Loyola University Chicago

I am currently a student at Loyola, and I just want to say if you are currently looking into Loyola do NOT take into account the reviews from 4+ years ago. They are extremely outdated. LUC is an incredible school that I have not had any major problems with. A few years ago their reputation was «not worth the cost». But let me tell you, that has changed.
Yes, the tuition is higher than most schools, but it is worth it. The professors are incredible, and most are willing to work with you if you are struggling academically and/​or mentally. The advising office is extremely helpful and knowledgable (although, it gets busy and you may have to send a reminder email to your advisor). The academics in general are rigorous. The campus is beautiful and has everything you would want.
It is required to live on campus your freshman and sophomore year (which adds up financially), but you can fill out some paperwork that shows the school its cheaper to live off campus, then you can find your own apartment your sophomore year.
The amount of resources available amaze me. They include free tutoring to all students, a writing center, career center (helps you put together resumes and find jobs/​internships), apartment finders, great workout facility, study abroad center, and much more.

I am an alum! This school prepared me for my field in education. I not only had academic support at this school, but I was nurtured as a whole person at this school. When I entered my field, I was ready!!! Recently I have been fortunate enough to work at a few of the graduations, as a volunteer. I am pleased to say that Loyola is still thriving. The campus is phenomenal and the staff is still friendly and supportive. I have a warm heart each time I think about my times on Water Tower Campus and Lake Shore Campus. I have since received my Masters Degree and completed post graduate courses at two different universities; however, when asked where did I go to school, Loyola is the first school mentioned. I am proud to say that I graduated from Loyola University of Chicago!!!

Loyola University is a beautiful campus (as shown in my pictures), with a track also. The track, and the view of the campus is what keeps me coming back (RUNNING) there. I’ve also had two cousins that attended Loyola University, so I feel somewhat of a closeness.

I attended school here from 2010 – 2014 and can look back and say that I am more than happy with my decision to attend this school over other options I had. To begin with the lakeshore campus is absolutely beautiful in terms of both the buildings and the landscaping which looks awesome whatever the season. I lived in dorms for two years then moved to an off campus apartment. Rogers Park, commonly referred to by students as «Ro-​po» is pretty affordable in terms of rent & diverse in terms of restaurant options. As far as classes go some of the popular gen Ed classes were over 100 ppl but as I got further into my major the classes got much smaller, usually under 40ish ppl. I double majored in biology & anthropology. The biology dept is the biggest at Loyola compared to the anthropology department which is one of the smallest. As a result I really got to know my professors & the dean much better in the anthropology dept as opposed to the biology dept. It takes a lot more effort to build relationships with professors when you are in such a big dept. Overall however I felt that most of my Professors were well qualified & very knowledgable about the subject matter they were teaching. My education here was money well spent & today I am a proud Alumna Rambler.

Can’t say a word about the academics.
But the view and layout is tremendous. They have secured dorms with a guard always there and students need an ID card to get in anyway. Sort of like an office setting. The dorms themselves are very nice with enough space for easily two maybe even a third… Plenty of restaurants near by. The facilities are immaculately clean and tidy. Parking garage is central and convenient.

A beautiful campus, rigorous curriculums, a top notch library… the neighborhood is even in better shape now because of Loyola than it was when I was a student here in the late 70s! Granted, one still needs to be vigilant when out, esp at night. Even so, the campus area is patrolled by both the Chicago Police and the Loyola Campus Police, who work hand-​n-​glove together.
PLUS! If you demonstrate the capacity to achieve, Loyola will bend over backward to help you get grants, scholarships, loans; they’ll make it happen for you. Check it out!

I am so happy I went here for undergrad and do not have anything but POSITIVE things to say! Fantastic campuses, diverse neighborhoods, great student life, what more do you really need?
Once a rambler, always a rambler!

The one star rating is ONLY given to the research lab of this university, who uses animals in horribly cruel experiments: Forced alcohol into their stomachs then one test group is plunged into scalding water to create third-​degree burns, kept alive with no pain relief for 24 hours before they’re killed.
I wouldn’t call this responsible practice. Not only is it incredible that a human could do this to another living animal who feels pain, but archaic since there are cruelty-​free, effective alternatives which are more reliable methods of obtaining useful information… that is, if there IS any to be gleaned from this stupidity.

Loyola University Chicago
Loyola is a wonderful campus. Within the heart of the city– it is wonderful to be able to have everything and I mean everything at your fingertips.
My parents make a joke, that only 2 times in your life will you ever have Everything! When you are in college and when you are in a rich posh retirement community home– but only one of those times will you be able to enjoy it.
Dorms are beautiful.
Classrooms are beautiful.
Meeting places like the library, theaters, and lounges are well beyond beautifully kept up fully functional and maintained.
The recent cancer research center is wonderful and will hopefully contribute to real medical knowledge that will help people thrive.
It is a research college. If you want to get into the most ground breaking research on cancer– you go to Loyola. If you want current apologetics– you go to Loyola (what is apologetics– it is how to tell mormons and other cult religions are false and made up). If you want current a good well rounded Catholic education heavy on art, music, and science– then Loyola is great!
Fyi– I did not go to school here. I have had different workshops as a teacher here, institutes for religious learning, and conferences for youth groups here.

I was surprised to find out that people actually Unilocal about schools, but after reading some of the comments, I thought I would go ahead and add my experiences, in the hope they might help anyone at all in making a decision.
I think it is most important for me to first clarify that I went to college strictly for the academics, and between working and commuting an hour, I didn’t have a lot of time (or interest) in much outside of the classroom, like sororities and clubs.
It is also important to point out how ridiculously expensive this school is. Please take that into consideration before you decide to go here, especially if you are in the minority, as I was, of students who had to pay for most of their tuition. That being said, I definitely made it work. I transferred from community college (a lot of students do this and it really is a no-​brainer decision that will save you tens of thousands), and I commuted on the Red Line. I also got a scholarship that covered a good portion of my tuition, which is the reason I decided to go here. I think that the other Unilocalers are correct in saying that, if you do not have a scholarship, you really can receive a quality education at a much more affordable school. I had wanted to go to Loyola for a very long time, though, and have never regretted my decision. I am also at their graduate campus, now.
Although everyone has a bias, these were my favorite things about Loyola:
1) The Lakeshore campus is so beautiful throughout all seasons. I worked very hard for good grades and at points, I would become so stressed out that my mind felt like it was going to explode. I took long walks outside in between classes to clear my mind, and the views were therapeutic. I loved watching the waves roll in, the flowers bend in the breeze, and people walking their dogs. It really calmed me down. It may sound silly, but my walks outside are what I miss most about going here.
2) The school has several amazing professors (In political science, philosophy, and English). These people taught me so much and made an effort to challenge my thinking in positive ways. They really transformed me into a completely different student. I came to school less for the students and more for the intuition of their amazing staff. I always took advantage of speaking to them outside of class to make sure I understood exactly where my work needed improvement and what I was succeeding in.
3) They had an extremely helpful tutoring center in the Information Commons building, on the second floor. You can easily make an appointment and have a fresh set of eyes look over your work. It was a great benefit to me that I took advantage of for almost every paper.
4) The Information Commons building. My favorite place to hang out on campus. If you are studying and need complete silence, go to the third floor, where there is no talking allowed and computer access. This was so perfect for me. You can eat right at the computer, so I just brought my food with me, did my homework, and browsed the Internet during my breaks. It is open ²⁴⁄₇ too! This building is what brought me through finals. There is also a café, the library, and a large study room, where there is also no speaking allowed. There are three floors of computers, so you pretty much always have access to one. The building gives you a full view of the beautiful lake. There was really nothing better than that.
–I don’t want to fill my review with complaints, so I guess I will just mention a few things that I hated the most while going here: the annoying yuppie/​hipsters who make up 80 percent of this school. Not going to lie, they drove me insane. This is where my bias comes in, so I won’t drag this point any further, lol. I was there to learn, so I just ignored them.
The other thing I hated was the amount of effort that I had to put into figuring out my own credits and graduation requirements because the staff in the advising office don’t seem to know what they are doing. I really warn you, double check everything you are taking and do your own math on the credits, because these people will screw you in the end, if you rely on them. I went to several different people and even had physical proof in an email of one of them telling me false information on what I needed to graduate, and her response was, «oh, well I have no idea why I would have said that.» I had to hold myself together every time I went into that office.
I can think of so many things that I miss and loved about this school, but this review would go on for a very long time. If you work hard and get a portion of your tuition covered by a scholarship, I think you would enjoy this school, it all just depends what you are looking to get out of your experience. Getting the grades I wanted and affording everything was a challenge, but I made it work, and so can anyone else. Even if you do not go to this school, please take the train here or walk on over during the day to see how beautiful it all is.

I went to Loyola from 2004 – 2008 and also worked student jobs while I was there. Some of these reviews I’m questioning. I was a Forensic Science Major and I was in the first class that graduated (all 5 of us) in 2008 so things from that aspect have improved since I’ve been there. The professors I had (everything from Criminal Justice, Chem, Bio, etc), had so much field experience and knew their specialty well, which made their classes worth sitting in on. I loved how the curriculum was set up, having students take a variety of classes across the board and outside your major.
Extracurricularly, I was involved in multiple organizations on campus and how successful and how much the organization did was really up to who was running the organization so sometimex, it was hit or miss
I made friends who’ve stayed friends even long after graduation and what I learned in class has stuck with me.
In terms of campus, I visited again recently and I love the changes that they’ve done. Granted, some of them weren’t done when I was there or even started, but what is available now that wasn’t there 5 years ago is amazing and I wish we had it back when I was a student.
I say 4 stars though because of the amount of phone calls I get asking for money. When you’re a resident, right out of med school (and even in med school for that matter), money isn’t falling off trees into my lap. There are times where I get called everyday for a week and then at times twice a day. I get that phonathon is doing their job, but it gets obnoxious

I went here and graduated undergrad in 3 ½ years. I liked it. I had some great professors, and some (very few) bad professors. I’m still in contact with my two favorite profs, actually. I took advantage of the student organizations on campus and met nearly all of my friends through Students for Liberty and the Catholic Student Organization. I’m still in touch with most of my friends I made at LUC.
Overall, Loyola was a great school to attend when you’re in your existential life-​stage. I’m not sure if it’s the beauty of the lake or campus, or if Chicago is just a sweet city to be in when you’re 18 – 22 years old. But either way, Loyola was the place I was meant to be.
Cheers to you LUC! I’m a proud alum. Keep on Ramblin’.

I’m not a student– this reveiw is JUST about the campus.
It’s like a beautiful well tended garden. Quiet. full of Bunnies. And flowers. And lakeshore paths.
And a beautiful library where even non-​students can enjoy the view and the a/​c or the heat.
Loyola, thank you for sharing with your neighbors.

Loyola, Loyola, Loyola, what am I going to do with you?
I went here for a year before I decided that my health was more important. Even though my health wasn’t great and I had withdrawn from my second semester, they still wanted me to pay up and go the next year. Dealing with financial aid and my adviser just made me realize that all they wanted was my money and they didn’t care about me.
The tuition is not worth the education here, simply put. The professors that I had and the staff that I dealt with did not care about me or my education. They simply saw me as a way to get money.
I’m not happy with Loyola at all and I wouldn’t recommend people go here.

This review is for the Loyola Law School, which I blame for my less than prolific reviewing these past 19 months. I’m in the Masters of Jurisprudence of Health Law program. It has demanded so much time and energy. It has kicked my ass. I love it very much.
The program is for health care delivery geeklets, as I. I’ve been in the biz since the U.S. uninsured rate was merely 12%. I recall a day before terms such as Clinical Integration were commonplace. Not so long that regulation was out of hand though.
In five months, I will not be a lawyer. Yet, the Loyola program will make me further prepared to lead in the regulatory laden industry. There is enough of a need for non-​attorneys with the ability to research topics of health law to educate us at the Masters level. I’m very glad for that. For the longest time, I figured I’d get an MBA, or maybe and MHA, but I wasn’t excited at the possibility. This program would be perfect, except that my kids sometimes forget who I am. Just a few more months, kids… then we vacate somewhere fabulous.

This review is in regard to the MSHR program. Evening grad. school classes are a challenge when you have a full time position (with travel), two young kids and a house to manage but Loyola was very flexible. In addition, I worked downtown and I simply drove to one of the parking lots nearby and had a quick dinner at the one of the fast food places before class. The location is very nice and gentrified, a few blocks away from Michigan Ave. After wards, I would get on lake shore drive to get home and it was very convenient.
My fellow students, many of whom were already working in HR (mainly companies in the loop), brought excellent ideas and progressive thinking to addressing HR issues and projects. It was invigorating. This leads me to networking, when I applied for the grad program my VP of HR (a Loyola MSHR alumnus) provided a recommendation for me. At one point, while working for UL, there were 5 Loyola HR grads there. At my current company, I also have a fellow Loyola HR alum. It’s an instant connection with this ever growing group. Of course, when you are job interviewing, there’s also a high probability of someone saying, «Hey, we went to the same school.»
In terms of costs (including opportunity costs), it was expensive but worth every penny. Drs. Stallworth, Varma, Stroh, Scott, were my favorite professors. Looking back, even though there were long nights and countless evenings being away from the kids, I loved every class. I suggest that there be more national advertising to draw more people from around the nation.

Oh Loyola. Let me count the ways… you’ve screwed me over. I transferred here from U of I and the three years I spent here made me regret every second of it. Here are the reasons I hate Loyola.
1)On my first tuition bill, I was charged for housing, even though I lived at home. I had to argue with them and show that I actually lived at home to get the charges removed.
2)I had to go through the English department anytime I wanted to sign up for a 300+ level class because they never recorded correctly the fact that I had taken a writing pre-​req at U of I. Even though they had proof of it, it was never updated in their system so I had to email my adviser anytime I needed a class and hope that it didn’t fill up by the time she got to it.
3)Speaking of classes from another college, as I was signing up for my last semester at Loyola, they decide that I never took the necessary English pre-​reqs for the major so basically everything I had done up to that point didn’t count. They made ME contact U of I to get the class descriptions of classes I had taken in 2006 to prove that I had taken the required courses. How did it take you three years to finally decide, «oh I don’t think she has these classes» even though I did, and why make me do it?
4) Loyola required 128 credits for graduation even though most colleges only require 121. In order to graduate on time, I took 3 summers of summer school. The first summer, I took two classes at a community college, only to find out half way through that they wouldn’t count toward my core. They would only be counted as gen eds. Since I had to take the next 2 summers at Loyola, I needed financial aid since tuition for 6 weeks of classes is $ 8,000. They said you can absolutely have financial aid… but it’s going to come out of your Fall financial aid. They don’t offer you separate financial aid. If you want to go to school in the summer, you need to borrow money from another semester. I ended up just taking out a loan.
5)Loyola recently ranked #1 in a Chicago Tribune list of colleges where students incur the most debt. I’m about $ 45,000 in the hole. The price is not worth what you get. You can get a much better education at a state university.
6)The journalism adviser sucks. Apparently, he allowed his favorite students to repeat easy classes a couple times which of course, they got A’s in each time since they had already taken it. Meanwhile, me and the non-​suck ups were stuck taking the very difficult research methods journalism class that involved math. Also, when I was looking for internships, I went to talk to him and he gave me websites to look for internships. The students he liked were handed internships at TV stations and newspapers. The final coup de gras – in previous semesters, students were allowed to take an internship and count that as the final practicum class, which is a good idea because you get some more experience before you graduate. I even confirmed with him before the semester that I could do this. Then, right before registration, he announces that we will be working on a special project and that will be our practicum. Which would have been fine if it was worthwhile. But it wasn’t. It was to start a newsletter for Pilsen and actually go into the neighborhood and find interest stories and mentor kids from the local high school. The problem was that the class was so unorganized and no one knew what was going on. We were expected to go to Pilsen on our own time. When would I have time to do that? And we didn’t even have class half the time because he had nothing to give us. Biggest waste of time. I could have been helping my own future and instead we did nothing.
8)No one understands the life of a commuter. It took me two hours via train and bus to get to school from the south suburbs. So if I was late to class by 5 minutes because of the great transit system, people stare at you and professors get mad, thinking you’re just lazy. I didn’t just wake up 10 minutes ago and decide to come to class. I’ve been on the move for 2 hours! Sorry if I don’t want to pay an extra $ 14,000 to live on campus when I’m from freaking Chicago!
9)After I finally got out of this hell hole, I received phone calls from the donation department for a year! EVERY DAY! I’m not giving you a dime.
I’ll admit, I had a few phenomenal professors that taught me so much and I’ll remember them forever, but it doesn’t make up for everything I had to go here. Every college has some great professors. Go somewhere else. I beg you.

Decent-​looking campus — at least the part that didn’t have construction being done to it.
It’s in a very lively neighborhood of Rogers Park/​Edgewater — with much of it propagated, of course, by the undergrads at Loyola.
It is also located adjacent to a Red Line stop, which is amazing.
I only stopped by since it always looked like a fun area while on the NU intercampus shuttle.

Gorgeous campus, Lake View!
We were here for my sister’s graduation.
Lots of walking to get to the parking garage, especially when it was freezing out!
Very pretty buildings.

Oh Loyola. I share a neighborhood with you. While you are officially in Rogers Park– most of your students and dormitories reside in Edgewater. I used to have pretty positive thoughts towards you, but, alas, they have changed.
You have been purchasing apartment buildings and turning them into dorms. No problem there, but– well, it has certainly increased the amount of trash, debris, and throw up that resides on the sidewalks. Yes, I had to mention that last piece due to the fact that my dog is attracted to it– I spend a great deal of our walks avoiding puke piles. It has gotten to the point where I avoid the streets by the dorms.
You are a tax free– religious and educational institution. You contribute nothing to our tax base– yet you take quite a bit. As a neighbor, I am getting to the point where I have had my fill.
OH– and look who turned up on the Huffington Post– Colleges not Worth their Tuition List? Yes– you got it… Loyola…