfew Release Forms on file and who are not present for curfew sign-in will be considered in violation of the curfew policy and disciplined accordingly.
The form should be used if the student will be continuously out of the residence hall during curfew hours: for example, a late dinner one night or staying with family off-campus overnight or for the weekend. Curfew Release Forms are not necessary for students who will only be off-campus before curfew hours, although students must inform the residential staff if they plan to leave campus. Blanket releases that would allow students to come and go throughout the program without regard to curfew will be rejected.